Oracle Embraces Mozilla

kiggs writes "According to this article from eWeek, Oracle Corp. is ready to extend its 'Linux Everywhere' campaign to client systems. At next week's LinuxWorld in New York, Oracle will announce that it will enable the Mozilla open-source Web browser to run Oracle applications in the coming year. Dave Dargo, vice president of Oracle's Linux Program Office and the Performance Engineering team within its Platform Technologies Division, says that Oracle will look to expand its 1.5-year-old Linux support program by supporting Linux not just as a server but as a client."

Comments

Don't they get it?

[Anonymous Coward]

It should have had worked since beginning (unless there's some catastrophic bug in mozilla). A web page that requires some specific browser is hopelessly broken by my definition.

Re:Don't they get it?

[LDoggg_]

A web page that requires some specific browser is hopelessly broken by my definition.

Oracle's web pages do not require a specific browser, their applications do.
The article was not very clear on this.

Oracle does have some web applications (server-side code generating dynamic html pages), like their self-serivce stuff and the e-commerce iStores product.
However, what most of us that use Oracle applications consider to be the "applictions" are the business applictions.
These are things like accounting AR/AP, orders, inventory, HR, GL, etc. This stuff already uses client side Java/swing, presumably to make it a cross-platform product.
The problem is that up until now these applications use a custom Java virtual machine called Jinitiator to launch, and it only works on IE.

If they intend to have this stuff run on Linux, then they need to either port Jinitiator, of fix the apps so they can use a standard JVM.
The article was rather vague on which route they are taking.

Re:Don't they get it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oracle Applications use a custom Java framework they call J-Initiator. This is Windows only at the time.

I find it funny that Oracle is now supporting Linux instead of just saying they support it, in fact now Red Hat Advanced server on Dell hardware is their platform of choice. Less than a year ago they were not even maintaining most of their Linux products.

Re:Don't they get it?

[PierceLabs]

Actually I think they get it more than you do I'm afraid. We're entering a period where the industry is about to jump start is previously dot-bomb aborted attempt to create platforms for rich client applications that work in internet browsers. For all the good that HTML is, developers and corporations alike want to do more.... a WHOLE lot more. Even Macromedia is realizing that it was in the ballpark with their Generator product and is coming out with Flex.

This migration to rich internet UIs would have happened a long time ago, but when the bubble burst - all of the companies doing anything innovative in that space died and took all their ideas with them and scattered the talent to the four winds. As the tech industry recovers, expect them to start where they left off - just with a business plan that wasn't written by underpants gnomes.

Re:Don't they get it?

[bungo]

In fact, it does currently work, and there are alot of people currently using it under Linux.

The problem is that for windows, they have created a n installation package which automatically installs a java applet and signs it with a downloaded certificate. They don't have package so far for Linux, so the only people using Linux are the more technical users who can manually install the correct Sun jdk bits and certificate manually.

Pointy haried bosses, even if they allow Linux, don't like custom, unsupported installs.

Re:Don't they get it?

[BrerBear]

I work on Oracle's HTML technologies (don't want to say more).

Much of the problem involves bugs and different behaviors in Javascript and CSS implementations across browsers. Sometimes the standards are interpreted differently, or areas of a standard aren't supported. None of the problems are insurmountable, but the sad reality is that anyone doing advanced DHTML and CSS is forced to use different code paths in at least a few places. Web application authors will know what I mean.

The applications have generally worked well already because the developers inside Oracle often prefer to use Mozilla as their day-to-day browser.

The important point of the announcement (at least as far as the HTML apps are concerned) is support; committing to testing those various browsers across such a large set of projects is no trivial cost, even for a large company.

And it's not like Mozilla doesn't come out with a new version every three months or so, with it's own new regressions.

This is just another step in helping to give Mozilla corporate acceptance, and that will be good for everyone.

Re:Don't they get it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your statements are not completely true. What the announcement means is "official certification" of Mozilla across all of Oracle's web-based products. But many of these products work well with Mozilla because a lot of developers do test with Mozilla and because Mozilla's standards compliance makes it easy to build apps for it.

JInitiator (even the pre-Mozilla versions) work like a charm on Mozilla - I use it day in and day out. Ofcourse the old installers don't recognize Mozilla (they only recognize IE and Netscape 4.x) but on Windows you can copy the plugin DLLs to your Mozilla plugins directory. Obviously we don't want to suggest these "hacks" to customers and so this would be an example where we improve the installer to do the right thing and place the seal of Oracle support. This is true even on Linux and Solaris because at it's core JInitiator is Java-based.

The newer self-service applications built in the past three years all work on Mozilla. They are built with UIX which elminates all the raw HTML coding from our Apps developers. The core technology team ensures compliance across all browsers including Mozilla. Just FYI this also helps us support a host of PDAs and smartphones. The same is true for ADF which is simply the next generation of UIX and related tools.

Disclaimer: I work at Oracle in the applications technologies division but these statements are mine and do not reflect Oracle's position. Posting anonymously for obvious reasons.

Obvious?

[ultrabot]

Shouldn't supporting Mozilla be obvious? Web applications should adhere to standards, if they don't, well, they are crappy web applications in the first place. I don't consider this "generous", rather than just fixing their broken applications to work like they should have worked in the first place.

Re:Obvious?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Supporting Mozilla" does not necesarily have anything to do with Web applications. Mozilla is more than just a web browser. It's a cross-platform GUI toolkit, and applications can be written using it. I seem to recall that Nokia was once considering using Mozilla as the UI for their Linux-based operating system on a set-top box or kiosk type device.

I'd be surprised if any web applications that Oracle have don't already work in Mozilla. Running in normal web browsers is, after all, the whole point of having web applications, otherwise people could write Java Applications (not applets) or normal non-portable executables instead.

Beware of the Oracle

[thirty2bit]

I trust Oracle about as much as I trust Microsoft. Let's hope they don't set their sights on acquisition, because their algorithm goes "embrace-acquire-mediocrify-priceincrease"

The enemy of my enemy...

[Trigun]

From the Article:

It is widely believed that another primary motivation behind Oracle's embrace of Linux is to push archrival Microsoft Corp. out of its position of power. In pursuit of that goal, Oracle will enable its customers to opt for Mozilla over Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, just as they have enabled customers to opt out of Microsoft operating systems in favor of Linux.

So they're backing free software, something laughed at by most corporate bodies up until this time, to beat Bill. Capitalists using communists to fight fascists. Neat!

Oracle

[Anonymous Coward]

Oracle is the MS of the database world. Clueless managers insist on using it because they're the biggest DB company, and us geeks are the ones who have to live with the consequences.

Case in point, my company's got to use Oracle 9i/9iAS for a project, and we must have spent weeks just getting the thing to install properly. We upgraded our developers machines to XP last week, and it won't even install on clean machines.

Don't get me started on their idea of supporting open standards. JAZN (their implementation of JAAS) anyone?

Maybe it is not about browsing..

[GerardM]

When you want to do some clever stuff, you do not want to restrict yourself to HTML so you do not necessaraly want to use *any* browser. With the Mozilla technology they have a platform that has implementations on many platforms.

So I think they get it and it is less browser technology than presentation technology that they find in Mozilla

Sadly...

[Anonymous Coward]

I work there and would bet it will be a long time before this works as planned. Way too many internal sights require IE to work at all. We are still at a point where you can NOT have a purely Linux desktop and still get your daily work completed.

I would not say Oracle Apps works on standards like the poster above was explaining either - it requires a Java plugin (very similar to - and based on Sun's Java Plugin) called JInitiator. JInitiator has to be loaded and used by the browser so it it not like any browser can be a client... unless Jinit is ported to the platform and plugin architecture.

It will be a happy day when we can actually USE Linux on the desktop at work though.

Excellent news!

[LDoggg_]

The fact that Jinitiator (Oracle's JVM) has only worked for windows has been the last reason my company hasn't been able to switch to linux.
All of our Novell stuff now has Linux ports, and OpenOffice suits most of us just fine. Hopefully this is the last piece of the puzzle.
It would also be really cool if the apps could run through LTSP.

The article doesn't specifically name a Linux Jinitiator, but I would be more than happy if they got the apps to run using a more recent Sun JVM for Mozilla.

Re:please educate me

[LDoggg_]

Oralce's apps are an entire suite of Business applications.

Order Entry, Accounts Receivable/Payable, Inventory, HR.
While not perfect, for the most part its good stuff.

These apps are currently launched as applets through a custom JVM plugin called Jinitiator launched through IE.

Oracle has a way to go

[Sabalon]

I guess I don't like the fact that they just work on one distribution and getting it to work elsewhere is a bit of a pain sometimes.

Though last time I ran the newest oracle application server on linux (based on Apache), it seemed they went out of their way to make it a daunting task. There are about 30 other things that start up with the app server and apache.

I guess I think of it as simple - client attaches to apache, apache module connects to oracle, but they are going gung-ho on having all the java stuff, and god knows what else built in. Way to much complexity and it caused nothing but trouble...actually had to back down a release.

It's saturday morning and I'm just ranting, but it seems to me that outside of the database server, which they do well, they do a terrible job of everything else.

Oracle Enterprise Manager is a good example. Used to ba an app that would connect to the database, let you manage it, etc... Now it's this huge Java thing, requires it's own database just to manage other databases, etc... and doesn't seem to work half the time.

I guess I've just had terrible luck with anything java based on Linux (or windows for that matter) - well, anything that goes beyond a simple app.

I don't get it

[Get Behind the Mule]

A database is a database, which should have nothing to do with user interaction. A web browser is at the presentation level, which is all about user interaction and should have nothing to do with the database.

If Oracle has been writing software that entangles database code with the presentation level, then they are mixing layers and producing appallingly unmaintainable code, and should stop doing that no later than immediately. On the other hand, if they are writing code that produces HTTP/HTML content in the presentation layer, then it doesn't matter which web browser is used to view it.

So why would anyone write software that is specifically "for Mozilla", especially a database vendor? They should just adhere to the HTTP/HTML standards in the presentation layer, so that anyone using a standards-compliant browser can view their content.

Of course, we are talking about Oracle, who has produced PL/SQL packages for generating HTML right out of the database, insist on using their own, outdated JRE's, and perhaps have generated M$-dependent web content. So maybe Oracle is just trying to tell us that they will start doing a couple of things a little bit less stupidly.

Mozilla isn't Linux-exclusive

[Xpilot]

It works on many other operating systems too, including the proprietary Windows. But it is still a success for Linux and open source in general, because any technology that does not allow Microsoft to lock in its customers is a win for freedom, and a loss for Microsoft. Microsoft values one thing more than money, that is the guarantee of making more money (marketshare strangehold). So as Linux and other open source operating systems gains widespread acceptance not just in the server space but with clients too, Microsoft loses out. Microsoft isn't left out or locked out, it is just forced to play on an level playing field.

So victory for open source is not the complete desctruction of the towers of Barad-dur in Redmond, but the creation of a fair and competitive server and desktop market and the neutralization of Microsoft's monopoly power. Once we have that, we have already won. Marketshare numbers will be meaningless, since you are not forced to adopt the platform with the highest market share to get the software solutions that you need.

Re:Whats wrong with Proprietary Everything

[xtermin8]

There's actually a shred of wisdom in the poster's wit. If it weren't for a single company dominating PC software, there would be a lot less motivation to find an open source alternatives. Without Microsoft, the choice was (and probably still would be) between several crappy closed source software venders. It is because of MS's predatory and evil ways the Linux has become the alternative of choice. And maybe Bill will drown in all that free beer!

I knew that Mozilla overbloated, but...

[tereshchenko]

I knew that Mozilla overbloated (kitchen sink anyone?), but including Oracle DB is a bit overkill I think...

Very little to do with the database, apps 11i...

[chris_martin]

Oracle has a complete end-to-end ERP/CRM application called Applicaitons 11i which uses a combination of java applets (delivered through Forms Server 6i) JSP's (delivered through apache) etc. The problem is that some of their HTML code makes windows IE only calls (even though they officially support the Mac running IE) using the object tag instead of applet tags, etc. Also, they have a ton of other web apps (Discoverer, their iAS application server and portal server, etc.) all with IE only stuff in them.

Netscape/Mozilla plug-in compatibility

[EricWright]

Due to netscape and mozilla being (for the most part) plug-in compatible, I've been using Oracle Apps via Mozilla (and Phoenix/Firebird) for at least 3-4 years now.

All you have to do is download oajinit.exe (yes, this is windows) and install it. Then, you need to find the dll that's installed (the name contains the version number of Jinitiator, but I'm not at work so I can't say for sure what it is) and drop the .dll into the Mozilla plugins folder. Restart Mozilla and get to work... this may require a pre-existing netscape installation, not too sure. Everywhere I've worked pre-installed netscape for their users. If you have to go that route, it's not too hard to uninstall netscape once you have Jinitiator and Mozilla/Firebird playing nice with each other.

Now, I'd love to see more linux support as a client machine. The only reason I have to use windows at work is the lack of a supported solution to running oracle apps client from linux. The developer apps are pretty crappy compared to the windows ports, but they do work.

Not only do I play an Oracle apps developer on TV, I am one in real life, too!

Re:Whats wrong with IE?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you bill Gates, we ALL owe you a beer.

MORE small print in the EULA?