Oracle Boss Says OSS Needs Big Business

Rob writes "Oracle Corp's CEO, Larry Ellison, has maintained that open source projects are only successful when major technology corporations get involved and doubted that open source will have a major impact on the software areas in which the company operates. Speaking at Oracle OpenWorld Tokyo Ellison also confirmed that the company had inquired about acquiring open source database vendor MySQL AB and denied that Oracle's recent open source acquisitions were designed to harm its rival."

Comments

"Mission critical"

[tcopeland]

From the article:

There are huge gaps in open source, it will be a long time before open source becomes popular for what we call mission critical database applications.

I think "mission critical" is supposed to evoke Walmart-sized behemoths, or perhaps the stock market. But isn't "mission critical" just anything that a particular business can't live without? Because indi is running on lots of open source, and it's pretty "mission critical" for our small company...

Re:"Mission critical"

[Iphtashu Fitz]

Damn right! My 30-person company considers the mysql databases that power its product to be mission critical. Without them we wouldn't have a product, and without a product we wouldn't have a business. Doesn't get any more mission critical than that.

Re:"Mission critical"

[hey!]

On the other hand, a single mega corp like GM, dying from the head downward though it may be, probably represents a market of roughly equal magnitude to all the 30- person businesses in the country.

Of course, the very idea that Open Source "needs" big companies like Oracle is absurd by definition. Open Source needs programmers. Period. By extension, those programmers of course need to be paid in coin of one nature or another, and of course have to feed themselves. But this doesn't necessarily imply an Oracle or IBM jumping on the bandwagon. If linux were to shrivel away as a server operating system, and be kept alive by hobbyists, the genes are still there, in source form.

However, what Ellison's saying has some truth within the context of his perspective. In that perspective, 30- person companies are little better than ants. Open Source "needs" big companies to accrete the features and services that huge companies demand. You can debate dictionary definitions, but in usage, "enterprise" is understood as "big enterprise" by people who use the term. "Mission Critical" means critical to flow of substantial revenues. The rougly 5-10 million dollar annual revenue of the kind of company you're talking about doesn't qualify as "substantial" in these terms: it's not much larger than a typical CEO annual bonus; some CEOs get more.

Re:"Mission critical"

[AKAImBatman]

Open Source needs programmers. Period.

The best products represent a collaboration between programmers, designers, artists, usability experts, documentors, and experts in the target market. Open Source needs a lot more than programmers to acheive that.

i.e. Open Source needs talented people of all walks. Period.

Re:"Mission critical"

[Iphtashu Fitz]

On the other hand, a single mega corp like GM, dying from the head downward though it may be, probably represents a market of roughly equal magnitude to all the 30- person businesses in the country.

True, but in this day in age it's also important to keep in mind where the next GM-sized companies are likely to come from. Startups are a lot more likely to use FOSS tools like linux, mysql, etc. to get their ideas off the ground than they are to spend many thousands of dollars up front on licenses from Oracle, Microsoft, Sun, etc. Eventually the successful start-up might start migrating to Oracle, etc. once they reach a point that justifies such a move, and the Oracles of the world need to recognize that this is a roadmap that smaller companies are likely to follow. True it may take some time, but that's where their future customers are likely to come from.

Gaim?

[hotspotbloc]

IFAIK Gaim doesn't have a corporate sponsor but is an extremely successful OSS project. Corporate sponsorship is a great thing but not a requirement for a great project.

Re:Gaim?

[Bradmont]

And how about Debian?

Re:Gaim?

[ciroknight]

Gaim is not really a good example because its namesake and main functionality (gAIM), piggybacks on the AOL Instant Messanger server network. I do agree that Jabber functionality embedded in Gaim could be a good example, however, for the majority of users using Gaim, Jabber isn't a priority.

A better example could be Apache and the Apache Foundation (but they get a lot of money from people), and the absolute best example I can think of are Seamonkey and Firefox from Mozilla. None of these products are directly sponsored, though they do get money from bigger organizations to recoup costs of things like bandwidth, though BitTorrent could be used to significantly offset a lot of that (which is another good example).

So what have we learned? Corporate sponsorship happens because people need money to get things done. Most organizations don't care where the money is coming from, just that they're getting it. And I think at the heart of things, that's what Larry Ellison is trying to say.

Maybe I'm missing it, but...

[epiphani]

open source projects are only successful when major technology corporations get involved

Show me the big buisness involvement with qmail. sendmail? how about bind? Does ISC count as a "major technology corporation" now?

I suppose you could also require a definition of successful. Buisness definition of success is money. My definition of success is how many people use it. IRC. Big buisness has generally steered right clear of it. Probably about a million people using it. Is IRC successful? Cause thats one of my open source projects.

What about RFC791. That could be seen as "open source". BSD's socket layer? Definitely open source. Definitely successful, Microsoft used it. I wouldnt say any big buisness made it successful. I would say it was successful beforehand, and big buisness used that success to further its own goals.

Listen to what Larry says.

[tpgp]

After all, he is never wrong ;-)

Seriously however - story summary is "Big business says others need big business." Not really surprising is it.

Lastly, he doesn't even get cause & effect right:

"Open source becomes successful when major industrial corporations invest heavily in that open source product,"

Should read:

"Major industrial corporations invest heavily in Open source when that open source product becomes successful"

Larry - stick to what you're good at - Amusing Bill Gates quotes

nonsense

[Cederic]

I think Larry's pushing an agenda here. Linux and Apache were both tremendously successful long before the big corporations got involved. They got involved _because_ the Open Source products were successful.

If MySql hadn't established a market niche that's now threatening Oracle, would Larry have looked at buying it? How did he make it successful?

What about standard staples of Java development such as Ant, JUnit, even things like Struts? Sure, most corporations use them. But they're successful because they're written well, they add great value, they're available, and they were all of those things without IBM or Oracle or Microsoft buying them, promoting them, offering to support them, etc.

I think Larry's wrong. Surprisingly often people do just sit at home and write world-class software, and sometimes that does become successful. Open Source definitely doesn't need corporate sponsorship; the two can go together very nicely.

Open Source Success

[Ping the Penguin]

So Larry hasn't heard of Apache or Samba then...

I think that pleny of people would consider these somewhat successful projects mission critical.

I also don't recall any big companies helping them but I can think of one trying to kill them...

who leads who?

[Virtex]

Larry Ellison, has maintained that open source projects are only successful when major technology corporations get involved

That's funny. It seems to me that major technology corporations usually get involved in open source projects only after they become successful.

In other news

[Flying pig]

William the Bastard of Normandy says "Democracy will never work. Cooperating groups of smallholders never get anywhere until large feudal landlords take over."

Capitalism: the replacement of elected government by government by unelected multinational corporations in the name of freedom.

It's true.

[Stalyn]

If Linux is going to make headway into the desktop market it will need help from big business. The X.org version of the X protocol server has maybe 10 active developers working on it and maybe 20-30 semi-active developers. How is this going to be competitive? Also we need some big corps to push on graphics vendors like Nvidia and ATI to take Linux seriously. Even though ati/nvidia driver support is getting better it's only according to their limitied resources allocated towards Linux devel.

Re:A Test For Ellisons Claim

[IflyRC]

...or you can look iat it another way. Big business can stop using open source code. All large corporations running Linux suddenly stop.

Development would slow for Linux and any other open source project is it was not allowed to be used in big business.

I see it more as a combination of the two. Large corporations deal with folks like IBM and Oracle. When their consultants go in, if they are able to push OSS then OSS will be touted as more and more of a success story while IBM and Oracle sit back and reap the benefits of having support contracts, development contracts and implementation contracts.

Ellison - Devil Incarnate

[McFadden]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. People may fear, loathe or just distrust Bill Gates and his lust for monopolistic dominance, but compared to Ellison, he's a pussycat. Ellison IS the antichrist. I've witnessed a few of his speeches firsthand, and been at a cocktail party where he was present. I've never seen anyone who seems so entirely driven by hatred. He has a strange aura of evil around him. I feel grateful that Microsoft is largely controlled by bumbling geeks like Gates and baboons like Ballmer. If Ellison was in their position we'd be paying his company to wipe our ass by now.

He doesn't like OSS for one simple reason. It's not his. He doesn't own it, control it, or make money from it (although arguably his products sometimes rely on it).

I'd let my children go to for a fun day at the park with Bill. I wouldn't let them in the same room as Larry.

Sorry -now I've got that off my chest, feel free to resume the conversation.

Re:Ellison - Devil Incarnate

[robertjw]

Thing is, I trust Ellison. I trust him to be the ruthless scheming greedy SOB he is. Gates is trying to make him love you every other minute. He tries to trick you into thinking his product is good. He makes excuses for his shortcomings. How often do you hear anything like this from Ellison. His product dominates the high end database market and from what most people say is excellent. He doesn't waffle around issues or change his mind 40 times a day.

He may be pure evil, but he's honest passionate evil. Not slimy, nerdy, snake oil salesman evil and I can respect that.

OT: pseudo-socialist rant

[Tony]

We hate it, sometimes with good cause, just as often with no cause but social inertia.

Generally, the dislike of big business is not due to "pseudo-socialism," but for the other factors you mention: the abuse that accompanies "success." We hate oil because they gouge the customer, hire thugs to shoot up villages in Africa, and abuse their position as gatekeepers to the world's energy.

We hate Wal*Mart because their full-time workers don't make enough at their full-time job to live off, even if they shop at Wal*Mart. We hate Microsoft because they used their dominant market position to shut out competitors in the late 80s, early 90s, and are generally the Budwieser of software. We hate big pharmaceuticals because they research impotence cures, and not things like AIDS cures (they leave that to the universities, but they'll be the first to patent any real results).

In every case, the company is using their superior position (usually government-protected monopoly; or in the case of Microsoft, a "natural" monopoly the abuse of which the government ignores) to destroy perceived competition, rather than competing on their merits. They do anything to maximize profit; and that generally means screwing the citizens of the world (often not even their customers).

The easiest definition of "evil" is fucking over someone for your own gain. Big companies often do that as a first recourse, rather than a last resort. Enron's manipulation of the energy market cost California billions of dollars. Enron is a shining example of corporate success, if only they didn't get caught. Hell, even getting caught hardly did anything. The people most responsible are still walking free, enjoying their riches.

As long as corporations can fuck over people for their own good, there is no free market. It's not like a candy store; we can't just open up next door and compete with Exxon. The market is regulated more by big business than by big government, to the point where government is in the pocket of big business.

I can think of no giant international business that didn't get where it is by intentionally fucking over lots and lots of people. I'm sure there are some. I certainly don't despise all big business; just the ones I know are evil.

Thanks for letting me rant.

OSS needs big business?

[Todd Knarr]

OSS needs big business to be successful? Oh, then I guess that Linux thing can't have become a huge success, then. And Apache, that can't have been successful as a Web server. And Sendmail couldn't be a very successful MTA. What? All of those are successful? How odd. :)

I think the "open-source needs big business" is wishful thinking on the part of big business. They depend heavily on open-source software for critical things, and to admit that it could be successful without them would invalidate too many of the assumptions their world's based on.