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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."
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the CEO of General Mills has declared that breakfast is only successful when big business gets involved, the Maverick playing cards company has concluded that games of chance are only successful when big business gets involved, and the Louisville Slugger company have announced that bludgeoning people with baseball bats is only a success when big business gets involved.
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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.
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
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.
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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.
"Red Hat didn't make Linux: IBM made Linux, Intel made Linux, Oracle made Linux," according to Ellison.
"We have many more developers on Linux than Red Hat," he added, pointing out that the Redwood Shores, California-based company Oracle Cluster File System to enable Linux to scale across enterprise clusters
Man, those are some ignorant ass comments. Oracle is a much bigger company than red hat. It's more interesting to see the percentage of their developers focused on open source. I can pretty much guarantee it's red hat. Red hat needs open source to survive. It's the basis of their whole business model.
Second of all, those three companies did NOT make Linux. IBM has been a very good general purpose contributor, and to a lesser extent Intel. However, Oracle is NOT in that bunch. Oracle's contributions are minor compared to the other two and can be mostly traced back to enhancements that directly benefit their commercial products. Not saying their contributions aren't appreciated, but they are by no means the same league as Intel and IBM. And really, he just spouted out a couple of his butt buddies. There are a lot of small companies that make a particular product based on linux (such as backup solutions) that make extremely important contributions. The only surviving iSCSI implementation on Linux came from a small company making a linux based backup solution. Intel in fact contributed iSCSI code that is now largely depreciated. Open source does need a commercial counterpart, however it's not the 500 pound gorillas that make open source unique. It's the small companies that need it to survive. I can't say the same or Oracle.
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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.
For every post, there is an equal and opposite re-post.
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...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.
I've been doing Oracle since V5 and Linux since Red Hat 4.5. My take:
From the perspective of Open Source, Larry's like that "successful" uncle at your family picnic. He brings lots of toys to play with, the kids love him, is largely generous to a fault during his visit. But ask him how he made his riches, and he's liable to try to suck you into his pyramid scheme, and that's the last thing you want to hear at your family gathering.
Most of you would think it would be just fine if he stopped showing up at the family shindigs, but deep down, you'd all miss him, even if only a little bit.
Oracle wouldn't engage Open Source if there wasn't something for Oracle to gain from it. Let me tell you, Oracle App Server would be far more an abomination than it is today had they not built the latest version around Apache, for example. Their "grid" marketspeak is built firmly on the proliferation of free OS on cheap hardware, so they've already tied their future to (and bet it on) the success of Linux, and they're damned if they're wrong.
Ultimately, I think Larry and Oracle have taken on a relatively healthy, pragmatic relationship with Open Source. There's plenty of banter about how Oracle's assisted Red Hat, helped Zend get off the ground, and all that, but it's sometimes difficult to actually quantify what they have infused back into the OSS realm. I wish I'd see more Oracle-backed projects on SourceForge, for example.
In the same breath, I'm just a bit disturbed about their shenanigans with MySQL. WTF? I tend to believe they're trying to leverage the MySQL *technology* into their software offerings, and at the same time make themselves the clear target for migration when companies grow, rather than obliterate the MySQL product itself. Obliterating MySQL would amount to biting the hand that feeds Oracle - the backlash would be fierce and paralysing. Instead, I could easily see a Oracle-branded read-only data warehouse *cache* bolted onto its App Server product that's "Powered By InnoDB". Get it?
Larry should just shut up and find a better way for the Rasums Lerdorfs and Bob Youngs of the world to get heard. We get it, Larry - you're successful. Now shut up and eat a hot dog.
Makin' money, makin' friends, makin' whoopee and wearin' Depends
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.
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.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
O.R.A.C.L.E. == One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison.
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