Hey Oracle, Why Not Ubuntu?

OSS_ilation writes "While much has been said about Novell or Red Hat as potential targets for Oracle this week, there are some in the Linux community who believe a different distro might deserve the attention of Larry Ellison. That distribution is Ubuntu, and analysts like Burton Group's Richard Monson-Haefel believed that it would be a better fit for Oracle, which is looking only for an OS and not for any of the baggage associated with Novell, like Netware. Ubuntu, with its huge community base and version 6.06 on the way, could be the perfect fit, he said."

Comments

Oh, god, please no

[gclef]

Oracle's security record is abyssmal, their products have major usability issues (yes, including their database...god that thing's arcane), and the company itself is arrogant as hell. Please, don't let that beast absorb a sensible distro.

Re:Oh, god, please no

[moro_666]

in some ways i agree, there's no point of giving oracle the most quickly evolving distro. larry would mess it up.

but in some other ways, let's face it, ubuntu is already quite bloated so the damage couldn't be very large :p

all-in-all, if oracle wanted to buy a distro for it's servers, i'd rather have seen them forking their own gentoo fork with prebuilt packages or taking over arch-linux. oracle knows that the market is tight, they want to roll out bigtime with this, so it's either a choice of good performance (gentoo/arch/you-name-your-good-optimized-distro-h ere) or a massive package of bloatware mixed with oracle style stuff that never quite does what you'd expect it to.

suse will do for the stuff that they chose. maybe they already felt that ubuntu could be a bit too big fish to catch, besides i don't think it was 'on sale'. whereas outside germany suse was heading down (at least in the linux communities that i move around, nobody really suses anymore), and it was therefor easier to pick up. and also, getting the novell along with it is like buying a meal and getting a free sauce with it, why the hell not ?

i remember installing oracle 8i database on linux ... that was a living hell in the first attempts.

i'm running ubuntu right now on my laptop here, and i'd doubt seriously if i'd still use it if this poor thing would be overloaded with oracle mess.

oh who cares anyway, i will switch to freebsd 6.1 as soon as it comes out ...

Re:Oh, god, please no

[Idimmu Xul]

let's face it, ubuntu is already quite bloated

Care to back that up with some evidence? If by bloated you mean 'comes with more than just twm' or 'requires media larger than a floppy disk' then sure, but then again all the magical ram and processor power available nowadays (within the past 4 years) that dwarfs the museum piece you use daily easily copes..

Re:Oh, god, please no

[Bretai]

Distributed on one CD. That does not qualify as bloated in my book.

Re:Oh, god, please no

[moro_666]

martin@martins:~$ dpkg -l | grep ii | wc -l
1630
martin@martins:~$

and no i don't have every possible item installed, i don't even have most of gnome's stuff :)

i have perl, python , php , kde, xorg, apache and some usual developer stuff like vim/automake and a few here

now come and tell me that this is normal...

Re:Oh, god, please no

[Anonymous Coward]

KDE is quiet large. Besides Ubuntu is a desktop machine, most installations don't have apache or php. Yes it is bloated comparted to say DSL (but everything is).

Re:Oh, god, please no

[LaMotte85]

on my laptop gentoo box after installing tons of apps:

~ // eix -I | grep \* | wc -l
1029
~ //

Bloated? If you ask me ... my laptop is bloated... I could cut out half of those... for instance my desktop,
That I would would consider a server is bloated with xfce4 installed...:

~ // eix -I | grep \* | wc -l
629
~ //

Seriously....... you have almost 3 times that.... and you ask if thats bloated?

Re:Oh, god, please no

[identity0]

But wait! This could mean Oracle will start shipping with pictures of naked people!

"Say hello to Oracle 11xxx"

I can't wait 'til admins have to explain the nude models on the enterprise servers to the CEOs...

Re:Oh, god, please no

[Hercynium]

Nah, that's not normal at all... you should have twice that! ;-)

/Loves ubuntu.
//Thinks parent poster must be one of those 'Type A' personalities.

Re:Oh, god, please no

[rolfwind]

I use Ubuntu daily and from my experience, it is quite bloated in several areas. With my P4 2.6Ghz with 512MB ram (2.5 years old), just browsing my files with the file manager and browsing 6-7 files wasing causing my machine stall constantly while swapping memory in and out of ram.

I still use Ubuntu (userfriendly) but upgraded to 2.5GB ram. It uses normally at 800MB without doing anything special.

The file manager seems to be a resource hog. Yes, I could swap that out via command line, but it defeats the purpose of the distro (ease of use). I already compiled my own kernel to take advantage of my processor, not sure if I want to mess around with the rest of it to just get work done.

It would be useful if, at install time, it could customize the distro by asking a few questions and tailoring stuff like the filemanager, kernel, etcetera to your machine and your preferences.

Re:Oh, god, please no

[GnuDiff]

Well, you can call any distro bloated then, almost. I would define "bloated" though as when you have "a lot of apps you HAVE to install in order to BE ABLE to work".

My SuSE server boxes (db + www + devel environment, some additional net services, no X):
> rpm -qa | wc -l
476
>

I wouldn't call particularly "bloated" a desktop/server distro which in its "minimal" config by default installs around 800MB.

Re:Oh, god, please no

[Anonymous Coward]

Oracle should *continue* to run on the OE that it always ran on best: Solaris, respectively OpenSolaris.

Larry can even roll out his own distro customized and optimized for Oracle by changing any of the Solaris source code to better suit his Oracle products, as he sees fit.

Re:Oh, god, please no

[uglyduckling]

Then you have a serious problem somewhere! I have Ubuntu on my 5 year old laptop, 1Ghz PIII, 256Mb RAM. I can browse with firefox, read email and browse my filesystem with Nautilus without any problems. I only get heavy swapping if I open a large image in Gimp at the same time, and even then it's only when I switch apps that I get swapping.

Re:Oh, god, please no

[WWWWolf]

That's not bloated.

$ dpkg -l | grep ^ii | wc -l
2017

This is.

(My machine running Debian Unstable, and I have an annoying tendency not to remove software I toyed with but didn't keep using until much later.)

And the amount of packages means nothing. You should look at the installed size instead. Debian derivants package all sorts of stuff in separate packages that in other distributions get packaged in other packages. We have a frigging xterm package. Even the bloody ed is separately packaged, and that's the standard text editor.

I've installed Debian 3.0 desktop system in a hard drive partition of about 500 megs (on a P166 machine =), and had to leave some space for work files, of course. Not quite thrillingly a lot of software, but just shows that the base system can be installed in a small space.

Re:Oh, god, please no

[rolfwind]

Perhaps it's just the current version not liking my machine. Along with the custom kernel, I even shut off half the services (daemons) that normally are automatic on startup.

It did become worse with Breezy Badger. The installation of Ubuntu before wasn't so bad, and I'm eagerly awaiting Dapper Drake - as the current version of samba (on BB) doesn't work with Macs (why they don't just fix it in synaptic is beyond me.)

Perhaps that will be a return to normal specs. Anyway, I don't hesitate recommending Ubuntu to people, I just know it's not anywhere as efficient as Gentoo, but then again, with enough horsepower, Ubuntu (and Mepis) is a good distro to get things done without f-ing with the machine too much.

Ubuntu?

[Lxy]

Why not just use Debian, which is the base for Ubuntu? Then you get no corporate overhead.

Re:Ubuntu?

[Bob9113]

Why not just use Debian, which is the base for Ubuntu?

I was going to say the same thing. But I reread the blurb and I think them mean, "as an acquisition target", not, "as another platform for which to release a packaged version of Oracle." They want the developers and maintainers. I think it would be very hard to buy the Debian crew, and I think that is a good thing.

Agreed, though, that if it was just about having a solid server-oriented distro for deploying Oracle, Debian would be (in my never even remotely humble opinion) the best choice.

Re:Ubuntu?

[phy_si_kal]

Now that you failed to buy MySQL, try debian - it's easier.

Re:Ubuntu?

[chris_mahan]

We're talking a database server.
Again, why do you need a gui?

The only people who should ever log into the system are admins maintaining the software.

If they can't use the cli, hire admins that can.

Everybody else interfaces with the server through ip:port.

Re:Ubuntu?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well X aren't yet there, but it is entering stable as soon as its translation to Bengali is approved by 100 native bengalis. None of them have been found yet but Debian Project Team is working on that.

Re:Ubuntu?

[moro_666]

you work a lot with databases don't you ?

well i work with various opensource rdbms implementations here every day,
90% of the time only on cli since anything else would be just overhead.
but then again, most of the time i work on rather small projects.

but sometimes when you've got an oracle db with over 100 tables and uncountable
amount of foreign keys, triggers, store procedures, the cli just doesn't cut
it anymore. you need visualization just to understand the 25 things that you're
about to break with that next line.

i've worked with database schemes that are too large to fit on an A2 paper,
there's no way that you can get an overview of it's current state in cli.

you may think that oracle will just ship out it's db on nongui stations with
remote access, so anyone that needs a gui will use some kind of remote management
tool and everybody would be happy ? this aint going to happen, this would just
cramp oracle's style. they gui everything, gui is what also sells the product.
and oracle certainly would also like to charge money for the linux boxes around
the server box for running their gui tools on them...

so no-gui is not an answer, at least not for oracle.

it may be an answer to mysql and posgresql ... you hardly ever need a gui on
a raw gentoo server which just runs your db backend ... but with oracle it's never
as simple as that (ffs. you'd need the gui just to run their java based installer).

Re:Ubuntu?

[walt-sjc]

Um, the OP is 100% correct here. You do NOT need or even WANT a GUI on the SERVER. This has NOTHING to do with client tools. Your diatribe is pointless.

Re:Ubuntu?

[chris_mahan]

>>> you work a lot with databases don't you ?

Ah, unfortunately, I do with Oracle. 5TB worth, and the table listing takes forever to load (in thousands).
We use PLSQL Developer, toad, ERWIN, Informatica, pl/sql...

I'll agree with you that Oracle is a bear.

It's a little like an aircraft carrier. All bow before it, but you need 6,000 crew and 30 support vessels to be fully operational. But then you can project power all over the world and piss off third world nations.

There are how many AC in active duty worldwide? 10, 15 top?

I'm rambling. I'll stop now.

Re:Ubuntu?

[moro_666]

nope ...

a) installer still needs the gui
b) oracle doesn't want to licence the only the linux for dbserver, he wants to get the workistations around it too.
c) homework

Re:Ubuntu?

[j_snare]

a) Not quite. You can direct the gui to another machine (our office uses windows with Cygwin as the target for the display). Oracle suggests it in their docs, and it's the best way for us to keep our servers clean.

b) Granted, so we need a server version and workstation version, then.
Or even better, a big server version, for the serious servers (like a production business system), and another for small play databases like your earlier post was talking about. Go ahead and run a little DB (like XE or something), but don't do anything too serious with it. GUI stuff is fine for that, yes. But keep it off my servers, thanks.

c) Homework? Not sure what you mean. I only wish we went into the stuff I use now back in school...

Re:Ubuntu?

[drinkypoo]

Stop telling people what they want. The installer has a GUI. Obviously Oracle disagrees with you about whether you want a GUI on the server or not.

Re:Ubuntu?

[walt-sjc]

a) ssh to the server and use the X that is running on the client, or set the DISPLAY to your workstation. Most servers are going to be headless anyway. Linux is not Windows. Furthermore, where Linux make sense is something like the Oracle Grid - you are NOT going to be running monitors / GUI's on a 20 server cluster.
b) What does this have to do with the server running a GUI???
c) Again, this has NOTHING to do with the server. If you want to run an oracle instance on a workstation, feel free. Oracle's market is not Linux desktops however. Oracle's market is big business / governement which is nearly all windows desktops. Oracle does not have the application suite to get any kind of desktop migration started.

Re:Ubuntu?

[Znork]

"you are NOT going to be running monitors / GUI's on a 20 server cluster."

You ever run Oracle Reports? I distinctly remember it needed not only a DISPLAY, it needed a _window manager_ running to work. Gha.

"Oracle's market is not Linux desktops however."

Mmm. One can wonder. Maybe they need a cluster of virtual framebuffers with virtual window managers for that grid...

Re:Ubuntu?

[rainman_bc]

Just so you know, 100 tables isn't that large of a database.

Furthermore, you also have views, stored procs, triggers, foreign keys, etc.

Yes GUIs are nice, but unnecessary on the server. Should I need a gui to install Oracle, I'll be switching to DB2 TYVM. I will never install CDE or X on a DB server.

Re:Ubuntu?

[Hercynium]

I'll second that Oracle is a bear -- but considering the alternatives for RDBMS solutions that need the scale like you and I are using... I've got little to gripe about.

Our data-mart is about 4TB from what I hear, and about to get a lot bigger with two recent mergers. I've got access to about 400 tables right now, but there are thousands more company-wide.

Somehow, we get along with a very small DB Admin team, (and I'm no expert, just an NMS engineer), and I've never seen this thing go down or choke performance-wise.

Frankly, I'm still wondering if the GP is just trolling - bloat is whatever some overly-picky ricer decides it is today. Yes, I've been guilty of rebuilding a whole Gentoo system just because I discovered a new optimization flag. *And* I've pared down a Debian system to the point that it's got the absolute bare minimum packages... And before Gentoo, I rolled mbut frankly, if a system does what I need it to do in the time I want to do it... who cares?

I count bloat based on the usage and maintanance requirements of a system. Oracle isn't bloated for what I do, but it is for my parent's online photo-album. Ubuntu isn't bloated for *my* daily desktop use - but it certainly is for a dial-up gateway system.

Who are these idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

That think they need to "buy" a Linux distro. I would suggest that Oracle buy Hurd. I bet they can get that one for cheap. RMS could probably use the cash.

Re:Who are these idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

You forget Richard lives in University utopia. With a steadily rising salary guaranteed for the rest of his life, it's no wonder he doesn't understand capitalism and people not wanting to donate all their code to imposters.

Raymond, Torvalds are a lot wiser in these particular respects. Stallman is still a great coder, tho.

Re:Who are these idiots

[Homestar Breadmaker]

Raymond is a complete and utter moron. He is a loudmouth blowhard who doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground. And Stallman isn't a great coder. He's a barely competant coder, or at least he was. He hasn't written anything in so long I don't think he even qualifies as that anymore.

I don't think the people understand

[saleenS281]

Anyone in the ubuntu community doesn't quite understand what will happen if oracle were to buy out Ubuntu. Ubuntu in my experience is targeted at making it easy for n00bs to use linux. Oracle will definitely NOT be focusing on this area. They'll be focusing on tweaking whatever OS they do use to make oracle easier to use and setup. They don't care about the latest video codec, your new soundcard, or that great new 3D rendered desktop.

The goals of oracle and ubuntu are so far off from each other it troubles me to hear anyone even make the suggestion.

Re:I don't think the people understand

[Billosaur]

Anyone in the ubuntu community doesn't quite understand what will happen if oracle were to buy out Ubuntu. Ubuntu in my experience is targeted at making it easy for n00bs to use linux. Oracle will definitely NOT be focusing on this area. They'll be focusing on tweaking whatever OS they do use to make oracle easier to use and setup. They don't care about the latest video codec, your new soundcard, or that great new 3D rendered desktop.

Kiss Ubuntu goodbye is the long and the short of it. It will be subsumed into Orix, which if it's anything like the Oracle DB, will be buggy, riddled with security flaws, and generally filled with unnecessary overhead. It's amazing how many clueless big company CEOs think they can snap up some small company with a good idea, incorporate it into their own bloated company, and come out with something better. Ain't gonna happen.

My comments for yesterday about Oracle trying to buy Novell still hold. This isn't going to help Oracle compete against Microsoft; if anything, it will threaten to strangle any creativity in Ubuntu and allow Oracle to be overtaken by its competitors. Oracle should stick to making databases.

Re:I don't think the people understand

[Xugumad]

Beyond that; Ubuntu is a desktop distro. Not to mention, why does Oracle need to _buy_ a Linux distro? Beyond that; does Oracle (database server) even run on Ubuntu? 'cos last time I checked, it was a nightmare to get running on Debian, and I seem to remember they're fairly similar...

Re:I don't think the people understand

[Imexius]

I think KingBahamut says it best, "ubuntu is for the humanistic endeavour to evolve linux into something everyone can use." Meaning Ubuntu isn't just for noobs its for everyone.

Re:I don't think the people understand

[KingBahamut]

First off, I think its a lot less likely for Larry and the rest of the Big O to consider something like Ubuntu. While one might assume that the Big O would go and consider the purchase of an OS , Ubuntu would clearly not be in this list of options. Theyd be more likely to purchase Redhat or as previously stated Novell. It would give Enterprise entry for thier products (Siebel and Peoplesoft included), into areas that they dont already have a wide presence into. To purchase Ubuntu wouldnt give clear liscense to this issue. Ergo Redhat, Novell, and even Mandriva become more likely targets merely because of their already existing corporate presence.

To the fact that Ubuntu is for newbs, I feel very less likely that this is the case. Rather a distribution attempting to cover feasiblity to a wide range of users , not just beginners. That be said, Imexius is correct in my quoting.

Because...

[Alterion]

they don't want a community of geeks to handle they want a product to make money from??

Ubuntu & Oracle -- two different universes

[stefanlasiewski]

Oracle and Ubuntu are two completely different universes. Oracle products are designed for high-availability enterprise applications. The Database and the Database price tag is overkill for most smaller applications.

Ubuntu is a cutting edge Linux distro with a cute, fun desktop with great installer/maintenance applications. Ubuntu can install MySQL in a few minutes. Not sure I would trust it for any sort of high- availability application. Debian Stable, RedHat Enterprise, Suse Enterprise & Solaris would be a wiser choice.

Oracle:

• Installation require a DBA
• Installs in 8 hours, after 4 tries.
• Oracle Installer crashes several times because you forgot to change kernel.foo_bar_strings from '0' to '100000' in /etc/sysctl.conf . You now need to uninstall all of the files by hand and start from scratch.
• It crashes a second time because you forgot to install GCC_2.9.6_legacy_library , and didn't do 'cat "RedHat Enterprise AS" > /etc/sysconfig/kernel/version'. You now need to uninstall all of the files by hand and start from scratch
• Once installed, Oracle can handle 10,000 customers a second on a 40-million row table

Ubuntu:

• Even your grandparents can install it
• Installs in 10 minutes.
  
• Recognized my video card & sound card out of the box.
  
• MySQL & PostgreSQL are installed and running, out of the box.
  
• The host freezes up after the first 5000 queries ;)
  

Re:Ubuntu & Oracle -- two different universes

[Chris Pimlott]

The host freezes up after the first 5000 queries ;)

Oh, come on, let's not be quite so flamebaitish. I agree that Ubuntu is focused more on the desktop/easy-of-use side of things, but it _is_ based on Debian, one of the most solid and reliable Linux distributions out there. Maybe it's not the optimal choice for server applications but there's no reason to believe (at least, none that you give) that it couldn't perform as a perfectly adequate server at a less-than-enterprise level.

Re:Ubuntu & Oracle -- two different universes

[saleenS281]

"Once installed, Oracle can handle 10,000 customers a second on a 40-million row table"

It all looked good except that line to me. You need a *, I'll add it for you.


Once installed, Oracle can handle 10,000 customers a second on a 40-million row table*
*assuming you have the obligatory DBA who earns 6 figures to optimize your tables twice a week.


unfortunately for me, the company I work for does not. And let me tell you, oracle is a complete dog if you don't have a DBA doing the proper optimizations.

Re:Ubuntu & Oracle -- two different universes

[Anonymous Coward]

"Once installed, Oracle can handle 10,000 customers a second on a 40-million row table"

But only for 5 minutes, then you run out of extents and then you have to hire a third DBA who actually knows how to administer the DB. Who then proceeds to suggest changes that require you to buy a bigger more powerful server, create huge amounts of grants so that any of the more powerful features require DBA assistance to setup and maintain requiring you to hire another DBA to help the previous...

Re:Ubuntu & Oracle -- two different universes

[Anonymous Coward]

8 hours after 4 tries? What kind of moron are you? I've got it down to where I can do it in less than half an hour, and I'm just a developer - no DBA training whatsoever.

Re:Ubuntu & Oracle -- two different universes

[Orlando]

Why is the parent modded as funny? This is entirely the point. Oracle are not in the least bit interested in making things easy because making things difficult is where they earn their money. Their software is a nightmare to install and manage where other databases that are capable of 100% of what 95% of people need from a database are a breeze (PostgreSQL). If I were an Ubuntu developer the LAST thing I would want would be Oracle getting their grubby fingers all over it and making a big mess out of it.

Re:Ubuntu & Oracle -- two different universes

[IdleTime]

If you are too stupid to follow a simple installation instruction that tells you exactly what all the kernel parameterrs need to be, I wouldn't put the blame on anyone but yourself.

And if you try to install Oracle on an unsupported distribution, you can not expect it to work flawlessly. I install databases on a regular basis and I have never had the installer crash on me since version 8.0.4, i.e approx 7-8 years ago. Does it crash? Sure, most of the issues we have with the installer is due to people not reading the instructions, trying to install on a configuration not meeting the minimu requirements, using an incorrect version of JRE, thinking that they know better than everyone how things are done and ignore instructions.

I've said it before and I'll be happy to repeat it. Oracle RDBMS is currently the most complex piece of software sold publically and it requires knowledge about the product to manage it.

Stop blaming Oracle and blame yourself for being an ignorant who can't follow instruction like this one

Re:Ubuntu & Oracle -- two different universes

[Anonymous Coward]

This is no longer true with Oracle XE. Oracle XE comes in as native RPM and Debian packages and can be installed and ready to run in 5 minutes. Little administration is required. Also, it comes with Application Express which is a completely Web-based rapid application development (RAD) environment.

See http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database /xe/index.html.

BTW, there is an Oracle XE repository available. See http://frits.homelinux.com/wordpress/?p=9&SID=5031 C9559A765B126EE6BB19BBA6CBE3

Re:Ubuntu & Oracle -- two different universes

[MoxFulder]

I'm in complete agreement with you!

Ubuntu is actually *quite* stable. Even running the beta Dapper version, I can't remember a single crash that brought down the system (after many months of use). I run Apache off my desktop box and leave for the weekend expecting reliable remote access, and I always have it. The userspace apps included in the main distro are all high-quality and well supported. I've hit one or two gnome bugs but not much else.

Ubuntu is the most stable, reliable, no-rough-edges Linux desktop-oriented distro that I've used. Beats SUSE (used intermittently at work) and completely crushes Mandr(ake|iva) (used it a few years back) which I found to be horribly unreliable.

Re:Ubuntu & Oracle -- two different universes

[oh_my_080980980]

Stop the trolling or be specific.

It does not take 8 hours to install Oracle. If you read the instructions it takes, maybe an hour!
I've install Oracle 10g on an UNSOPPORTED Linux OS - Suse 9.2, not SLES, the regular distro. That's the 64 bit Oracle 10g version on the 64 bit Suse 9.2 version, no less!!

No problems what so ever. See the thing with Oracle, YOU HAVE TO READ THE INSTRUCTIONS. Anyone with a brain can figure this out. It's not a point and click MS install. But once you have covered the bases - it's simple.

Re:Ubuntu & Oracle -- two different universes

[j_snare]

From what it sounds like, most of these complaints about the installer are from the 8i and early 9i versions (or before).

The installers (or really any GUI that Oracle made) really were horrendous back then. It was more reliable to do a create database script by hand than use the installer. We ended up doing that for quite a while here. We even had a guy from Oracle come out to help us install our 9i RAC system years ago, and it still took 3 days of fiddling to figure it out. And to top it off, we're still finding things that were done wrong and we're having to fix.

However, nowadays the installer is a hell of a lot better. As you say, if you can follow the instructions, you can get a working system up and going pretty quickly, and it works pretty well too. However, you *have* to read *all* of the instructions. Post-installation and patching notes included.

Re:Ubuntu & Oracle -- two different universes

[tsho]

how long will you "intelligent" geek-people think that

ease of use = unsecure

is a true proposition? how long will you forge you opinions only reading slashdot posts? how long will you comment on things without having even had a try at the real thing?

Ubuntu works. Well. As a desktop distro. AND as a server distro.

Anyway you won't use any distro out of the box to serve 10000 requests/sec (?) just as you need an Oracle guru to do the same with that database.

(yes I'm a troll)

Re:Ubuntu & Oracle -- two different universes

[Anonymous Coward]

You could at least make the thing fail gracefully. Their instructions certainly aren't the easiest things in the world to follow.

Re:Ubuntu & Oracle -- two different universes

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

I've said it before and I'll be happy to repeat it. Oracle RDBMS is currently the most complex piece of software sold publically and it requires knowledge about the product to manage it.

Ask yourself. Why?

People scoff at Access, yet, when you come right down to it, what separates the logic of creating a database in Access verse creating one in Oracle. It's all just rows and columns, with some primary keys, indexes and hey presto, there's your database.

Please explain why exactly Oracle needs a DBA, yet an Access database can be created by an accountancy intern? Yes the Access database will be dog slow and unoptimised, but where's the software that optimises on the fly? Where's the software to make setting up an oracle database as painless as seting up one in Access?

Answer. It doesn't exist. It will never exist. The "power" of Oracle lies entirely in the hands of the DBA who regularly grooms it. Oracle can and will grind to a halt without constant lubrication and maintainance.

Oracle is complex because without being so, it could not be hand tuned to be efficient. If MySQL allowed the kind of low level control and optmiisation Oracle has the two would probably be able to go toe to toe quite easily.

Re:Ubuntu & Oracle -- two different universes

[Anonymous Coward]

amen to that. oracle is a greedy pig of a database. Dont even try to run anything else (like apache) that wants cpu time (maybe on solaris 10, if you set up containers that limit how much CPU oracle gets to see)

Re:Ubuntu & Oracle -- two different universes

[stefanlasiewski]

Thank you for reminding me about Oracle's arrogance.

Few of these errors happened to me-- ironically, some of them happened on our systems while the *Oracle* consultants were installing the software on a freshly installed supported distro.

using an incorrect version of JRE

1. The installer should not rely on my rely on my JRE. The Oracle installer should (and does) use it's own JRE. When we encountered these (early 9i I believe), this installer using Java 1.1 , which may explain the installer's poor error handling. The current 10g installer ships with Java 1.4, so hopefully many of the bugs are fixed.

2. The installer should not *crash* when it can't find the parameter in the configuration file. It should complain and tell me what is wrong. When the installer crashes, it leaves the DB in a half-baked state with no clear way to clean up the mess.

Oracle RDBMS is currently the most complex piece of software sold publically and it requires knowledge about the product to manage it.

A complex product isn't necessarily a good product. I agree that Oracle can do a ton of things, and do them well, but complexity is often the result of poor design and a lack of cleanup. For an expensive product like Oracle, I expect more.

Re:Ubuntu & Oracle -- two different universes

[jwocky]

installing oracle on debian/ubuntu is about the easiest thing ever:

add following lines to /etc/apt/sources.list file:
deb http://oss.oracle.com/debian/ unstable main non-free
deb-src http://oss.oracle.com/debian/ unstable main

#apt-get update

# apt-get install oracle-xe-universal

# /etc/init.d/oracle-xe configure

it runs like a dream on my ubuntu box.

Re:Ubuntu & Oracle -- two different universes

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are too stupid to follow a simple installation instruction that tells you exactly what all the kernel parameterrs need to be, I wouldn't put the blame on anyone but yourself.

Sorry, but I don't believe that setting a kernel parameter for maximum shared memory size or whatever is "simple". If it were really simple, it would be part of an install script. Sure, the _commands_ are simple, but you have to make sure you don't screw up something else, e.g. your backup software.

Re:Ubuntu & Oracle -- two different universes

[charlesnw]

The host freezes up after the first 5000 queries ;) /blockquote I know that was meant to be funny but its also flat out wrong. There are major corporations (mine included) running mission critical apps on mysql. Our database is over a terabyte and grows about 1 gigabyte a week. It is in use 24x7 and supports multiple call centers and teams.

Re:Ubuntu & Oracle -- two different universes

[fimbulvetr]

I think he's maybe talking about 7, 8 and 9, in which case, I'd agree with him wholeheartedly.

First, you'd have a newly installed something server, and you'd figure out you need to install Xlibraries and X just so you can use some shitty gui that crashes every 180 seconds.

Next, the shitty gui's fonts would be so fucked and you couldn't click the "next" or "cancel" buttons because java guis are a piece of shit and strech the buttons off your screen.

The install wouldn't warn you you couldn't have underscores in the dbname, it'd just crash after 3 hours of installing on a dual sparc64. Then you'd have to figure it out - not with an error like "Underscores not allowed in db name", oh no, it'd be some huge ugly java+oracle error.

Then, it'd figure out that there's a dash in the hostname of your machine, and crash on that too.

Then, it'd figure out that there were more than 8 characters in your hostname/db name, and crash.

Then, something in your network settings wouldn't be just friggen perfect and dbca would fail after yet another 3 hour install on a dual sparc64.

This assumes you're sitting in front of the machine. If you're smart you have this machine somewhere behind a firewall. If you're even smarter you have a firewall inbetween your desktop and and this server area. Continue down the smart chain to include ssh, Xforwarding, etc. Now, you've got to keep your ssh session alive for longer than your firewall timeout or the firewall will break the connection and cause your installer to fail. But java won't keep it alive - oh no - you can't expect that slow bloated piece of shit software to send update packets across an ssh session in intervals less than 5 minutes. It's running on sparc64, which is supposed to be fast! Ha. Fast.

Re:Ubuntu & Oracle -- two different universes

[secret_squirrel_99]

that it couldn't perform as a perfectly adequate server at a less-than-enterprise level.

That's kind of the point though isn't it? Who exactly do you imagine uses Oracle at a "less-than-enterprise level." ?

Re:Ubuntu & Oracle -- two different universes

[ameoba]

The difference is that your accounting intern using Access has probably never even heard of "indexes", "data integrity" or "normal form". Any idiot -could- set up some random tables in Oracle with only a small knowledge of SQL but they'd suck just as much as if they put the table in Access - the only benefit would be that your data wouldn't get corrupted when you had more than 2 users trying to work with it simultaniously.

Re:Ubuntu & Oracle -- two different universes

[wtansill]

It all looked good except that line to me. You need a *, I'll add it for you. Once installed, Oracle can handle 10,000 customers a second on a 40-million row table*

*assuming you have the obligatory DBA who earns 6 figures to optimize your tables twice a week.

unfortunately for me, the company I work for does not. And let me tell you, oracle is a complete dog if you don't have a DBA doing the proper optimizations.

Oh come on! Even MS Access is a dog if you don;t tune it properly! Sheesh!

Re:Ubuntu & Oracle -- two different universes

[pen]

Wow, I really thought this was a joke, but there are packages at that URL.

Re:Ubuntu & Oracle -- two different universes

[IdleTime]

I'm sure most Linux users would be able to, let's say, compile a small source program consisting of a single source file (MS Access in this case) but not everyone can, without instructions, get OpenOffice (Oracle in this case) to compile easily.

I mean, you can probably drive any car on this planet, but can you fly the Space Shuttle? And why do we need one, I mean cars work fine for everyone.

Your argument is on primary school level.

Re:Ubuntu & Oracle -- two different universes

[FatherOfONe]

I have now worked a little bit with Oracle 9i and 10G on SuSe and RedHat linux. Both flat out rocked, and the install sucked. Also I want to point out that Oracle supported 64bit Linux on our AMD Opteron one month after the chip was released. I want to say that I am by no means a "uber" dba.

Now compare that to what I currently work with. SQL Server 2000 on Windows 2003. The performance is "OK". It flat out cannot compare to what I did on similar hardware with Oracle. I will say that the data imports and exports are very nice in SQL Server.

Now I will also compare that from my very small workings with PostGreSQL 8. It has also performed well and was easy to manage.

In short, I have had quite a few million row tables in Oracle, SQL Server 2k and PostGreSQL and all performed well. I will note that I have not scaled PostGreSQL near as far as Oracle or SQL server. Also I want to note that our connections are made via JDBC, and we have discovered that for some reason SQL server will not use a second processor for one connection. Specifically, if you have one connection that does a big dog query, it appears to only use one processor in the system for that query. We did apply the patches Microsoft supplied for the issue, and they helped a ton with overall performance but this issue still remained.

Please be specific on what you did with Oracle that was "dog slow" and I would love to compare it to what a default SQL server install does along side one of our exact same systems running Oracle 10G.

Re:Ubuntu & Oracle -- two different universes

[kindbud]

Well I guess the company you work for doesn't draw 10,000 customers/second, does it?

If they did, they could afford an Oracle DBA.

Re:Ubuntu & Oracle -- two different universes

[xtracto]

"indexes", "data integrity" or "normal form".

Aha! but then there is a chance to make intelligent databases that manage all that things automagically, creating indexes and managing data integrity for the created tables/databases.

I am an A.I. computer scientist, my undergrad was Software Engineering which concentrated basically in building relational database systems (I do not blame my university, it is indeed what is *most* needed/demanded back there in Mexico). I always thought that database management was something stupid, you do not *need* a lot of intelligence to manage a database, you only need to apply certain rules of knowledge.

I am sure it may be possible to create [semi]autonomous systems that can handle all the optimizations/underground management of the database while people create tables, relations and queries. I always found that object oriented database management systems were very interesting and every time I did a system with a database (yes I did comercial applications using databases before turning to AI) it made no sense to me to have this "chunk" of the system based on structured "logic" while all the other modules were object oriented (using for example UML modelling).

Anyway, it may be a very interesting research project, I should write it on my ideas book.

Re:Ubuntu & Oracle -- two different universes

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey retard, man ssh_config and search for TcpKeepAlive. Why should java or any other program know about any timeouts on network devices between you and the machine it's running on?

It's the Apps, not the O/S

[OYAHHH]

Richard Monson-Haefel,

Says "Oracle, which is looking only for an OS".

Well he is wrong. Oracle is pretty much O/S neutral. And they have good reasons for being so. I'll let you figure that one out on your own.

If all Oracle wanted was a Linux O/S distribution then what would stop them from simply going to a particular distribution's website and downloading it?

What is really happening is that one of their major Linux partners, Redhat, has been moving into the applications business recently. So much so that they have begun to compete with Oracle on quite a few fronts.

Thus, Oracle is looking at the situation and saying what money making venture, not charitable situation, is the best fit in a changing competitive landscape. Apparently the answer is Novell, i.e., fits better than any other, it's more mature, etc.

Re:It's the Apps, not the O/S

[luvirini]

Oracle never looks just for an "application", they have more than few themselves and would be fully capable of getting a decent Distro out..

But the thing they seem to buy is Userbases. (Hint: Netware is still widely used)

Re:It's the Apps, not the O/S

[xnebox]

JBOSS was just recently aquired by Red Hat. Oracle was in the market for JBOSS but they didn't sell out to Oracle. JBOSS being the de facto J2EE server is the prize here. Oracle wants to get back in the java application server side of things, which have been poorly done in the past.

"Baggage" no only negative things...

[luvirini]

Novell does have some other things in itself besides Linux.

One of the things is a fairly large userbase for Netware.. and a working structure of a company.

So, yes if you are looking for just a linux distro, they are not the thing to aquire, but if you are looking to expand you market share in general.. (like Oracle tries to) Novell does have (atleast potentially) other benefits too.

Re:"Baggage" no only negative things...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a very good point that I hadn't thought about.

This got me thinking about a discussion I had with a work colleague about 3 or 4 years ago. At the time, I had thought Oracle would buy a linux distro, but I was certain it was going to be Red Hat. He didn't think they would purchase any distro. I guess we're both still waiting to find out who was correct.

Only one problem

[Philodoxx]

Mark Shuttleworth has no incentive to sell Canonical/Ubuntu to Oracle. If he were in it for the money, Ubuntu wouldn't mail me CDs once every six months.

Re:Only one problem

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the guy who made a fortune by building Thawte and selling it to Verisign. I think it's safe to say that he's in it for the money. Canonical is a business, not a charity, and he's probably going to sell it - although maybe not just yet. Note that Canonical's business model is not about selling CDs, it's about controlling the development of free software projects. I'm sure you can imagine how a company like Google could use this - you know they don't offer that search engine as a charity either. Sending you free CDs is just like Google providing you with a free search engine.

Re:Only one problem

[MoxFulder]

Very true...

Basically the whole Ubuntu community has been freeloading off Mark Shuttleworth's resources for a couple years and it's been quite a fun ride. Thanks, Mark :-)

As far as I can tell, what he's trying to do is to use his considerable wealth to build up a really top-notch distro that sticks close to free software ideals, and he's hoping that he'll come up with a viable business model to make some money off of it along the way. I sincerely wish him luck, I think it's a rather risky but admirable move.

Re:Only one problem

[Philodoxx]

I disagree, there are plenty of ways to build up a successful distro without going to the lengths that Ubuntu has to build up its community. If Shuttleworth wanted to make a distro, but wanted to do it frugally he wouldn't host the ISOs on Ubuntu's servers, and he most certainly wouldn't get discs factory pressed and shipped to anybody anywhere in the world.

Ultimately I have no idea what Mr. Shuttleworth's plans are, but I get the impression that he's made his millions and is content with what he has. I'm sure that if the opportunity presented itself to make Ubuntu profitable he would take it, but flat out selling the company to Oracle would be a very abrupt turn around from his post Ubuntu behaviour.

Re:Only one problem

[charlesnw]

I agree. Right on the money. He is in it for the money.

Re:Only one problem

[bad-badtz-maru]

Ever seen a commercial for Tyco? What exactly are they marketing - how does one buy a Tyco?

Re:Only one problem

[bcnstony]

I went to (or wandered into, more aptly) the Ubuntu conference in Mataro, Spain, I think the first or second Ubuntu somewhere-in-the-world Ubuntu meeting. I didn't speak personally to Mark Shuttleworth, but I overheard him talking about how (this is from my foggy memory) he wanted Ubuntu to be the top distribution, about how when people decided to install linux, they would reach straight for Ubuntu.

It wasn't dissimilar to things I heard out of Red Hat some 5 years ago, when they said they wanted the words "Linux" = "Red Hat". He has gone farther producing a smooth distribution that can be used at home or at work in production (choose the server install for those complaining about bloat), farther then Red Hat or others, all for free.

As for the money thing, someone who goes into Space for the Sh*ts and Giggles of it probably has a massive interest in exploring new and intersting things. I'd say Ubuntu does two things for him: It allows him to help the world by providing (what he thinks is) the best linux distribution, for free, which focuses on more spoken languages than most; and it allows him to explore the process of starting, developing, and maintaining both the team and distribution behind Ubuntu. And, as he ins't a business n00b, he has done it in such a way that the most intellegent place to look for paid support for Ubuntu (which is fast going on more and more IT guys desktops) is from his very-for-profit company Canonical.

Re:Only one problem

[Anonymous Coward]

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

(this rest of message is here to satisfy slashdot lamefilterness)

Larry, I recommend Uganda

[BrentRJones]

seriously, take a long vacation where your money will go far

Hey... NO!

[Tei]

Who in the correct mind wrote that ~1111

This is mad. Ubuntu is a desktop, a fine one. And Oracle is system software. If Oracle get Ubuntu, will fuck it ~~~111111

Re:Hey... NO!

[rakslice]

This post is a classic... Master teh bad english and jam on the 1 key FTW!

Why would they want the baggage?

[xzvf]

What about the Ubuntu community makes anyone think they would want to be locked into making Oracle applications run better?

What about Oracle and Larry makes anyone think they would want to answer to Ubuntu community every time they want a change to make an Oracle application run better?

Just an Analyst Daydreaming

[Anonymous Coward]

So, an analyst daydreams that one of the most prominent *desktop* distros should power an Oracle DB back-end.

Get real.

Ummm....

[Otter]

"Oracle just wants to add the OS, so Ubuntu Linux would make a lot more sense than Novell," said Richard Monson-Haefel, a senior analyst with Burton Group.

Far be it from me to question the wisdom of Richard Monson-Haefel, but I assume people at Oracle are capable of grasping the difference between adding a Linux distribution and buying a company the size of Novell.

Re:Ummm....

[mustafap]

>Richard Monson-Haefel, a senior analyst with **Burton Group**.

Well, what do you expect from some more used to selling cheap suits?

Hey Oracle...

[phy_si_kal]

Why not just hire some more geeks and do your own flavor of linux? You have enough money to give a competition to Ubuntu. Ubuntu showed that by creating something with features and simplicity, crowds intfollow. Try to innovate and propose new opensource applications and race for better opensource software. This will benefit to everyone and if done well, you'll get the reputation you're looking after.

Eh, no.

[adolfojp]

Ubuntu's philosophy is to provide a free operating system for the masses. It was never intended to be a commercial product like Novel's Linux (whatever you call it these days) or Red Hat.

Ubuntu user base is not the best for Oracle

[stm2]

Oracle plays in a different niche than Ubuntu. Oracle should buy RH or Novell if they want to reach enterprise users.

Make their own

[abrotman]

I'm very much confused why oracle would want to buy one anyways. They could just as easily take Debian or CentOS(or Gentoo I suppose), and include the patches to the kernel/etc they want to run their database. They would have a very specific market, but would be responsible for their own patches, etc.

Re:Make their own

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Oracle should buy both, Novell and RedHat. That would at least unite the corporate distros and help linux win market share from MS.

Re:Make their own

[spun]

They don't want to buy an OS, they want to buy an OS company. Rolling their own won't get them the developers and brand recognition, which is what they are really after, not just another platform on which to run their DB.

Channels

[WindBourne]

Oracle is not looking to buy a linux. They are looking to buy a channel. If they were looking for a distro, they would simply roll their own. Getting into businesses is the hard part esp. with companies such as MS blocking their way (illegally, but overlooked these days) and IBM (not illegal, but DB is a real database).

Hope they don't buy SuSE Linux...

[__aaclcg7560]

I read elsewhere that Oracle was considering to buy Novell to get SuSE Linux. I hope not. This is my favorite distribution that I stuck with since 1998. I wasn't too thrilled with Novel now owning SuSE, although version 10 was a pretty solid product and the installer recognized all my hardware right out of the box. I'm not sure what Oracle would do with it.

Ubuntu forum community smaller than Gentoo's?

[Dan Ost]

Ubuntu also boasts one of the largest community bases of all the Linux distributions, called the Ubuntu Forums, which contain more than 67,000 unique registered users.

Hmm...the Gentoo forums have over 111,000 unique registered users.

As if unique forum name count was a meaningful metric of anything.

server vs desktop requirements

[kpharmer]

Bad idea.

The Oracle server works on a variety of linux distros already (plus unix, plus windows, etc). Why they would want to own their own distro is beyond me, but if they did - the worst possible one would be one focused upon desktops.

Seriously, you don't normally want to put open office, mp3 players and tux racer on a database server. You want support & tuning for raid adapters, multiple cpus, etc. And what of the ubuntu community? They *barely* support server installations & questions. Go ahead, just try to find information about print server *without* gnome/kde/etc. Like this community is going to embrace changing its entire philosophy to support oracle.

Of course, there's nothing stopping Oracle from putting their admin client (OEM) onto Ubuntu. That's a perfect fit for a desktop distro. Of course, maybe they do already, I know db2's clients already run on ubuntu. But why bother purchasing it for that?

Once again, bad idea.

And

[WebHostingGuy]

The other thing to realize is that now that SUSE was bought by Novell it "corporate". Ubuntu is not. Once something because a corporate item it is perfectly acceptable for other corporations to buy it. But even if the product is very similiar and is not corporate; they will shy away.

Re:And

[stefanlasiewski]

The other thing to realize is that now that SUSE was bought by Novell it "corporate".

Suse was 'corporate' from the beginning. Novell's purchase of Suse was an indication of this.

Re:And

[AmigaBen]

I'm not sure I managed to fully parse your mis-typings, but you do realize that SUSE is, if anything, MORE open now that Novell bought it than it ever was before?

Re:And

[houghi]

SUSE was already "corporate". Novell just opend up the sourcecode even more and is realy pushing in the right direction.

If SUSE would not have been bought by Novell, then it might have been a target for a buy out. Buying Novell because of SUSE is a bit silly. Just fork SUSE and you have your own distro. A lot cheaper, I would say.

For the love of all that is sacred.

[miffo.swe]

Mark Shuttleworth has done a wonderful job in managing Ubuntu. I have a hard time imaging Oracle not stomping all over and making huge beginner mistakes onto the community. I love the Debian/Ubuntu combination that Mark and his fellow people have put together but i would switch away in a heartbeat if Mark was to be switched for some random PHB.

Why not Ubuntu

[Elektroschock]

When we speak of Novell we mean SuSe Linux. Suse is a KDE centric distribution which has a respectable market share on Linux desktops in Europe. Currently some Novell desktop strategist try to achieve the same with Gnome centric solutions, with limited success.

(K)Ubuntu has no market as the product is not sold.

Companies can justify to buy another company and lose a lot of money for the strategic advantage. They cannot justify to donate large portions of money, even when the effect would be the same.

The other issue is control. When Oracle buys Novell they can control corporate policy but they will have no say over Ubuntu. And I do not believe they will buy canonical.

As Oracle I would rather buy Mandriva.

Re:Why not Ubuntu

[sgent]

Nope.

When we speak of Novell, we speak of Novell -- which counts one of two enterprise class (ie supported) linux distributions as one of its many assets.

It also has a huge customer base, multi-os deployment tools, best of breed identity management / directory solutions, and still one of the widest deployed server OS's in the world.

Novell includes Suse, but brings much more to the table. Novell would be an interesting acquisition to Oracle even WITHOUT the OS. Zenworks and eDirectory alone probably have as much or more value to Oracle as Suse.

Re:Why not Ubuntu

[houghi]

When Oracle buys Novell

Since when is thinking about it and then dismissing it any news? You could also say "When Oracle buys Microsoft".

And SUSE is a KDE/Gnome centric distro. The ONLY difference with the past is that KDE is not selected by default, which is a good idea. Choice is good.

Why?

[kryten_nl]

Why does Oracle need to own a Linux distro?

- If you want to buy a company for the devellopers it has, I could understand that. But any half-decent head-hunting firm would be cheaper.
- If you want a community without having to start one? Buying their favorite distro and then changing it, will allmost certainly alienate the community a lot. - To have a full featured linux based OS to do with as you please? That's virtually impossible, considering the GPL and a rather vocal Linus Torvalds. BSD licensis would allow that, if I recall correctly, but not the GPL.

My point is: can someone please explain to me why Oracle needs to buy a distro, when they can just fork one?

Brand is the issue

[Kope]

When Norwest Bank bought Wells Fargo Bank, the company kept the name Wells Fargo. Even though Norwest was the larger business. Norwest was in more states. Norwest had more customers.

But Wells Fargo had a brand and image that would take an amazing amount of time and money to match.

Larry isn't so dumb as to not know the value of a solid brand name. Oracle has some perception problems in the Open Source world. Novell is viewed as one of the good guys. Oracle needs a brand with geeky goodness associated with it, and Novell will provide that.

Debian or Ubuntu or whatever other distro that no one outside of the Slashdot community has ever heard of won't go nearly as far.

Re:Brand is the issue

[SydShamino]

This is why agile, modern SBC Communications purchased aging, failing-in-the-marketplace AT&T, then proceeded to rename themselves. They think the name clout is worth the effort, even if it takes a few years to shed AT&T's recent reputation as a has-been. Even I think that bringing back the old "T" stock ticker was a cool thing to do.

Fork!

[moochfish]

Yeah. If Oracle tried to take Ubuntu, the very next day you'd see news about a fork. The goals of Oracle are simply too different from the developers of Ubuntu for any simbiotic relationship to develop. Oracle wants a stable, no frills server for a massively scaleable database. Ubunto aims for the desktop crowd.

Hey Oracle, Why Not Neo?

[CFrankBernard]

Oracle, I've searched the Linux Matrix and I still believe Neo is the one.

Re:Hey Oracle, Why Not Neo?

[nowhere.elysium]

well, it might be, if that link actually worked.

Re:Hey Oracle, Why Not Neo?

[CFrankBernard]

You need a phone line connection.

Re:Hey Oracle, Why Not Neo?

[Aladrin]

I find your ideas interesting and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

No, seriously, why did you link to a parked domain? Did I miss the funny part?

Re:Hey Oracle, Why Not Neo?

[CFrankBernard]

Yeah, you missed it, but maybe there will be a glitch in the Matrix so you watch for it again.

Besides, I consider Ubuntu to be "Under Construction" too.

Re:Hey Oracle, Why Not Neo?

[WilliamSChips]

I'm Agent Smith, you insensitive clod!

Re:Hey Oracle, Why Not Neo?

[nowhere.elysium]

no, i think you need to check your links first. i'm quite happy with my 8MBit connection, actually.

Re:Hey Oracle, Why Not Neo?

[CFrankBernard]

Yeah, sure you are. That's what they all say.

Re:Hey Oracle, Why Not Neo?

[CFrankBernard]

Cute but not too bright. Almost every keyword of mine in this thread is from The Matrix. The Oracle already knows Neo.

Re:Hey Oracle, Why Not Neo?

[nowhere.elysium]

that's as may be, but you're definitely amusing no-one.

Re:Hey Oracle, Why Not Neo?

[CFrankBernard]

Good that not everyone gets it, as I intend for double entendres/puns to not be obvious/trite/stereotypical.

Steps to success...

[guabah]

1. Grab the packages from Ubuntu
2. Include the necesary patches, drivers and applications
3. Package it and distribute it
4. ????
5. Profit! $$$

Sounds easy enough. Right?

Oh and BTW:

They can get started in sync with the June release of Dapper

zealot attitudes destroy trust

[daniel_ortmann]

Why not Ubuntu? Zealot attitudes destroy trust.
Earlier today someone flamed a Linux release for the self-
righteous feeling it gave him. Such a person must NEVER
be given any real responsibility.

(By the way, I *do* use Ubuntu and I do *not* use Oracle.)

Funny change

[gregarican]

It's funny that Oracle, one of the world's largest database (and arguably most enterprise deployed) software manufacturers, *might* one day absorb Novell. Makes the old days of Netware with their crappy bundled BTrieve database engine look pretty pale by comparison. Ah...brings back memories:

LOAD BTRIEVE.NLM

CPU EXCEPTION ERROR (0x3H) ATH+++++++.............

A possible explanation

[babbling]

It could just mean Ubuntu has less people looking for technical help.

Re:A possible explanation

[everphilski]

Ubuntu is known for its community ... that is supposedly one of the selling points of the distribution.

Re:A possible explanation

[penthouseplayah]

Gentoo has been in the game for what 6 years?
Ubuntu started out 1,5 years ago.
Ubuntu is growing at 40.000 users a year, whereas Gentoo is only half of that.
On top of that. You probably NEED to be in the gentoo forums to use gentoo, it's It's pretty hard using a hacker distro without asking all kinds of questions.

Re:A possible explanation

[ankarbass]

Besides, you need somebody to talk with so you don't kill yourself waiting for it to install.

Cause it's not about the distro!

[truthsearch]

It's not about the distro. If it were they'd take a small team and customize their own disto. Novell offers services and software (much more than just an OS) to a wide range of governments and mid-sized companies. Oracle has owned the really big business market for a long time. They have a much harder time getting mid-sized and smaller customers. That's where Novell fits in today.

A Novell purchase would be about much more than a distro. It's a corporation with long-term contracts and consultants. Which distro they choose is almost insignificant in comparison.

Re:Cause it's not about the distro!

[happyfrogcow]

They could also take a gamble and buy SCO. In addition to all the high quality Tools (like Darl), they might end up owning linux entirely ;)

I kid, I kid!

Ubuntu?

[C_Kode]

Ok, as a desktop Ubuntu is great, but how does it compare in HA, fault tolerance, enterprise hardware support and other enterprise areas? Sure a Ubuntu Apache server is one thing but what about everything beyond the generic services like Email, FTP, HTTP, etc.

This is the reason my Linux servers arn't Gentoo, Ubuntu, and even Debian. I could use them for Email, FTP, etc, but I prefer to standardize my environment so I'm not emerging or apt-get on different servers because it's not an Oracle database or a critical financial package. SUSE and RedHat dump a ton of money in making their enterprise offerings capable.

I'm sure Oracle could fix this for Oracle's products, but you arn't going to get an DB2 help from Oracle or any other competing product. Oracle will kill any distribution that it buys as it would be in their best interest to incorporate Oracle into it as a single product relegating any other OS as unneeded overhead. (my last statement is obviously only an opinion)

Re:Bad Idea

[stinerman]

He could at least try to duplicate his famous sig.

Its about competition

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can take out the competion at the same time you are buying into a marketplace you win on two fronts. Ubuntu is not a player (When compared to Novel/redhat)

ALL DBs are complete dogs if not properly

[Anonymous Coward]

designed/tuned...

people just happened to get paid more for doing it on Oracle. I support both (and occasionally M$/SQL at gunpoint) in a high-volume environment and luckily my pay is based on my Oracle experience/skill (though I have acquired a lot of respect for MySQL in the last two years).

Re:ALL DBs are complete dogs if not properly

[saleenS281]

I realize that, but not according to oracle sales :) Unfortunately for us, the powers that be listened to sales instead of listening to tech. We all know that's how it usually works out in such cases though.

Re:ALL DBs are complete dogs if not properly

[Anonymous Coward]

Having recently shopped for a database, I can say that the one place MySQL/Postgres can't touch Oracle is on the redundancy / enterprise features side. Yes MySQL can cluster but the overhead is very high (any database larger than a few gigs is unfeasible) and Postgres' cluster support is so buggy at the moment it can't even be considered for commercial use.

Re:ALL DBs are complete dogs if not properly

[Tim C]

Sales guys in "talk up plus points, hide bad points" shock... ;)

Ubuntu, or possibly Mandriva?

[dcavanaugh]

Full disclosure: I own a small number of NOVL and RHAT shares.

Compared to Novell, I think it would be more practical for Oracle to acquire Ubuntu or Mandriva. If I owned ORCL I would rather see them get into Linux by purchasing a Linux-only company.

NOVL has alot of legacy stuff that is of no value to ORCL (although it throws off enough revenue to give them some breathing room while they figure out how to operate as an open source company). RHAT has been relatively successful in monetizing Linux, but the share price includes alot of future expectations. I own both of these and would benefit nicely if ORCL buys either one. But I doubt they will.

Canonical Ltd. looks like they are privately held and might be a relatively easy buy. On the other hand, they seem quite serious about keeping Ubuntu "free as in beer". Mandriva is more of a conventional company. They are publicly traded, and they sell nothing other than Linux and related services. Although they try to avoid giving away the product, Mandriva never crossed the dreaded "Caldera line". As a result, they have a viable product (a Red Hat derivative that could use some work) and their name is unblemished.

Re:Ubuntu, or possibly Mandriva?

[Elektroschock]

I agree that a takeover of Mandriva would be best choice.

Mandriva is strong and solid. It fits to Oracles product line. Many ERP software manufacturers chose Mandriva. Mandriva is also strong aimed at the desktop, the French Suse so to speak.

And I assume Mandriva would be a cheap takeover.

Re:Ubuntu, or possibly Mandriva?

[GauteL]

"Canonical Ltd. looks like they are privately held and might be a relatively easy buy."

In what way does privately held mean easy buy? It all depends on the owner. In this case, Canonical is own pretty much exclusively by Mark Shuttleworth of notorious wealth. Ubuntu is basically his "pet" and he has absolutely no need to sell it.

My thoughts exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

Hear, hear!

Plus, Oracle seems fundamentally incapable of managing a project with publicly acccessible source code.[0]

Oracle buying Ubuntu would be like... BayStar investing in SCO? It wouldn't help Oracle (it'd torpedo some portion of their Linux sales, as Red Hat shops would prefer a database from someone who's not competing with their OS vendor), but it would help Microsoft -- take the most accessible, user-friendly flavor of Linux (as Caldera/SCO's Network Desktop arguably was in the early 1990s) and suffocate it. Lessee, the only OSes that run easily on my laptop are Windows and that buggy (because Oracle wouldn't maintain it) Oracabuntu? MSFT suddenly wouldn't seem so bad.

That said, since the mid-90s I've thought that software companies ought to do what Google, Barracuda, and others [including, on the very small scale, companies like Linksys] have been doing lately -- sell server appliances. Offer your database customers an alternative to multipage release notes with kernel tuning and other platform requirements for your software, and just ship them an x86/x64 server with everything pre-configured. When you look at Oracle "power unit" pricing, the server hardware's a small fraction of the real system cost. Oracle could do that without buying any distro, though, as others have noted.

[0] Yes, I know Oracle uses ancient versions of the Apache group's software, but that's considerably different from shipping apps with licenses that would require Oracle to expose the source code, bugs and all.

Are we missing the point?

[Dealer MacDope]

"Oracle, which is looking only for an OS and not for any of the baggage associated with Novell, like Netware" Ya, baggage like UNIX rights? Helloooooo!

Duh...

[big.ears]

Ellison's announcement was not about acquiring Novell--it was an announcement meant to punish Red Hat for acquiring JBoss out from under Oracle's nose. If Ellison can't have JBoss, he's threatening to compete directly against the firm that has it. The stock market has taken back all the gains RHAT had since they announced the JBoss deal; down 5-6% yesterday. So forget about Ubuntu, this is just PR.

Re:Duh...

[Elektroschock]

Now Oracle getting Mandriva makes a lot of sense to me. And an alliance with Debian too.

Re:Duh...

[PCM2]

Ellison's announcement was not about acquiring Novell--it was an announcement meant to punish Red Hat for acquiring JBoss out from under Oracle's nose. If Ellison can't have JBoss, he's threatening to compete directly against the firm that has it.

"If Ellison can't have JBoss" -- ummmm. Do you really think Red Hat could have stopped Oracle from acquiring JBoss, if that's what Ellison really wanted? Obviously Oracle evaluated the option and passed on it.

Why not Oracle?

[digitaldc]

Just hire some people and make your own software? Is this too hard?

Not going to happen

[xenocide2]

Two obvious reasons: 1) Ubuntu focuses its efforts on the desktop. Oracle's software is server oriented. The two could mix but there's many better options out there for Oracle.

2) Ubuntu is Shuttleworth's pet project. It's not his get rich quick scheme. Profitability is important, but I think he's more interested in Ubuntu actively contributing to the communities from which his fortune grew. Selling to anyone, Oracle included, would be an inadvertant admission that someone else is more qualified to direct how Ubuntu contributes than he is. And given Oracle's track record with acquisitions, I doubt someone who's number one priority isn't profit would sell to Oracle.

Re:Not going to happen

[Anonymous Coward]

Oracle is in business to do 2 things: sell their world-class database software and sell everything else they can create. They don't care about which OS their products run on - I don't think they care if they have their own OS. They want to approach a company with a total solution, an "All Oracle" solution.

Right now they can go into a potential customer and sell everything from the DB up to grid and app servers. But, the first thing they have to ask is: "What OS do you run?" They don't want to have to deal with someone elses pricing and licensing if they don't have to.

They want to walk in, plop down a software key and leave with a check - and then collect yearly support fees for the rest of their lives. It's a good business strategy. (IBM, Red Hat, Microsoft) all either do it that way or are moving in that direction.

So, forget about which Linux, and buy or build. They don't care. If they see any OS with market share, they are going to port all their software. Getting their own OS just makes it easier to market the rest of their stuff.

Think IBM pitching AIX, WebSphere, Tivoli and DB2 to everyone who will listen. Think Microsoft pitching Windows, IIS, MS SQLServer.

Re:Not going to happen

[xenocide2]

If Oracle wants their stuff to run on every possible system, then why's it so damn hard to get it up and running?

Database centric OS

[suggsjc]

I've long wondered why a database like Oracle didn't have its own tuned OS. Most (at least in my experience) oracle installations are on dedicated servers (the only app on the system is oracle). In fact, all of the projects that I have been on, the database servers had only oracle on them. Oracle is so resource intensive that it pretty much has to be the only thing.
So, why not create a platform that centers around just the database? Build the entire OS from the ground up (linux is a great starting point), but with a single thought in mind. Performance, scalibility, and security but specifically for a database. Everything from the filesystem to partitions to kernel modifications (haven't done kernel development, but would assume that there is stuff in there that a DB wouldn't need).
Don't get started about vendor lock-in, but you could also have HW that was designed specifically for this platform as well (Oracle certified or something like that...do they not already have that?).
Plus, with virtualization starting to pick up the pace. If you did want something other than oracle on a single piece of hardware, then you could just put your oracle OS on one of the virtual machines, then all of your other general purpose OSes of your favorite flavor on the other virtual machines. Hey Larry, if you need someone to help you out with that then I'd be willing to work for stock options.

Re:Database centric OS

[layer3switch]

There is. Mircle Linux.

http://www.miraclelinux.com/

It's a Japanese company which made a fork off Red Hat distro around Oracle and DBA centric needs. It's been around for years.

Re:Database centric OS

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually Oracle tried this awhile back (something iron was the name of the project I think). It didn't work because people like to fiddle. People want to buy an OS they know and love not one in a box.

I don't think so.

[layer3switch]

Ubuntu has been around for what... couple of years while Novell has been around close to couple of decades?

Buying out Ubuntu is like buying an empty paper bag while buying Novell is like buying paper bag with grocery in it.

Oracle should buy an ipod

[Error27]

Then they would be able to listen to beautiful music.

Will Never Happen

[Anonymous Coward]

A.) Mark Shuttleworth created Ubuntu as an act of humanitarianism for the world (especially developing world), not Profit!

B.) The huge developer / user base and community would evaporate the second Larry got his filthy paws on it and people would just fork Ubuntu into something else.

Umm... Oracle already -HAS- their own Linux distro

[Hobart]

Oracle already owns their own distro... home wiki google

--
Slashcode bug # 497457 - unfixed since December 2001 - Go look it up!

DB Appliance?

[jaweekes]

Maybe they want to have a DB Appliance? Makes sense to have one box pre-installed with Oracle and not have to worry about the OS, which has been tuned to give Oracle the best possible performance.

Just my $0.02

Netware Baggage?

[Anonymous Coward]

Netware baggage? Only on slashdot would you hear such drivel. Netware is what keeps Novell afloat. The OSS stuff that they just got is a small part of their revenue. Just check out the SEC filings $61.4 million for the first quarter for Netware as opposed to $10.4 million for Linux. I know it is hard not to show your ignorance, but next time, do some research in the matter before spouting off some nonsense.

why ubuntu?

[dfgchgfxrjtdhgh.jjhv]

nobody in their right mind would want to run oracle on ubuntu.

Two Reasons

[everphilski]

My point is: can someone please explain to me why Oracle needs to buy a distro, when they can just fork one?

1. Time

2. Money

Why not?

[Kennon]

Because they do not have the full suite I am sure Larry is interested in aquiring. Novell has a directory and a whole range of products from desktops to servers and everything in between. Outside of an office productivity suite Novell, regardless of their current state of functionality, has at least the framework already in place to be a full microsoft replacement. No other distro that I know of can say that. I think this is what Larry is shooting for. If he just wanted to pick up a linux distro he could pretty easily fork an existing one and make Oracle Linux or whatever.

I can see this...

[suitepotato]

...as the huggy-touchy-feely Ubuntu people make a ring holding hands around Larry Ellison's ego. Once they tackle that Bud Light hands across America thing this should be the next goal up the difficulty chart. They might need the entire western hemisphere and the population of western Europe, but it might be doable.

And how would this help Oracle?

[twocents]

Oracle wants to buy contracts, not an OS. Otherwise they would simply role their own. If they were to purchase a company like Novell, they would get the existing business as well as the ability to work with the SuSE OS.

Re:And how would this help Oracle?

[SwashbucklingCowboy]

Otherwise they would simply role their own.

Putting together a distro isn't that hard. Supporting it the way Novell and Red Hat do is hard. That's what Oracle would need to do.

Targeted towards 'n00bs'? Hardly.

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously haven't used Ubuntu very seriously if you think that its main purpose is to target the new Linux user market.

The Ubuntu philosophy is best summed up as: create a solid, sensible operating system using open source componentry.

It's the solid and sensible aspect of their philosophy that brings all of the benefits. They realize the necessity of security and high software quality. They also realize that overcomplication is a hinderence for both new users and experienced users.

We see many of the most experienced open source software developers using Ubuntu. Why do they use it? Because it offers a very powerful system with little hassle. Professional developers don't have time to waste configuring a system (ie. Slackware), or beta testing for some corporation (ie. Fedora). They need something that works right away, and Ubuntu provides just that.

A hallmark of good software is that it's just as good for experienced users as it is for new users. Mac OS X is one such system. Ubuntu is another. In its hey day, BeOS was another such system.

Just because Ubuntu is so well designed and implemented that it serves the interests of both new and experienced users alike, it does not mean that it targets mainly your so-called 'n00b' market.

Re:Targeted towards 'n00bs'? Hardly.

[Philodoxx]

Shhhhhhh you're going to lose your street cred with the linux elite. User friendliness is for the weak, didn't you know?

Re:Targeted towards 'n00bs'? Hardly.

[Poppler]

Shhhhhhh you're going to lose your street cred with the linux elite. User friendliness is for the weak, didn't you know?

Just change the theme to "simple", get rid of the boot splash and other Ubuntu artwork, and tell everyone you're running Debian unstable. Then you can still hang out with the cool people ;)

I Want Oracle to Buy Ubuntu

[Prototerm]

But then, I'm a die-hard Suse user, and want the big O to keep it's hands off my distro.

It's the Debian, Stupid

[bill_mcgonigle]

Ubuntu is based on Debian. SuSE is based on, well, SuSE.

Oracle can't own Debian. It think that pretty much covers it.

Re:It's the Debian, Stupid

[SwashbucklingCowboy]

Oracle can't own Debian.

They don't want to, after all Oracle can't own Linux either.

Re:It's the Debian, Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

SuSe was based on redhat

Re:It's the Debian, Stupid

[IANAAC]

SuSe was based on redhat

No it wasn't. If anything it was originally based on Slackware. Over time they incorporated many things that Redhat offered, such as RPMs and /etc/sysconfig structure.

But it was never based on Redhat.

Re:It's the Debian, Stupid

[bill_mcgonigle]

They don't want to, after all Oracle can't own Linux either.

Linux tends to be a quality driven. Oracle, after all, has its filesystem in the latest kernel release through quality work. I don't expect Linus much cares if anybody plans to use it so long as the work was done correctly, enhances the kernel and doesn't cause anybody problems.

But the user experience, and largely what most people consider an Operating System, is determined by the various distros. RedHat Enterprise looks alot different than Gentoo, or the linux IBM ships on their rescue partitions or VMWare uses for ESX Server.

These decisions are based on other individuals' idea of what makes for a good operating environment, and each has its own set of biases.

I'm not sure if Oracle wants something more like ESX server or more like Ubuntu these days. I guess it's dependent on what Larry Elison thinks of the Network Computer this year. One thing's for sure, he likes to poke Microsoft in the eye with sharp sticks.

Not a bad idea actually...

[TarrySingh]

Oracle should concentrate on desktop market. Server market is flooded enough and usurping..ahem merging with Redhat might seem like a logical marriage but it's the DESKTOP MARKET that will be the king soon.
And Ubuntu is probably the most human linux any human has ever seen...

Take another look

[WindBourne]

He owns the company with 100% stock. He hires ppl on and at good salaries but offers no stock. He is TOTALLY into this for the money. But I doubt that he would sell it to oracle at this time. It is too early. If he gets to the size of Redhat, then he will sell for billions.

A meta-question concerning the parent post

[Qbertino]

The semi-funny parent post goes along on the trouble of installing Oracle as compared to MySQL and/or Postgres. My experience is that any DB Server requires solid knowledge of it's workings in order to do a clean install. Postgres from scratch is just as painfull as any other. And just because you can apt-get install mysql doesn't mean it's usually easy to install.

My question: Isn't it the big problem with various DB engines that they are more or less very simular but all still have the anoyances we all associate with DBs since 25 years ago? (I'm asking the experts here, folks, not some wannabees) Are there any truly essential differences between, let's say, MySQL 5 and the current Oracle release?

They both use some SQL variant, they both are a fuss to get up and running and they both provide some kind of sort-of-usable bridge between the real world and true object-relational dreamland. Isn't that so? Correct me if I'm wrong. And before you go on about service and all that, detail on what Oracle has to offer that MySQL AB can't provide for equal or less costs. Thanks for any usefull reply.

Re:A meta-question concerning the parent post

[arivanov]

Answer is - No.

As one philosopher once upon a time said: "The language forms the thought". As long as you think in SQL you will be stuck in a 25 year old mentality regardless of the underlying engine. SQL as such is a language which is mostly synchronous. In fact most DBA pray to the god of synchronicity calling it the Holy ACID.

Well, do they like it or not 95%+ of modern applications which feed a DB are network based. Nearly all are asynchronous. Forcing synchronous execution on them kills the performance outright and this is what you get if you try to express their data flows solely in SQL terms.

The alternative is to split the schema into small subschemas each with its own ACID-ity, foreign keys and constraints and link them asynchronously at application level.

One problem though - in order to do this you need to stop thinking and expressing yourself solely in SQL. You need to invoke an additional abstraction layer and use an alternative language to express any asynchronous events and links. SQL limits your mental process so it should be used carefully only for what it is good at - scoping, isolation levels, locking, access granularity, synchronous data changes, transactions and general data access. For everything else use something else. Even perl is better.

Doesn't make sense to me

[SwashbucklingCowboy]

Oracle wants a distro aimed at enterprise servers. Ubuntu is aimed at the desktop. Admittedly, Ubuntu could morph, but then you'd lose a lot of what makes Ubuntu popular.

Oracle buying Ubuntu? Uh... okaayy..

[Heretik]

These corporate analyst wankers really don't understand the world of free software whatsoever, do they?

Not likely

[phaze3000]

I for one would be extremely surprised if Mark sold Ubuntu to Oracle. The guys got a ton of money (he's been into space for fscks sake!), Ubuntu seems to be a project that interests him - why sell it to a big corporation who would ruin it?

Of course, on the other hand, everything in Ubuntu is open source anyway, so what's to stop him selling Canonical to Oracle, then taking the same codebase and continuing as a new distro?

Re:Not likely

[SwashbucklingCowboy]

Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.>

Are you saying they're both clowns?

Re:Not likely

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Yes he is.

Stupid ass question

[tacocat]

Why Unbuntu?

Because they can't be recognized as an Enterprise Capable product with a company to back them up with resources, SLA's, and contractual gaurantees. That's why.

This is kind of a dumb question. Sure, Oracle could run on Debian or anything else, but none of these products are making any significant inroads into the corporate american businesses who would purchase Oracle in the first place. It would make as much sense as buying out Amiga.

Re:Stupid ass question

[revery]

It would make as much sense as buying out Amiga.

Hey, you should read Dvorak's column tomorrow...

Re:Stupid ass question

[sl3xd]

Why Unbuntu

Fanboys.

Ubuntu is the trendy distro fanboys are google-eyed over at the moment. SuSE and Fedora are sooo 2003. Ubuntu is still a new name, and therefore 'fresh.' Not to bash Ubuntu, but I'm just not impressed with it. APT? Debian's had it for years. Easy install? No corner on the market; Red Hat, SuSE have this base covered as well. And the install doesn't matter after the first 30 minutes. Features? It's the same software as every other distro on the planet. Minor patches that do nothing to actual functionality don't differentiate Ubuntu. Software Selection? Pretty much the same as everybody else. Performance? Guess what? Every distro uses GCC, and every distro uses nearly identical compiler flags. Net result: Nearly identical performance.

The stereotypical fanboy is the computing equivalent of a blowhard; lots of talk, very little walk. To a fanboy, whatever distro they have installed is obviously the best distro, and is therefore be the best choice for (insert company here). Any statement to the contrary is attacked rabidly, no matter what the actual facts are.

It's like watching NASCAR fans cheer for the same make of car they own. Except distro wars are even less interesting, since crashes are common in NASCAR.

Re:Stupid ass question

[tacocat]

Very well put. About the only property that differentiates Ubunto from everyone else seems to be the Pop Culture aspect. I do think APT is something that might set them apart except that they didn't create it. They could well be making a good case for why having many distros is a Bad Thing if it can be shown that Ubuntu migrants are coming from the parent Debian, thereby reducing the effectiveness of user feedback in bugsquashing and general user support.

Seeing as I've never installed it, I can't say much about it, but I think it's going to be hard to beat the Debian installer anymore. While largely still black and white without all the cute graphics, you only have to hit about 6 times to install a workstation. Everything else is figured out for you. If you count button presses, it's easier than Suse or Redhat.

I think we missed something.

[big dumb dog]

The whole premise of this article is that Ubuntu would be a better fit because Oracle won't have to support Novell applications.

...did someone miss the fact that Oracle has only supported Red Hat & SuSE for the past several years? (nothing like trading one problem for another).

Plus, I don't see the Debian people going out of their way to satisfy the all the BS that would come out of this

Counterquestion

[drinkypoo]

What about Oracle and Larry makes anyone think they would want to answer to Ubuntu community every time they want a change to make an Oracle application run better?

What about Oracle and Larry makes you think they would answer to the Ubuntu community every time they want a change to make an Oracle application run better? They'd just do it.

Ubuntu and Oracle - strange bedfellows?

[russbutton]

Ubuntu - "Humanity to others"

Larry Ellison's Oracle - "In-humanity to others"

What is Ubuntu?

[denix0]

Yeah, Oracle swallows Ubuntu and we don't hear about it anymore. Rest in peace, Ubuntu - Gentoo is the only true reli^H^H^H^Hdistro! :)

Seriously though, unlike RedHat or Novell, Ubuntu is probably too small to make an impact for Oracle...

Oracle already owns a Linux distro....

[jschmuck]

Miracle - Oracle ... get it ? Miracle Linux
Capital -400,000,000yen
Oracle Corporation Japan 50.5%

Hardly

[alienmole]

I seems unlikely that Shuttleworth is "TOTALLY" into this for the money. If that's really so, then he's not thinking straight, because there are many other investment opportunities that in all likelihood will dwarf the returns he's going to get on having invested in Ubuntu. IOW, if he were really TOTALLY into it for the money, he'd be doing something else. There seem to be motivations at work here other than, or in addition to, money.

Re:Hardly

[WindBourne]

While you have a good point about the use of the TOTALLY, there really is not other great opportunties save the Space industry. He is trying to get into something before it becomes huge and grow the industry. Basically, Linux is one of the few (if only ) real plays going on in the tech industry. Right now, there is no other market that is not saturated.

i don't get it

[neersign]

I'm still pretty new to the linux scene, but I don't understand why Oracle would even think of BUYING a linux distro. I'm sure there's more to it, but the only difference I have seen between Slackware, Debian, RedHat, and DSL (just the ones i'd tried) is 1) their standard apps 2) how conf files are stored/handled and 3)their package management. If Oracles only goal is to create a custom OS centered around their DB, they might as well head over to linuxfromscratch.org and build their own custom distro. otherwise, how is it truly going to be a custom OS? It will just be a distro with Oracle included.

mod question

[tomcres]

Can I actually mod down an article, not just the comments?

Re:mod question

[alphasubzero949]

-5, Ludicrous.

Cheap clusters?

[Jeppe Salvesen]

Maybe Oracle wants to provide a plug'n'play cluster solution? With OS and relabelled hardware? If they got a good deal on the hardware from some vendor and the OS was pretty much free and controlled by them - then they would end up with more money in their pockets while the TCO for the customer would be reduced.

Does this make sense?

Keeps changing

[jeriqo]

2 years ago, everyone talked about Debian, Debian, Debian..
1 year ago, Debian sucked and it was all Gentoo, Gentoo, Gentoo..
Now it's the Unbutu-thing.

Come on, Oracle are not teenagers, they want something serious.

Actually, those are arguments in favor

[HighOrbit]

Not sure if Ubuntu is the way to go, but Oracle having its own Linux-OS would be great for all the reasons that you mentioned about fiddling with the kernel parameters and installing lib_compat_this, lib_compat_that, Patch_set_this and Patch_set_that.

Imagine if all that was obviated because the DB installer was also the OS installer. Basically, you would start with a blank unpartitioned hdd (or array of blanks), boot the DVD, answer a few pointy-clicky questions in the Oracle installer, go get a cup of coffee and read the newspaper while the files copy, and 30 minutes later you'll have a fully configured Oracle DB on RAID. Headache free install. And, you would never have to worry about your OS updates breaking Oracle. Sweet.

speaking of Oracle sales...

[Anonymous Coward]

I am married to an Oracle sales weasel so I have mixed feelings - they are incredibly arrogant and due for a fall but as long as somebody has to get paid what their sales weasels do (most people would be stunned) it might as well be somebody with whom I share bank accouts. ;-)

I, for one...

[alienmole]

I don't really disagree, although I think there are other opportunities in the tech industry (I'll tell you what they are if you have $10m to invest... ;)

In any case, if he succeeds, I for one welcome our new Shuttleworthy overlord! He couldn't possibly be any worse than Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, or Scott McNealy.

Re:I, for one...

[WindBourne]

If he succeeds, he will be moving on. Basically, he has gotten a taste of building a company and then flipping it. More likely than not, he will sell it in about 4 years and go into something such as space or maglevs.

some of the baggage...

[Anonymous Coward]

and not for any of the baggage associated with Novell, like Netware.

So, Oracle wouldn't be interesting in owning the copyright and licensing for Unix?

Hey Oracle ...

[kkovach]

... stay the hell away from Ubuntu! Please, I beg you!

Because of the name

[Lord Kestrel]

No one is going to take them seriously if they come to market with a product called Ubuntu Breezy Badger. There are enough fart jokes already, we don't need to usher in a whole new series of them.

What do you buy when you buy an OSS company?

[hey!]

Not IP, other than a few odd trademarks maybe.

Mainly you buy relationships: Customers, employees, contributors, sales channels and so forth.

So, Oracle is NOT going to by Ubuntu,because there is nothing that Ubuntu has to offer they can't get for free. Novell has a variety of IP. Red Hat has existing customer relationships. Ubuntu doesn't even appear to offer support contracts -- just a la carte.

Relax, Oracle can't but Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu is sponsored by Canonical, but not owned. If Oracle buys Canonical, there will still be Ubuntu; Linux distribution developed and guareded by Ubuntu Foundation. Oracle would have it's developers in it (wich would likely leave Canonical then).

So, this is stupid article from a man who doesn't understand the problem.

On Larry's place, I would buy Mandriva.

mod up

[Billly Gates]

Your post summarizes of what I was about to say that is the obvious.

Oracle wants NDS .. err eDirectory and Zenworks and not Linux.

Oracle is not just a database company and they are buying out software development firms(like JBOSS) and ERP companies.

Oracle has been trying to make eDirectory clone for awhile for managed user athentication and storage. What gives Oracle a woody is the fact that a database would be needed for all of this and the fact that they could hurt Microsoft by using integration and product tie-in.

The benefit of going with an all Microsoft solution is integration and it drives Larry Ellison crazy. I think Oracle is buying companies like peoplesoft, jboss, and maybe Novell is to have some sort of platform to develop an integrated stack.

Re:Umm... Oracle already -HAS- their own Linux dis

[Billly Gates]

mod up

This comes to show my theory that its not SuSE Linux Oracle wants but its Zenworks and eDirectory software to integrate with its own products.

How about just getting the clients working?

[pddo]

I am aware that sqlplus works (well) on Ubuntu through their instantclient, but what about sql loader (sqlldr) and other such apps? That would be a start at least...

Arrogance on Parade!

[twitter]

In today's FT, Ellison said:

[the first reason he's not buying any Linux company is because the companies are too expensive] If an open source product gets good enough, well simply take it, he said. We can do that, IBM can do that, HP can do that anyone with a large support organisation is free to take that intellectual property and embed it in their own products. ..."I believe JBoss is a $16m company breaking even, MySQL is a $30m company breaking even, said Mr Ellison.

You can build a sustainable business [in open source], you just cant charge a lot for it. Theres brand value theres real brand theres people, and thats it.

The second reason for not buying a Linux company, according to Mr Ellison, is the risk that other big technology companies would abandon it. I dont see how we could possibly buy Red Hat IBM would just say, Larry, congratulations, were going our own way, he said.

I'd hate to be working for someone who thought and said things like that. It's true that a free software company is mostly it's people. His low valuation of that asset is what's troubling.

His second reason is more correct and shows how wrong the first point is. No one would trust his distro. Talent, trust and freedom are more valuable commodities than he imagines.

He's so close to understanding, yet so very far.

Re:Arrogance on Parade!

[willyhill]

Judging from your tone and spelling, I'd say someone else has an arrogance problem.

I'd bet good money you think Bill Gates is an idiot - now Larry Ellison is probably one as well, right? And the next incredibly successfull person who says something you don't like about open source will probably earn that title as far as you're concerned.

People like you need to grow up and recognize the world is not the black and white affair you think it is.

Story = Comment generating, ad-clicking, flamebait

[fbg111]

Honestly, could it be anything else? Oracle + Ubuntu = ridiculous, for reasons already elaborated on by other posters, not the least of which is that Ubuntu is targeted at the DESKTOP. For that matter, FreeBSD would make more sense for Oracle than Ubuntu.

forgot the link

[twitter]

FT Article

Why there's no Oracle Linux.

[twitter]

If all Oracle wanted was a Linux O/S distribution then what would stop them from simply going to a particular distribution's website and downloading it?

The GPL and Larry's big head. If he really understood how free softare worked, he would be trying to stop defections to postgress and mysql by acting more like IBM.

Re:Why there's no Oracle Linux.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi fucktard. I just found this and I thought you'd enjoy reading it.

Later!

They need a stack

[tallsails]

Its clear the industry is consolidating to a few major players with a complete stack. MSFT has one, SUN has one, IBM has an "assemblage" of one, Oracle needs to join one (SUN?) or become one. www.tallsails.com

Ubuntu Security

[JewFish]

Ubuntu isn't that the distrobution that was storing passwords in a readable plaintext file? Sounds like a great OS for Oracle.

Re:Ubuntu Security

[Johan Palmqvist]

IIRC it was in the installer log file (which is not used by the system itself) but the bug is well known and was promptly fixed so today it's not an issue.

Hey Oracle, why not stop making products?

[lostlyre]

Because they are busted and overpriced anyway.

If Only

[Anonymous Coward]

8h installs sound optimistic. In my experience, migrating an existing datbase with features like RAC can take months to get right. There are usually a significant number of bugs, including Oracle seg faults, to work through. Especially if you try to use a more recent version or include any of their db options, like EM, XMLDB, etc. Then there is app testing, load testing,...

Oracle is, by far the worst install process of any piece of software that I have ever come across in my 20 years of experience. The only worse installs are earlier versions of Oracle. The layered products also tend to be extremely buggy.

That said, once setup, the db part, is pretty solid, and has features you just can't find in other db products. Its a pretty powerful feature set.

On the whole I like it, but I stay away from it whenever possible because of the bizarre license structure, fees and the nightmare install, patch, upgrade issues. Simple is often better.

Oracle Already on Debian

[Anonymous Coward]

If you haven't noticed, Oracle is now offering a .deb package for their express database. Not that 9i was that difficult to get running on Debian in the first place.

WTF..

[Intangion]

Does this topic scare the crap out of anyone else?

the idea of Oracle buying (and ofcourse then ruining) Ubuntu makes me sad ;(

Re:Hey Oracle, Why Not Neo? (Ellison=Shuttleworth)

[copdk4]

It seems that you've been living two lives. One life, you're Mr Ander(Larry)son, a CEO of a respectable software company. You have a social security number, pay your taxes, and you... help your landlady carry out her garbage. The other life is lived in computers, where you go by the hacker alias Shuttleworth and are guilty of virtually every computer crime we have a law for. One of these lives has a future, and one of them does not.

thats right OraUbuntu is the real Matrix !!!

Because its a rounding error compared to redhat

[Anonymous Coward]

Be serious already. When was the last time you heard "Hey lets use Ubuntu!" in corporate america. A) The fact that theyve heard of Linux at all is a miracle, and B) If they have all they've heard of is redhat. If you have to ask "Why?" then you can go hang out in the corner named "Obscurity" with the FreeBSD, and Debian guys. And SuSE.... Its like a pinecone... nobody knows what to do with it.

What Oracle really should do

[wysiwia]

It doesn't matter much which distribution Oracle uses and it definitely doesn't make sense to create yet another distribution. Oracle is much better advised to join a distribution best fitting for their use. This certainly means a Debian based. IMHO Oracle is best advised to size with Mark Shuttleworth (Canonical) and bring Ubuntu Enterprise to production quality.

To fight against Microsoft's Windows Server systems or IBM's AIX/Linux systems, an enterprise Linux needs to have a GUI these days. My current choice for Oracle would be XFCE since it's light weight and sufficient for any server task.

But for a successful Linux strategy Oracle also needs to get rid of their Java based installer. With wxWidgets http://www.wxwidgets.org/ there's a perfectly suited cross-platform alternative which is much easier to use and support on Linux and even on other systems.

O. Wyss

Oracle need a server distro : mandrake ?

[savril2]

I don't think Ubuntu is a good choice for Oracle. It's desktop centric and there's not much work on the server side.
Redhat would be the best choice as a server distro. Oracle has already done much work to provide RH compatible packages. But you don't buy enemies.
Novell would be a good choice also, not only for the Suse distro but also to buy other applications made by Novell and to have the large user base of Novell. They really complete each other applications catalog.
Mandriva (Mandrake distribution) could be also a good choice. It's really cheap : 27 M (33 M$) vs 2 913 M$ for Novell and 5 097 M$ for Red hat. Mandrake is a RPM distro so there would be not much work to adapt redhat rpms. They have successfully passed a transition from desktop-centric to server-centric and they have customer services like redhat.
So imho, they'll buy Mandriva if they only want a linux distro or buy Novell if they want a bigger breakfast. Larry love to eat other companies so I think Novell Linux will be Oracle Linux soon.
Too bad, I liked the way Novell seemed less like a big corp.

What about OpenBSD then?

[DimGeo]

I know OpenBSD doesn't exactly hold the performance crown, but it does fit your description of 'a stable, no frills server'.

Ubuntu is NOT for sale

[k33l0r]

One might note that Ubuntu is NOT for sale.

From the http://www.ubuntu.com/ site:

Ubuntu will always be free of charge, and there is no extra fee for the "enterprise edition", we make our very best work available to everyone on the same Free terms.