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IBM to Oracle - You Can't Buy Open Source
mrops writes "CNET has up a short article about IBM's reaction to Oracle's recent acquisitions. From the article: 'Handy was responding to comments made by Oracle CEO Ellison to the Financial Times, where he said that he wanted Oracle to control a 'full stack' of software, including the Linux operating system. If Oracle did try to buy a Linux distributor, such as Red Hat or Novell, Handy said 'we'd stick to our strategy of having two or more independent distributors and have to wait and see what happens.'" It should be pointed out, as noted in yesterday's Slashback, that Ellison has no intentions of purchasing Red Hat.
Oracle to IBM: No, but we can buy the people.
Oracle doesn't want to buy Open Source, they want to buy installed bases.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
why not? Novell bought Suse. ProxyFree
Why can't a company buy an open source project? Bring the developers on board, retain controlling rights, enforce licensing, etc... All OS means is that the code is published. Contrary to (supposed) popular believe, software, in and of itself, has no desire to be 'free.'
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
All your *installed* bases are belong to us!
I could have put something more sexual in the subject, but decided not to.
That would mean becoming innovative, opening themselves up to new ideas, new ways of thinking. Can't have that! Then they might actually be able to compete with Microsoft.
Hmmmmm... my sarcasm detector is going off...
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
anyone else notice that this post has a link to the same site as the one at the bottom of this very page by the copyright?
When Ellison says "We're not interested in RedHat / Novell right now," he means RIGHT NOW. Share prices rise on acquisition news and fall when those acquisitions fail to materialize. If he says "We're not buying RedHat," then the recent gains RedHat has seen because of the oracle takeover talk will probably go away (AFAIK there are no other suitors.)
Both Oracle and IBM have got it wrong. If you've ever tried to install:
- DB2
- Oracle
- WebSphere
on a RedHat or SuSE , the first thing you notice is...both Oracle and IBM tried to make the installation easy by putting a shitty JAVA GUI on the thing. Two problems with this: it forces you to have to install JAVA and X windows eithier on your server (in the DMZ? I don't THINK so!) or to have to install just the X windows client bits on your sever along with Java...and then bring in a laptop that you attach to your server on a temporary network while the network is offline, yada yada yada....WHY NOT JUST WRITE A FRICKIN' RPM???? HUH? LIKE, ALONG WITH A PROPER DAEMON SCRIPT SO YOU CAN START AND STOP ORACLE, DB2, WebSphere, Etc Etc Etc in a single command-line, in the STANDARD LINUX WAY???? D'ya THINK????? DUH!
A couple of people have tried to write an open-source RPM/daemon script suite around these packages, but of course -- then a new version of the proprietary DB/web service comes out.
And both Oracle and IBM are rolling in dough, why would anyone do this for them for free?
If a sysadmin got the freedom to run Open Source anything, they'll switch to PhP/MySQL and/or PostGreSQL (depending on whether they need triggers or not) soon enough ANYWAY
Oracle could drastically increase its install base in the Linux community just by demonstrating some rudimentary competence in the area of standard Linux server systems software management.
If that's the case, they're both basically right -- Oracle certainly can buy companies (for example) that have teams working on open source projects, and thereby gain a fair amount of control over the direction that project is likely to take. IBM's right as well though. If (for example) Oracle were to buy Novell, others could still do whatever they liked with Linux and ignore Oracle if they chose to do so.
An investment into open source development gives only the power to persuade, not coerce. The power of persuasion, however, should not be underestimated -- especially if the persuasion is an honestly free offer.
The universe is a figment of its own imagination.
Not true
I've scripted (without GUI) installation of DB2, Websphere & Orrible no problemo just by reading the fine manual. You could too.
They get a lot of good packages with the purchase. Are they going to integrate them into Oracle's product offerings? I'm personally not very convinced that they should be using SuSE for an Oracle Linux Server type product. It's a good desktop, but pretty bloated. It would seem to me that the best alternative would be to get a light-weight distribution for free and build on that. Oracle already has an installed base, and I'm sure they could get people to use Oracle Linux on a server that is going ot be purely for database use.
Hell, the only people in the equation that might gripe would be the Oracle DBAs who would face the threat posed by an easier to install and configure Oracle system. Once they have full control over the operating system, Oracle could do a lot to really streamline the process of getting Oracle up and running in a secure way.
Anyone else also wondering if this is not in fact a response to Sun's warming up to PostgreSQL?
While I can't speak for DB2 or Websphere, Oracle RDBMS will be happily installed as a tarball. You only need X for the first install.
You also don't have to install your own copy of java.
If you don't know this much then you've never really touched the Oracle end of this.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
My new catchphrase is "It's not a binary concept". Slavery was a form of contract labor with a non-terminating cotract. When people sold slaves they essentially sold the contract for their labor. When a company buys another company, it buys all the contracts that company has with it's workers.
Oracle, like IBM, Sun and others are still all experimenting with the ways that they can make FOSS development work for them. Oracle is not likely to try to "own" any distribution of Linux, there's no profit or future in that. Instead they, like everyone else, want to set the open standards. Leading on open standards is leading the competiton. Rebecca Henderson, Professor of Management at MIT, has a a great talk on the new hyper-competitive world of open source. You can view it for free through MIT's Open Course Archive: http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/274/
Problem solved. No I don't know the relative values of the companies.
Anybody else remember the skit, I think it was from SNL, that had Bill Gates whistling 2400 baud into a telephone, and at the end he reveals that he just bought a sports team? The punchline is something like "I didn't just buy the team, I mean I bought the individual people!"
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
>WHY NOT JUST WRITE A FRICKIN' RPM????
Thank you very much! My sentiments exactly!
Didn't IBM just buy this opensource project: http://geronimo.apache.org/ and make it http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/websphere/? 1) Take open source software 2) Brand it 3) Profit?
Right, you have to do what IBM does. Find/start a bunch of BSD type projects and give them a bunch of money and some support. When they get to a level where you can start monetizing the product take all your code and developers and bring them in house. Stop contributing back to the product and move on to the next one. Make motions that seem to help with new open source projects that are really just a stepping stone to the big money makers.
Your Oracle server in the DMZ? Is this common place? I would never think of putting my Oracle cluster in a DMZ. I can't think of any reason for Oracle to be in the DMZ...
Because this doesn't deal with the issue of migrations, etc., or any other scenario where you take into account a "non-standard" file system layout, etc.
Also, how do you deal with multiple oracle homes with an RPM?
Hell, I can't get my Apache install to upgrade properly with RPM's without fscking things up, so there's no way I'm going to trust Oracle updates, etc, to an RPM. (yeah, could be operator error, but it's frustrating and very "non-point-and-click" none the less).
Needless to say, you can very easily install Oracle without X or Java, and you don't need a GUI... you can do a silent install that is scripted.
You can even record your answers in a DEV environment and use that as the source for your scripted installation.
Besides, who in their right mind installs anything in a Production environment, never mind a DMZ, using a manual, GUI-based installer?
$0.02 (CDN)
From: Larry Ellison
To: IBM
SUBJ: Your note to us about Open Source
Dear IBM,
Piss off. I have two Mig jets and a really big-ass boat. I can buy anything I want.
Oraclistically Yours,
Larry
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
This was my initial thought as well.
Except then I remembered that Oracle isn't just databases.
They're also web/application servers, ldap servers, portal servers, email servers, etc.
And they all use the same installer technology.
$0.02 (CDN)
Oh... and then I gave him the benefit of the doubt.
$0.02 (CDN)
I'm with you on the X thing, and with needing Java to install DB2, but how do you expect a Java Application Server (WebSphere) to run without Java installed? If you don't want Java in your DMZ, then WebSphere is not an option for you in the first place.
this is getting old and so are you
blog
Hey...I thought it was funny.
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
"All OS means is that the code is published"
You are only 1/10th correct.
Wrong- Even Microsoft admitted this was wrong.
Now go read up and become an educated Slashbot.
http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php
1) Free Distibution
2) Source code
3) Derived works
4) Integrity of The Author's Source Code
5) No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
6) No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
7) Distribution of License
8) License Must Not Be Specific to a Product
9) License Must Not Restrict Other Software
10)License Must Be Technology-Neutral
As usual, a bunch of apologisers...
/ApplicationX directory. I mean who are you to screw with my root filesysem!? Assume you've got a lot of libs. "Can not find shared library xxxxx...". I mean is a basic check for a lib in the setup script that hard? It's a lot easier for you to check than for me to track done libs parent packages. A reasonable init script anyone????? Our pure open source servers generally can have a few related things running on it and everything gets along nicely. Trying to do that with closed source applications generally causes a big mess. A lot of times the vendors won't even allow it. They come and install the OS. Generally a "full install" with 30 ports open. Turn off SELinux. Turn off the firewall. chmod -R 777 /. The server will probably never see an update. Custom /etc/profile. Sometimes creating their own specialized filesystem. Everything must run as root. Weird things like special sleep times between init scripts. "Yes, we support red hat 9 and United Linux 1.0". "So you're going to have to go into the /sys filesystem and modify a few things before you can start the daemon."
While it's not the end of the world, it certainly is very annoying. A lot of closed source software installable on Linux does this crap. They'll do things like create their own
It's almost as if a lot of these companies support linux as an afterthought and completely half ass it. Many times, it's LOAD's more work to install and configure properly. There are some exceptions, but in general, closed source on Linux seems half-assed and more like they are just jumping on the bandwagon.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
I don't think it's that bad to expect Java to be available to install WebSphere, seeing as you need Java to be available to run the damn thing.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
A sarcasm detector? Oh, that's a really useful inven*POOF*
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
> WHY NOT JUST WRITE A FRICKIN' RPM????
'cause here at IBM/Oracle/Microsoft/ViceCorp we know what is best for you, and we know that we're the standard and that noone is interested by having a standard way to install many software from different vendors on a given system. It's much more convenient for users to have each vendor have its own way to package things. Here at Microsoft we have graphical installers and store configuration in registry, this is our best practice, we don't give a glance at the obvious fact that this cripples any software that could have the ambition of going multiplatform. Here at SUN, we believe everyone has Java (tm) and will be happy with our lightweight SWING platform which is so standard it's been ported to linux-i386 (wow, that's dversity!!!), and we also know people will love the look'n'feel of our applications because it's the standard, and it's the same on old platforms. Here at IBM, we swear the universal application platform is Eclipse, and anyways every single app in the world will end up as an Eclipse plugin, so who cares about the rest? Here at Oracle we believe the RDBMS is the center of any entreprise-ready application, there's not one single app out there which does not need to be powered by the most complicated^Wpowerfull software in the world and grid computing is for the masses.
This is called: vendor lock-in. At least it's a form of it. Because you're strong and people need your software badly, you do whatever you want, if it's different from what others do, it will give you a decisive advantage in case others can't catch up fast enough with your technology. As a side effect, you might even be able to charge for special learning sessions where you'll share all your valuable knowledge about your very specific processes, which are the fruit of so many years of expertise in that domain. Note that .rpm and .deb
zealots certainly do not have any clue on what packaging is, a good'ol myapp.bin
is much more portable and efficient, we'll teach you that for $3000 a weak...
Obviously what we need is standard packaging for these products. But this is not what we'll have. Not until they feel weak and start thinking that going open might help save their businesses from total wreckage.
Charles Wyble System Engineer
See how this goes here, AC today:
Seems like treacherous computing would break any number of those rules then. It is incompatable with any Open Source/Free definition.
If I have code designed to run on x86 but it only runs on x86-treacherous, that means it is machine specific, breaks the license.
It is not technology neutral, breaks the license.
If I don't have a treacherous computer (my political philosophy)and want to run someone's allegedly "free" software on my non treacherous but near identical computer and it won't run, that is discriminating against me personally,therefore it breaks the license.
If the code means I can't run other code next to it because it doesn't pass the treacherous test, that means it breaks the license *if* it would run otherwise.
And so on. Getting closer to the mass class action lawsuits time it appears, no matter what, you just can NOT trust ANY large company any more.
There's just something about money, once you have more than you need, humans seem to just get greedier. They may start out non greedy, but I have yet to meet a truly non greedy rich person.
Now combine that human trait as it manifests as a corporate mindset that you MUST get wealthier-not just stay at a quite comfortable level, oh noes! No, no, no,no, that just would not do at-all. That just isn't good enough, you *must* keep getting richer and more powerful, no matter what it takes or what level you are currently at. You aren't allowed to be "full", you must keep gorging and gorging until you puke all over, then stuff in more and more and more.
Legalized bulimia, that's all corporations are, and they push that as some "good" thing, something to strive for..
The system is broken, time to rethink this whole deal.
Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on where one stands I suppose...), the world scam/banking/corporate economy will implode from the upcoming mass resource wars,(there is no way to avoid them now, sorry to anyone thinking the future was guaranteed just wonderful) and with it the insane "money is God" culture. The bulk of the greedy pure money oriented money-bulemic business yuppies just won't make it through it, they do not have anything like the mindset or life-skills required to deal with situations that don't involve money and exploitation and greed. I am very generally speaking (which means I really don't care about anyones alleged exception to the rule, I will grant there must be a few cases out there...), but I feel that is a fair assessment of the situation..
As it pertains back to software..I am starting to not care. I used to but am rapidly losing interest.
With software patents all being garnered by the top players, software itself is within a decade 9whatever, a short time frame now) of being just totally hosed. Borked, hosed, effed up, frozen, screwed, dicked.
I fail to see how intelligent people can't run a simple graph or extrapolate the outcome. this is not even close to being difficult.
Look at today, the level of patent bullshit. Look at just ten years ago. Now look at ten years hence.
The system grinds to a halt, there will be NO free or open source software that isn't a total joke, and the closed source will be in lawyer hog heaven and be a total joke.
If I had a kid entering college I would tell them to run as fast and hard away from programming as they could, restrict it to personal hobby level,with the code never leaving the machine, and look for a job with a future, the one that might take the least amount of lawyers.
What that job is I have no idea,(well, actually, I am being discrete and a shade ambiguous, I do have some good ideas along those lines but I will keep them to myself, not because I am greedy, but because I believe in "tough love". Smart people who aren't greedy can figure it out and we don't need greedy yuppies jumping ship too early, let them enjoy what
If Oracle bought SuSE, couldn't the SuSE team just start another distribution with the same underlaying content, but a different name?
It's the ultimate scam!
Oracle can take any distro and tune it to their needs. And then launch "the new Orabuntu" (tataraaa) that is just the same distro tuned, period. At the same time they can build packages for any other distro. It would be something like "it runs with Linux. Better if it's with our distro".
f00!
DB2 is an RPM install if you cared to look. It can also be started/restarted/stopped and completely administered using command line. Try again next time.
All contracts are contracts of property.
The point of IBM, which seems inescapable, is that any software that has been released as OSS can't be reverted back to an non-OSS business model: as some version of the source and some user base exist on the market, any company with IBM's-like muscle can branch a free version and make it evolve anytime they want.
This follows the predicate: Any useful software is bound to become free (as in beer) once the cost of its development has been amortized. The free (as in speech) software movement is not much more than the social expression of this basic economical fact. Some still imperfect demonstration.
Oracle XE (Express Edition), pretty recent, free, with certain limitations (e.g. max. 4Gb database size), *is* actually installed as a RPM. I did this without problems. Now if only they could manage this for their regular versions.
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 120 chars)
We really shouldn't have to read the details of the manual to do a simple installation. Moreover, Oracle's installer is amazingly stupid. Having to download half-a-dozen CD size bundles of material over a slow and unreliable feed, in order to cat them together and run them through a tar script that the creates folders that were obviously created from installation CD's is just plain stupid. And using a Java tool for an installation procedure that should have been done in shell script or by simply unbundling tarballs is exactly what .deb, .rpm, .pkg, and every other OS's installation tools are for: slapping Java on top of the installer buys nothing but stupid pictures while it fails to install the first few times.
But that's OK: Oracle just bought Sleepycat software, and it should only take them 2 years to kill it by "incorporating" db4 the same way the killed Stettor's calendar product by buying and "incorporating" it into their huge toolkits. They're almost as good as BEA at buying new technologies, getting a stock burst from it, and proceeding to scrap the software by scrapping all new development with it lest it compete with their other products and risk their current middle manager's jobs.
You shouldn't have to run Java to install Java. And given the size of Websphere and the incompatibilities between Java releases, they should include their own.
For multiple versionf of Oracle, you use "/opt" and put it in different version-based locations, just like kernels do for /boot. For multiple copies of it, there' is a fascinating command called "--relocate" that allows certain types of packages to be easily installed to alternative locations.
Do read the man page for the rpm command.
Oracle doesn't want to own a linux distrib. What Oracle wants is a standard hardware interface for its database software. A bare metal install for the database. They tried to do this some years back but it never took off. They would like to have a "Database Appliance". Cuts down on the security issues for them becuase they control everything.. Install and patching is easy for you because it's one product, the Database.. But it doesn't have to stop at the database. You can have an AS appliance... and so on.. The "full stack"
I have.
I also recommend you try using Oracle in a more complex environment (something where you have more than one instance running more than one version), and understand that your whole concept of top-level "opt" directory/versions just doesn't work. There are too many shared services and directory locations for this to work.
$0.02 (CDN)
I have, but it was years ago, and it was very painful. We finally threw out the Oracle server for something much lighter weight that did exactly what we wanted, and was open source, and run on hardware that was not top of the line in every way.
Cool...
Yeah, don't get me wrong, Oracle is a pig of a database when it comes to installation, etc. They've even adopted a common installation registry for their software, among other stupid things.
The problem is that unless you're dealing with a rather simple environment, where you're not thinking too far out of the box, an RPM installer is problematic.
By NOT using an RPM installer, Oracle actually gives me (or, more properly, someone running a more complex, non-typical installation) more choice by allowing me to perform a complicated installation or update.
$0.02 (CDN)
No argument here, the installation nonsense you have to jump through is truly absurd.
this is getting old and so are you
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