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.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Oracle to IBM: No, but we can buy the people.

Headline makes the wrong assumption

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Oracle doesn't want to buy Open Source, they want to buy installed bases.

Re:Headline makes the wrong assumption

[Ctrl Alt De1337]

This is important. They want the installed base and the community. Oracle certainly has the resources to make a new distro from scratch if they wanted, but it takes time to build up a loyal following and by extension an installed base. Certainly a lot of people would try a brand-new Oracle distro, but who knows how many would stick with it if their favorite package(s) was/were not available? Larry likes control, so basing a new one off someone else's distro is right out.

Re:Headline makes the wrong assumption

[gstoddart]

Oracle doesn't want to buy Open Source, they want to buy installed bases.

All your installed bases are belong to us?

Doesn't have the same ring to it; it'll never catch on. :-P

Why not?

[RingDev]

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

Re:Why not?

[tdvaughan]

One of the most important factors to an Open Source project's success is the community around it. Piss off the community and the project will be forked. Bug reports, feature requests, forums and mailing lists will dry up or dissolve into flamewars while the forked project takes developer interest away and eventually becomes incompatible with the original.

Re:Why not?

[Cyclops]

Contrary to (supposed) popular believe, software, in and of itself, has no desire to be 'free.'

Software has no desire. Software is a set of specific rules that results in a specific and predictable effect. The code of such software, as was written, is covered by copyright, and software has copyright licenses.

Free Software, contrary to what you seem to believe, is about providing users with certain freedoms:
0. the freedom to run the program for any purpose
1. the freedom to study the program and modify it according to your needs
2. the freedom to distribute copies
3. the freedom to publish modified versions

So who has desire for theses Freedoms? Software? Don't be laughable. It's PEOPLE who desire it!

Any software license that removes theses freedoms from users is disrespecting them. It's a license written with control in mind. Control of the user and what he may or may not be able to do.

I for one, only use Free Software (for quite a long time, now), but in the beggining I thought only the quality of "open source" mattered. Then I learned better...

Oracle, IBM need to improve install and daemon mgt

[stanwirth]

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.

Re:Oracle, IBM need to improve install and daemon

[jobsagoodun]

Not true

I've scripted (without GUI) installation of DB2, Websphere & Orrible no problemo just by reading the fine manual. You could too.

Re:Oracle buys IBM

[Kadin2048]

Not sure if that was a joke, but just in case it wasn't:

Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL)

• Market Cap $73.07 Billion USD,
  
• revenue $13.41 B
  
• gross profit $9.15 B
  
• Employees 49,872

International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM)

• Market Cap $128.6 Billion USD,
  
• revenue $91.13 B
  
• gross profit $36.53 B
  
• Employees 341,750

So if either company were to buy the other, it would be IBM acquiring Oracle, but I think Oracle's probably too big for them to swallow in any event.

Oracle is certainly the more profitable company though, in terms of profit/revenue, but then again they don't really manufacture anything, while IBM still makes and sells a lot of stuff.

From the desk of Larry Ellison

[PenguinBoyDave]

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