Slashdot Mirror
Oracle Linux Explored
M-Saunders writes "Two days ago Slashdot reported on Oracle's move into the enterprise Linux market, and how it may challenge Red Hat. Red Hat's stock has already dropped, and there's a great deal of talk about the implications of this act. Linux Format got hold of the 'Unbreakable' distro to find out what's going on under the hood. Is it a breakthrough for Linux in the corporate market, or just another RHEL respin? See the article for all the info and screenshots — including an 'interesting' choice of GRUB colours."
To quote the web article:
Unusually, Oracle are claiming that they will support your operating system indefinitely as part of the Premier Support package which works out at $1199 and $1999.
These lifetime models get pretty interesting - you don't know if they are financially viable until a few years have gone by.
But I've seen a few health clubs, airlines and government pension plans so on, suffer on the weight of their liabilities such as lifetime memberships, lifetime frequent flyer points, a unfunded retirement pensions.
That is actually a big risk over a 10 year period..
Michael
There is no cryptographic solution to the problem where the intended receiver and the attacker are the same entity.
I would be more than satisfied if they come with an easy solution for installing Oracle flawlessly on most linux flavors!
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1. Copy someone else's flagship software exactly
2. Remove all vendor identity
3. Explain how your's is somehow "better"
4. Profit and repeat
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
I understand Oracle is an industry juggernaut, but $160,000 for a 4-CPU license (from the Guardian article)? Is Oracle really that superior to Ingres, Sybase, Microsoft SQL Server, and especially PostgreSQL or MySQL?
I'm not trying to troll here. I'm just thinking that for the cost of several Oracle installations and experienced Oracle DBAs you could get a much cheaper (or outright free) database and some really top notch talent.
Since Red Hat bought Cygnus a couple of years back, Linux is no longer everything they do, there's also the gcc business. As far as I know, the gcc business earns money from embedded toolsets, and contracts with microprosessor manufacturers (including big ones like Intel) to improve gcc on their kit, or to port gcc to new CPUs.
So, can anyone in the know comment on how much of Red Hat's business is Linux, as compared to what used to be Cygnus?
It's not that they like commercial software per se, or that they don't know or understand the benefits of open-source software.
Actually, there ARE sonme segments of the market that is still enamoured with all things Microsoft. Yes, when compared to many alternatives Microsoft is garbage but that doesn't matter. Microsoft solutions are typically like McDonalds food...fast and easy, and when you are hungry and don't have much extra cash it tastes good. Also like McDonalds food, if you only have Microsoft your enterprise will get stomach aches, get fat and bloated and have health problems.
So what markets are hooked on Microsoft? Small and medium enterprises mostly, and operations heavy with automation (factories, refineries and so on--except for REAL mission critical stuff like aerospace, nuclear power generation etc). In other words, the "lower-to-middle class" of the enterprise space. Kind of like how low-to-middle-class America is hooked on fast food. And guess what? Not only are these enterprises hooked on "MS Junk food", they are also poorly informed on the benefits of "proper nutrition" (alternative solutions such as Free software, etc).
These large companies would be happy to bring Linux in-house as long as a larger company offers some kind of indemnification clause in their contracts.
That is not what makes large companies happy. The straight license agreement for Microsoft products offers NO indemnification WHATSOEVER. It doesn't even offer a proper warranty! The best you could ever hope for is replecement of defective media. To get indemnification requires a special contract with the vendor regardless of the nature of the software. The "fast food addicts" (which are the largest segment of business customers) don't have the money or legal resources to obtain such indemnification, except for perhaps a small handful of very critical systems. Thankfully, SMEs are rarely on the radar of "litigious bastards" like SCO.
As for REAL large companies that DO have the money and desire for indemnification, what makes them happy is that their vendor is big and established and rich too. Birds of a feather. In any case, this is ALREADY the most successful market for Linux and the one that presents the most challenges for MS. IBM, Sun, Red Hat, Oracle, Novell all are "big company" linux/Unix vendors and can all offer indemnification like MS so it is not the issue. What the issue is is simply that MS products are inferior. They are the biggest consumers of resources, least scalable, largest target of malicious attacks.
Many large companies offer Linux distributions and absorb the indemnification. It's no wonder then that superior distributions like Ubuntu aren't on the enterprise shopping list: there is little or no viable indemnification offered.
Indemnification is not the reason behind Ubuntu's lack of presence in large enterprises. The reason is that Ubuntu didin't come into being as an "enterprise-class OS". It was designed and targeted for personal/workstation use. Yes, it COULD be a capable enterprise OS, with packages installed to support big server installs but in that arena Ubunto is still very unproven. Also, Canonical isn't a big, established player corporately, popularity of its OS notwithstanding, so it isn't the ability to provide "big company support" but rather that it is a "smaller unproven vendor".
It creates more competition for IBM, who perhaps now will actually push for real Linux offerings that work, for Novell with SuSe, for Sun and Solaris, and it opens the door for upstarts like Canonical who are well-positioned to make Ubuntu a household name. Last, it will open doors to Linux that would otherwise remain shut. Oracle Linux marks the maturity phase of the first round of consolidation and is the harbinger of the next distribution wars.
I'm all up for more competition, and it is possible for a "re-spun Red Hat" OS to emerge as an independent contender in its own right (that is what happened to M
I agree with the assertations about Oracle Application Server - part of my job is administering it, and it's a shocking piece of junk at times. I really think that's why they wanted Jboss, they can see how much better the code is than their own offering :)
Oracle database is great, but it will be surpassed in the future by open source databases like Postgres and MySQL (both of which are also excellent databases.) The reason it costs so much, is because it makes people feel good that it costs so much - indeedd costs so much, because if it cost less, less people would buy it. Bizarre logic, but it's the way some people think! (especially IT managers in big organisations).
Very few people who make the purchasing decisions actually have any technical knowledge of the product they are buying. Oracle will do well out of this move since it allows old fashioned IT managers to buy into Linux without really buying into Linux. They can stay in that comfortable place where they sleep well at night. They say no one ever got fired for buying IBM. No one ever got fired for buying Oracle either, regardless of how much it costs, or how well it works. Despite Red Hat being a well known company, they're still a little too 'edgy' for some sections of the IT community. It doesn't matter that it's the same code...it has the Oracle logo on it now :)