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IBM Refuses To Certify Oracle Linux

Posted by kdawson on from the doesn't-look-red-to-me dept.

Andrew writes "IBM has thrown a spanner in the Oracle Linux works by refusing to certify that IBM's software portfolio will run and be supported on Oracle Unbreakable Linux. If IBM applications turn out to be incompatible with Oracle Linux, then it will be up to Oracle to resolve any issues. This conservative stance of IBM's is unlikely to help Oracle sell Linux subscriptions to businesses that use any of IBM's large software portfolio."

124 comments

  1. Oh no! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now that Oracle has added "Unbreakable" in front of the word "Linux"... Linux is finally going to become insecure :(

    Note to Linux developers: remember to add all your SVN commits as cron jobs, and forward date them all 2 years, or 3 years if they're critical security patches.

    1. Re:Oh no! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      It appears that advertisers for software are lots dumber than advertisers for cars. Can't Oracle afford a decent slogan, one that folks won't laugh at? One that isn't so obviously bogus? I mean, Oracle is trying to sell to IT people, not Microsofties. IT folks know damned good and well that no software is unbreakable. Microsoft could get away with it, considering its user base, but not Oracle.

      Now, the car companies know how to lie - just tell the truth. For instance:

      Chevy - like a rock. (Damned thing won't start and the transmission is locked up again... damn!)

      Ford - Quality is job one. (They have no quality and their work is cut out for them)

      Pontiac - We Build Excitement! (The handling is crap and the brakes are worse)

      Oracle - Faster than a speeding bullet (well, electricity does travel at the speed of light)

    2. Re:Oh no! by IdleTime · · Score: 1

      1. We are not talking about single machines
      2. We are talking about a grid of servers, all accessing a single database instance.
      3. If one server goes down, the other servers continue to work.

      Is it too much to ask for, that at least you have a clue what is meant?

      --
      If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
    3. Re:Oh no! by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

      Often it's not the techies making the purchasing decisions, but rather some manager who has no idea what's really going on. If some manager hears that Oracle Linux is unbreakable, then they will jump right on and buy into it.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    4. Re:Oh no! by tallguywithglasseson · · Score: 1
      There is redundancy, and "dependable" probably fits (I've not worked on this product, it seems nice a priori), but anyone who's spent a significant amount of time working in IT knows nothing is "unbreakable". It's just laughable. Give it enough time, something (or someone) will break it.

      It's not like we haven't heard boastful claims from salesmen before. When something breaks we say "it's not a bug, it's a feature", if it's a third-party product we usually add "it works just like the salesman said it would!"

    5. Re:Oh no! by jedidiah · · Score: 1

      ...assuming that problem on the one node doesn't bring the rest of them to a screeching halt.

      You still have the problem of there being only one database.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    6. Re:Oh no! by sheolaus · · Score: 1

      How many IT managers aren't Microsofties? Ours came back from the Dell/Oracle presentation gushing like a schoolgirl.

    7. Re:Oh no! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think people are making a mountain out of a mole hill. For years people of have screaming at the biggies to get into the Linux game. To buy into the Linux vision.

      Well they have been and they are continuing to buy in at more and more significant levels. This is not a bad thing. If you don't want to use XYZ Linux then don't, but there are certain shops that will ONLY deal with big name players. Period. End of story. Linux doesn't lose a thing in these cases, but in fact gains new converts!

      IMHO, people should be excited to see the large and medium size companies getting deeper into the Linux game and start developing more applications and services! If you want recognition then release some open source app. If you want money bang out something and see if a biggie wants to buy it from you. This is a new world to discover!

  2. what do you espected from a illegal hacker OS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    "BSD, Lunix, Debian and Mandrake are all versions of an illegal hacker operation system, invented by a Soviet computer hacker named Linyos Torovoltos, before the Russians lost the Cold War. It is based on a program called "xenix", which was written by Microsoft for the US government. These programs are used by hackers to break into other people's computer systems to steal credit card numbers. They may also be used to break into people's stereos to steal their music, using the "mp3" program. Torovoltos is a notorious hacker, responsible for writing many hacker programs, such as "telnet", which is used by hackers to connect to machines on the internet without using a telephone."

    lol read more at:
    http://www.adequacy.org/stories/2001.12.2.42056.21 47.html

    1. Re:what do you espected from a illegal hacker OS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      That wasn't even funny when it was original.

    2. Re:what do you espected from a illegal hacker OS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "If your son has requested a new "processor" from a company called "AMD", this is genuine cause for alarm. AMD is a third-world based company who make inferior, "knock-off" copies of American processor chips. They use child labor extensively in their third world sweatshops, and they deliberately disable the security features that American processor makers, such as Intel, use to prevent hacking. AMD chips are never sold in stores, and you will most likely be told that you have to order them from internet sites. Do not buy this chip! This is one request that you must refuse your son, if you are to have any hope of raising him well."

      hehehe The American Way

  3. CentOS too by jabuzz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They don't certify CentOS works either, but I can tell you for sure that Tivoli Storage Manager Extended edition works just fine on CentOS 4.4

    If Oracle Linux is from the same mold as CentOS then it is a fear factor rather than anything serious. Personally if I where Oracle I would hire as many of the CentOS developers as possible and get them to do a spin of CentOS as Oracle Linux.

    1. Re:CentOS too by rubycodez · · Score: 5, Insightful

      but big enterprise doesn't think that way, they want certified compatibility and adherence to the letter of support contracts. Good luck calling EMC or Hitachi and saying your CentOS has problems accessing your 20TB disk array with a given HBA and switch. You'd void your warranty right then and there. As an aside, CentOS lags RedHat in patches, and also has to rewrite parts of the redhat admin system, it isn't 100% the same.

    2. Re:CentOS too by pirhana · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You have perfectly summed up it !! I had a DB cluster setup on HP DL-385 and had to migrate to RHEL just to get support for Hardware issues from HP. They blindly refuse to support telling that "we don't support anything other than RHEL". The fact is that vendors are looking for an excuse to say no to support and RHEL/CentOS is enough for them

      --
      http://www.nasirudheen.blogspot/
    3. Re:CentOS too by rubycodez · · Score: 3, Informative

      worth mentioning that HP does support RedHat, SuSE and Debian.

    4. Re:CentOS too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No offense, but as a hardware vendor I'd do this too. Because otherwise, where do you stop? "Yeah, we're running on this custom-compiled Gentoo with a few third party extensions. We're seeing some errors in our custom logs that look like our proprietary apps can't connect to your hardware. Send an engineer."

      As a vendor, I will tell you "OK, we've checked out and certified that we work with these distros. Anything else, it will probably work but you're on your own if it doesn't." Seems reasonable to me.

      Now, if you're concerned that vendors will use this to shut out "free" distros from being supported, maybe that's a case worth making. But some of this is market demand--if HP kept getting the question about "hey, will you support this on CentOS?" from hardware customers, and were losing customers by saying no, you can be they'd look into CentOS support. They are not vested in propping up RedHat's licensing business.

      IMO, the main issue that big companies have and will continue to have with Linux is distro fragmentation. It's just not feasible anymore to test your applicaiton/server/hardware with every conceivable distro that's out there. So you pick some, and those are the ones your customers tell you they're running.

      Put another way, *I* could come out with a RHEL clone distro tomorrow. Are you telling me it would be reasonable for me to expect HP to support it?

    5. Re:CentOS too by Undertaker43017 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Good luck calling EMC or Hitachi and saying your CentOS has problems accessing your 20TB disk array with a given HBA and switch."

      I do this all the time, I run CentOS in development and most of the test environment. When I see a problem on CentOS, I verify that the problem exists on one of my RHEL test boxes, and call them up. When they fix the problem on RHEL, it is either automatically fixed on CentOS, or I replicate whatever they did on RHEL on CentOS and the problem is fixed. You just have to learn how to play their game, if they say they only support "expensive X", then have as few of "expensive X" around to satisfy that requirement.

      "it isn't 100% the same"

      It's enough the same that I have never run into anything that broke on one that didn't break exactly the same way on the other. CentOS is so good that I have started to move some of my production systems to it, but I will always keep a fair number of RHEL boxes around, since third parties need someone to point a finger at when they determine that it isn't their stuff.

    6. Re:CentOS too by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      I agree CentOS is *good*, I've installed it at a manufacturing plant that prefers to use in-house and T&M based support. But in very large enterprise environments the folk from Hitachi, Veritas, EMC, etc. are actually going to be on site and on the machines and SAN gear at times, your trick won't work in that case, and those who manage IT aren't going to go for that anyway, too risky to contracts & warranties

    7. Re:CentOS too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I do this all the time

      No you don't. You said it yourself: you have a RHEL test machine where you verify the problem before calling the vendor. When you call the vendor you are calling them with a valid report of a problem on RHEL. If you couldn't replicate the problem on your RHEL test machine you wouldn't call the vendor, and if you did, they wouldn't care.

    8. Re:CentOS too by Undertaker43017 · · Score: 1

      I have EMC folks on site all the time, and they are fully aware that I have both RHEL and CentOS boxes hooked to theirs boxes. My managers also fully aware of what I do, and support it.

      I use VCS, volume manager and NetBackup, but would never let a Veritas person even close to the datacenter, I can't afford the downtime they would cause.

    9. Re:CentOS too by hackstraw · · Score: 2, Interesting

      They blindly refuse to support telling that "we don't support anything other than RHEL".

      In my experience, "support" is pretty much a misnomer.

      What happens basically 100% of the time is that they blame anything and everything besides their product. The only way around this is if you buy all of your stuff from one company and have one support contract for all of that stuff.

      Example, I had a certified and partnered RAID array, HBA card, OS, and system hardware that were all OK with each other. When I had a problem, every one of the hardware people said, "If the lights are on, then it works according to me, having it work with your environment is your problem". At home, I have a piece of hardware where the driver breaks _EVERY TIME_ I do an OS update, so they taught me not to do OS updates. They do update their driver within a period of time, but if I call them or if I go to their website, they never say "This driver does not work after upgrading to OS x.y". I've gotten hot and bothered about it, but I've just given up. One time, they came out with an update within a few days of me calling and asking about it, yet the asshat on the phone could not say "We are working on it, its a known issue".

      It kills me the amount of money that "support" costs, and management and all of that love support for some reason, but I've found more real support from online forums, mailinglists, and newsgroups for free software than I have for any paid for support for "real" products.

      Oh, while I'm on a rant here. What about the support answer to the request of: "I need your product to support feature X". And the answer is, pay us more money for the latest version of our product, drop all of your production work you are doing, have a downtime, and then _if_ it works, and _if_ its bugfree and works 100% as advertised, then you will now have feature X. I'm sorry that is not support, that is buying a new product, which could very well be from another vendor.

      Support is mostly an illusion.

    10. Re:CentOS too by thetagger · · Score: 1

      Funny that you mention, but the company I work for uses both Hitachi and EMC mainframes and CentOS. We have never been denied support from either of them. The techies who really do the job know our setup is reasonable and won't bother us.

    11. Re:CentOS too by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      is the gear and support contracts in millions of dollars? for the support contracts our clients have we have to go through everything with a fine-toothed comb, to kernel version, firmware versions, app version minor number etc. No unsupported OS version is allowed

    12. Re:CentOS too by Undertaker43017 · · Score: 1

      "is the gear and support contracts in millions of dollars? "

      Yes. We spend $20M-$50M with EMC yearly, our Oracle support contract alone is $1M+. We have never had a problem with vendors not supporting us, or nullifying our contracts (they like their money too much), and they are aware of our environment.

    13. Re:CentOS too by notque · · Score: 1

      It is. I work for a big enterprise. We use CentOS because it works, and I don't have to go through any financial hoops and approval processes to spin up 200 machines on a dime.

      I run Oracle on them as well. No issues, this is just political maneuvering.

      --
      http://use.perl.org
    14. Re:CentOS too by morcego · · Score: 1

      As an aside, CentOS lags RedHat in patches, and also has to rewrite parts of the redhat admin system, it isn't 100% the same.


      I don't know if you are trolling, or just misinformed.

      CentOS is not aimed at being a RedHat (as in RedHat Enterprise Linux) close. It is asimed at being 100% binary compatible, which is a whole different ball game.

      Maybe it is time for a "Get your facts straight" page on the CentOS site ?
      --
      morcego
    15. Re:CentOS too by morcego · · Score: 1

      I have EMC folks on site all the time, and they are fully aware that I have both RHEL and CentOS boxes hooked to theirs boxes. My managers also fully aware of what I do, and support it.


      I second that, having similar experiences with other vendors (not EMC). They usually just take the stance: "Ok, you say it is the same, so we will do the same thing we do. If it doesn't work, it is your problem, and we will never touch it again". And since "it works" is the case here (RHEL/CentOS), think will just go as planned.

      --
      morcego
    16. Re:CentOS too by LinuxDon · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The "problem" with free distro mainly is that they're a moving target.
      If you look at Novell SLES 9 and RHEL 4 you will see that they're still running on (a heavily patched up) 2.6.7 and 2.6.9 version of the kernel.
      Free distro's usually update their packages very frequently which is a good thing, except in an enterprise environment. Also, 2 years later there will be absolutely no support for anymore for those verions. SLES and RHEL versions on the other hand are supported for at least 5 years.

      The point is that they only patch (security) bugs and nothing else, so the entire system is essentially frozen for years, hardly any new features are added.
      Also, there is absolutely no point in checking out Oracle's Linux until they've been around for a couple of years and have a proven track record. Who says they won't change their mind in 2 year about the entire thing and all effort will be lost.

      Also, while CentOS practically is basically just RHEL, it can certainly cause support issues. I've installed arcserve backup on CentOS and it didn't recognize the distro because of the name change and I had to manually alter the install script. I can very well imagine a lot of companies don't want to gamble on this possibility.

    17. Re:CentOS too by fangorious · · Score: 1

      The point is that they only patch (security) bugs and nothing else, so the entire system is essentially frozen for years, hardly any new features are added.

      We just switched from RHEL 4 update 3 to RHEL 4 update 4 on our build machines and found that C++ symbol mangling seems to have changed, leading to incompatible builds. So now we're having to scramble to update all our machines to update 4 and rebuild everything include code that hasn't changed. Update 4 also broke Java 1.5 runtimes. Yay for stable packages!

    18. Re:CentOS too by jabuzz · · Score: 1

      Or you could have modified /etc/redhat-release so that it is the same as genuine RHEL machine. The CentOS people cannot do that due to trademark issues, but it is an easy change to make.

    19. Re:CentOS too by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      you can read on centos site how updates lag, and also about differences in the admin system which I mentioned. how is that trolling? I think centos is great alternative to redhat for those who don't want redhat support. It also just happens the government agency clients I mainly do work for must use redhat as a Linux distro for a number of reasons.

    20. Re:CentOS too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Offtopic, but HP's new servers rock! Great manageability features (KVM ovel IP etc.), Linux support, *FULL* Solaris 10 support.

    21. Re:CentOS too by afidel · · Score: 1

      Most of the time support isn't worth a damn anyways. For instance Oracle's "supported" configuration for JD Edwards Enterprise One 8.12 on Windows is to use Oracle on 32bit Windows. The problem with that is you can support less than 50 users before you start to experiencing database lockups due to out of memory conditions. Under Windows x32 Oracle's SGA has to fit into a max of 3GB for all components. The problem with that is that after going to x64 Windows in an "unsupported" configuration we found that in order to support ~300 users Oracle needs about 3GB just to keep track of users sessions! No one implementing a multimillion dollar ERP product is going to do it for less than 50 users, so how the heck can the officially supported solution work?!? Btw you wouldn't void your warranty you would be stepping outside of the supported configuration for your support contract, which generally means they are responsible for best effort support but will not guarantee a solution. They would still have to provide hardware warranty service.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
  4. No wories by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 4, Informative
    If you are not allergic to IBM, and need a powerful database, you would probably rather run db2 than Oracle anyway, especially if you are using other large IBM packages.

    IMNSHO, db2 pisses on Oracle from a great height.

    --
    Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    1. Re:No wories by djbckr · · Score: 2, Informative

      A terrible post that got modded "Informative" with NO BASIS FOR THE CLAIM!!! Sheesh! Tell me exactly *why* DB2 is better.

    2. Re:No wories by DrJokepu · · Score: 2, Informative

      Because it has approximately the same features and performance, a more human-friendly UI, no WTFs like VARCHAR3 and empty string IS NULL (if you don't believe it, just try it: oracle actually treats empty char fields as NULL), and it is slightly cheaper?

    3. Re:No wories by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Believe it or not, DB2 scales better. It never achieves the kind of speeds Oracle can (at least, it couldn't last I looked) but it didn't slow down very much at all as you stuffed more and more data in there. I have to admit that this is based on older research, so perhaps it was "DB2 scaled better" but this was my last experience.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    4. Re:No wories by jedidiah · · Score: 1

      No it doesn't.

      Oracle & DB2 scale about the same. They can run the same sort of ginormous datasets at a high transaction volume.

      The skill of your developers will be more of a factor in this sort of situation than what brand your RDBMS is.

      Better developers will even also give SqlServer some hope of keeping up with Oracle & DB2 for a while longer before imploding.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    5. Re:No wories by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 1

      You, sir, have run benchmarks with Oracle and published about the results. You will be arrested by the Oracle Thought Police.

      --
      Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
  5. A definite shame by Ingrown+Testicle · · Score: 1

    Looks to me like IBM is just looking after their own bottom line and protecting their own business by doing this. This is definitely not in the open and giving spirit of OSS and Linux.

    IBM should rethink this decision if they want to hold onto the goodwill of the community.

    1. Re:A definite shame by msobkow · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't recall any of Rick Stallman's lectures being about charity.

      Oracle is trying to shift the blame from their software stack to IBM's before they've even deployed a box. In other words, if you have a problem and are running IBM software, Oracle wants IBM to foot the bill of researching the bug or issue.

      Who is Oracle to dictate that problems are automatically some other vendor's fault instead of their own?

      --
      I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
    2. Re:A definite shame by rubycodez · · Score: 1, Interesting

      bwahaha, the issue here is one closed proprietary package not being certified with other closed source proprietary packages on Linux. The open and giving spirit of OSS isn't even relevant.

    3. Re:A definite shame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Rick "The Stallion" Stallman, cumming to a theater near you.

      Ha! How's that for an image to get out of your head?:)

    4. Re:A definite shame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Right!

      Why should IBM pay (because support if you've 'certified' something certainly costs) for Oracle?
      What's this bullshit about 'partners' and 'the spirit of open source'?
      Oracle is a company with a strong DB offering, and a reasonable application software portfolio.
      IBM's not got much in the way of apps, but has OS offerings. They make their money out of SI, these days.
      Neither got into Linux because they wanted to - they were forced to. They needed to offer Linux to challenge M$ & Sun, (IBM's Unix offerings never got anywhere).

      So, if Larry wants IBM to certify his stuff with IBM, well, pay!
      Now if IBM refused to do this, then THAT would be worth a post on /.

    5. Re:A definite shame by FishWithAHammer · · Score: 1

      I actually could not suppress a wince. Not kidding.

      --
      "You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
  6. Probably not really a refusal ... by quiberon2 · · Score: 5, Informative
    It's probably more a case of 'IBM has contracts in place with RedHat and Novell, and testing efforts in place, so that if a client buys (for example) IBM Websphere with an expectation of running on Linux, then IBM will warrant timely resolution of any defects that may threaten to get in the way of the IBM customer's use of the IBM product'.

    I'm fairly sure that if someone offers enough money, they could have that assurance on Oracle, Ubuntu, or anyone else's Linux too.

    1. Re:Probably not really a refusal ... by oyenstikker · · Score: 2, Informative

      Probably not. IBM's products don't really work on Linux, they work on one particular outdated version of RHEL and one version of Suse. I recently spoke to tech support about IBM Workspace Managed Client failing to install on Debian, and was told over and over that the only reason it gave me a particular error was because I needed to install a particular outdated version of Mozilla in a particular directory, and make a particular file with a line pointing to it. Over and over I tried this, and it did not work. They seem to have no idea how their installer works, much less care to do anything about it.

      --
      The masses are the crack whores of religion.
    2. Re:Probably not really a refusal ... by hearnz · · Score: 1

      "IBM's products don't really work on Linux, they work on one particular outdated version of RHEL and one version of Suse"

      Simply not true. IBM's support for Linux, in my experience, is very good - at least for the distros their customers are actually running in any significant numbers.

      I've run significant portions of the WebSphere, Tivoli, Rational and DB2 product families on RHEL 3, RHEL 4, SLES 9, and SLES 10 (that's the current and previous versions of both). Unsurprisingly, since they are certified for all of those, they worked just fine.

      I've also run many of them on unsupported distros - RHEL 2.1, CentOS (no surprise), Fedora, OpenSUSE, and Debian - for development and test/evaluation systems. Generally, if you are running a relatively "normal" distribution, with a similar kernel version to the supported RHEL/SLES distros, it will probably work just fine unless it is a product that does distro-specific stuff, which is rare.

      The only issue I've encountered at all like you mention is when trying to use the "launchpad" feature to initiate the install - since it is web-based, it requires a web browser to run, and I don't tend to have one my servers. Running the actual installer itself works just fine.

    3. Re:Probably not really a refusal ... by TheNinjaroach · · Score: 1

      I found this to be true myself when toying with a copy of DB2. Their installer and most of its programs rely on statically coded filepaths, so it breaks quickly on new versions of RHEL and SUSE. For being so dedicated to Linux, they've managed to make using their software on it a real PITA.

      --
      I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
    4. Re:Probably not really a refusal ... by oyenstikker · · Score: 1

      I got DB2 to work just fine. No thanks to the installer - I had to figure out which RPMs I needed and use alien to install them. Lotus Notes/Workspaced Managed Client is a different story. I guess if it worked well and made sense, it just wouldn't be Lotus Notes.

      --
      The masses are the crack whores of religion.
    5. Re:Probably not really a refusal ... by hearnz · · Score: 1

      Agree with you there - Lotus Notes is a huge WTF in its own right.

      Many of their other product families are very different though. For starters, most of them actually work - at least most of the time :)

      Other than Notes, I haven't had an IBM product put me into a murderous rage since WebSphere 3.5... but even IBM people admit that version was horrible!

    6. Re:Probably not really a refusal ... by diamondsw · · Score: 1

      Oh please. I've deployed Websphere Application Server on dozens of systems, RHEL 3 and RHEL 4. There may be an occasional dependency on an older library, but seriously - what linux sofware doesn't run into that particular problem? It's why we have to use "package managers" and such in the first place.

      --
      I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
    7. Re:Probably not really a refusal ... by swillden · · Score: 1

      Probably not. IBM's products don't really work on Linux, they work on one particular outdated version of RHEL and one version of Suse.

      In addition to the points made by the others who responded to you, I want to mention that you seem to have missed the part where the GP said

      I'm fairly sure that if someone offers enough money, they could have that assurance on Oracle, Ubuntu, or anyone else's Linux too.

      You're talking about the basic support options. If you want Websphere to run on your home brew Linux, you just have to call up your IBM sales rep and tell them what you want done and that you're willing to pay whatever it costs, even if it means heavy customization of the product. Between the IBM development labs and IBM Global Services they'll find a way to make it happen. It may take a year or two, and cost millions, and leave you in a position where you have to continue paying for lots of custom work with each upgrade, plus probably having to keep an IBM engineer on site more or less permanently (for about triple his/her salary+benefits), but it will get done.

      The reason IBM supports Red Hat and SUSE is because Red Hat and Novell provide engineering support services to IBM. Their developers work with IBM's developers to make sure that everything works smoothly. IBM doesn't support CentOS because CentOS doesn't have the financial resources to do the necessary integration and testing work, and IBM isn't going to do it for them without a good reason.

      If IBM's customers really want IBM to support CentOS, they just need to find a way to fund that testing and integration work -- either through increased sales, or additional fees, or custom support contracts. If the payoff is there, IBM will do it. If, on the other hand, you just want to pay the price that RHEL and SUSE users pay, well, you have to use RHEL or SUSE.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    8. Re:Probably not really a refusal ... by oyenstikker · · Score: 1

      I guess what I want to say is that companies should aim to support every distribution and focus their QA attention on certifying a few rather than aiming to support only a few, as IBM seems to do, at least with Lotus Notes.

      --
      The masses are the crack whores of religion.
    9. Re:Probably not really a refusal ... by RotateLeftByte · · Score: 1

      This is simply not true with DB2 V8 or DB2 V9.
      It might have possibly been the case with some older versions of DB2 but not recent ones.
      With every release of DB2 it gets even easier to install on Linux. IF you don;t want to use the GUI installer then you can just
      install the RPM's. You can run "rpm -Uvh *.rpm" can you?
      I run DB2 on RHEL 4, CEntos 4.4, Fedora 5,6, SUSE 10.1 & SLES 9.
      I also run lots of websphere products and generally the current versions install and work fine on a variety of Linux Distros.

      IMHO, the refusal of IBM to certify DB2 (And everything else they sell for Linux) on Unbreakable is perfectly understandable.
      Why would they spen literally millions doing the certification on an O/S which has almost 0 presence in the commercial market.
      This MAY change in the future. If Unbreakable does get some market share and IBM's customer demand it might do some certification.

      --
      I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
    10. Re:Probably not really a refusal ... by h4ck7h3p14n37 · · Score: 1

      I've never used Workspace Managed Client, but I was involved in a WebSphere deployment before I left my last job. Some of the installers started out as Java Swing applications, but then they'd fire up on old-school Motif installer. I assumed this was due to IBM inheriting the software from Lotus and then not updating the installer (other than with IBM branding). In addition, the user interface typically wasn't coded properly (ie. multi-threaded) so certain installs wouldn't redraw the screen and appeared to hang for an hour or so. All in all, it looked like a disaster to me. I got the impression that once you bought into the product, you were going to be stuck going back to IBM or one of their partners for every little thing. Heck, even the certified partner had a hard time getting things to work properly.

  7. history will repeat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What ?!! linux is not compatible with...linux ?
    has to be certified to be compatible ?

    funny, linux cannot really compete in the real world without being backed up by big boys like Ibm, Oracle, Sun , Novell.....and yet the same big boys install FUD in linux as well :)
    (though imho it is not fud, dll hell is a lesser evil than dependancy hell)

    Funny that Linux, the prodigal son of proprietary Unixes, will eventually fall in the same trap of his parents.

    1. Re:history will repeat by Relayman · · Score: 1

      You're confusing Linux the kernel with Linux the distribution. Each distribution contains the standard Linux kernel with a bunch of other stuff. So each distribution can be considered a different operating system as far as support is concerned.

      --
      If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
    2. Re:history will repeat by Undertaker43017 · · Score: 1

      Linux the kernel isn't much use without a distribution around it. The OP is right, Linux distributions are falling into the same trap as their proprietary brethren before them. Sometimes too much choice is a bad thing. At some point vendors have to draw a line in the sand and say this is it, we aren't supporting 100's of Linux distributions, we are supporting N Linux distributions.

    3. Re:history will repeat by twiddlingbits · · Score: 1

      Correct. I think there is a misconception about how much time and money it takes to certify a product on an OS. If you do that process for every single variation of Linux in combination with the last 3 or 4 revisions of your Product X. Then multiply that times possibly 40 or 50 products. And then there is the distribution costs of new CDs, etc. (not everyone downloads from the web). Why should a vendor like IBM spend the money chasing down small bugs in a obscure Linux distro when spending the money either improving the overall product or fixing bugs with a major distro would bring more business value. It's wiser to spend the money adressing the "fat" part of the market rather than making 1 or 2 customers happy even if they are huge customers, they are still small in relation to the total market. Now of course if someone wants to pay for the service instead of insisting it is covered by maintenance contracts then it should be considered. But, there are not many times when someone will pay the mega-dollars to get support for a non-standard OS and/or pay for fixes.

  8. Sun too by wildBoar · · Score: 1

    A bit of an aside but I was told that Sun won't support Oracle Apps servers with their Identity management s/w Access Manager.

    Is this a case of ganging up on Oracle by it's allegedly strategic partners.

  9. TFA is a troll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is hardly unusual. Companies spend a lot of money to certify software distros, and put their own maintenance dollars on the line when they certify them.

    A third party saying "use our stuff--it's just the same as theirs" isn't necessarily credible. Maybe they're a clone, or maybe they're a clone today and might not be tomorrow. Or maybe they'd only clone part of the distro, leaving out critical parts. Or maybe they'll add custom stuff to the distro. IBM isn't under any obligation to believe Oracle's marketing materials and automatically certify based on taking Oracle's word that "it's the same and always will be."

    There are DOZENS of RHEL clones out there (CentOS is the most popular, but hardly the only one). I don't think IBM considers any of them "certified."

    Actual quote from TFA: "We are going to wait and see if there is traction in the marketplace," McMahon said. "If clients want it (Oracle), then we will support it."

    This is a non-issue, and someone's using the "IBM vs. Oracle!" angle to generate traffic and controversy by stirring people up. Looks like they succeeded.

    1. Re:TFA is a troll by mwvdlee · · Score: 1

      Oracle isn't a clone of RHEL. If it were, it'd have Red Hat logos all over the place and no mention of "Oracle" anywhere. So if they changed that, it already isn't a 100% verbatim copy.

      Who knows; perhaps the Oracle logo's filesize causes the filesystem to work differently enough to crash DB2 or something else that sounds ridiculous but cannot be disproven without testing.

      --
      Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
    2. Re:TFA is a troll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hit the nail on the head. I'm sure it would be easy (and painless) enough for IBM to certify the current Oracle distro, as it is for all intent and purposes exactly the same as RHEL. However, Oracle's strategy isn't just based on solely regurgitating RedHat's updates and patches out to their customers the way clones like CentOS do - because that doesn't offer any motivation to shift over from RedHat (in fact, since Oracle would have to wait for RedHat to release first, it would be *worse* for the customers as they'll get patches later). Oracle can only add value to the deal by adding their own patches and/or features over time. This will, of course, mean that it diverges from RHEL, and will probably end up losing any reasonable guarantee of compatibility. IBM would then need to invest much more effort in keeping their products certified for it, rather than just basically cloning the RHEL certifications. If enough IBM customers switch to the Oracle distro, you can be certain IBM will invest in support for it. This whole thing is a storm in a teacup - there's no insidious conspiracy, just sensible business practice. Move along, nothing to see here.

  10. I Hate Linux Distro Certification by segedunum · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I just hate the whole concept of Linux distribution certification, because it tells me that there's something wrong with running software on it. I doubt whether a huge amount of older software is certified to run on Windows 2003 either, but you can bet your life that many organisations are running that software on Windows 2003. Organisations generally just try it out on a newer version of an OS, and if it works OK in a trial period (even if they have to tweak things to get it to work) they go with it, and they don't fly into a massive panic. I've done this many times, including an older piece of, now totally unsupported, software written for NT 4 in C to communicate with a mainframe that needed to run on 2003.

    If Oracle can say "Yes, this will run" to their customers, and their customers try it out and it does actually run, then no one will care.

    In terms of backwards compatibility, and getting the software you want to work, Windows is still way ahead of Linux, and this whole concept of distributors and software vendors protecting themselves (and engineering some lock-in, incidentally) by certifying, or certifying for, certain distributions just isn't helping Linux or open source software get more widely used.

    1. Re:I Hate Linux Distro Certification by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      If Oracle can say "Yes, this will run" to their customers, and their customers try it out and it does actually run, then no one will care.

      True. But if Orcale says "Yes, this will run" to their customers, and their customers try it out and it DOESN'T run, then they will care a great deal. Particularly if their hardware vendors say "Look, we support certain distros. We don't consider it our job to debug issues with the new distro you want to try out. Feel free to try, but you're on your own."

      Windows is not really a valid compare here--yes, Windows comes out with new versions and we all expect our apps to work with them. But that's like expecting something that ran under RHEL 8.0 to continue to work under RHEL 9.0. Not expecting something that runs under RHEL 9.0 to run under Ubuntu.

      Distro fragemnetation is here to stay. Different distros really do have different capabilities. This is great for hobbiests, enthusiasts, embedders, and customizers. It's part of the power of Linux that you can have a 100 Mb distro that's runnable if it's all you need.

      But it's actively hard for big enterprise customers, who need something at least somewhat standardized so that they can know, WITHOUT needing to "try it and see" that the kit they're buying for their new datacenter will work together and with the OS. They're investing huge numbers of dollars. And they are willing to pay a premium on the "free" OS to make sure that happens.

      By the way, this is NOT a bad thing for Linux--it's a GOOD thing. This is how Linux gets traction in business environments. This is how enterprise-class features get contributed for everyone to use. This is how Linux grows. Sorry that there are only a few distros that really large enterprises will use, but that's the way it is. I doubt we'll see Knoppix in the datacenter any time soon, and I don't think that's ipso facto a bad thing.

    2. Re:I Hate Linux Distro Certification by ady1 · · Score: 1

      There is only one vendor which manufactures windows.

    3. Re:I Hate Linux Distro Certification by oyenstikker · · Score: 1

      Why can't companies release software with a script that checks to see if you have all the required dependencies and tells you exactly what you are missing? Maybe you could call it 'configure'. And then they could have a command that would install the program. The command could take parameters to do slightly different things. Maybe you could have a configuration file for this program. The program could be called 'make', and the configuration files, 'Makefile'.

      But no, they have to have spiffy graphical installers (Remember: don't run X as root!), that give you such helpful messages as "Could not validate Mozilla version." before exiting with no output to standard out.

      --
      The masses are the crack whores of religion.
    4. Re:I Hate Linux Distro Certification by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 1

      The backward compatibility is one thing I do like about Windows. I still use a version of CAD software written for Windows 3.1 under the Win32S API, it works fine under XP. The program is about 13 years old now, and I haven't come across any major bugs that I remember, and the platform is perfectly stable. The only limitation is that that drawing names are only allowed the old 8.3 character naming convention.

      I think the difference is that if a bug fix for the OS breaks the software, you are more likely to get a fix for said software to maintain compatibility. If it's not certified, then I think they are likely to tell you to either go away or buy the upgrade.

      I don't blame any of the enterprise software companies for dedicating themselves to a small number of distributions. With so many variations on Linux, I think they have to cut their support losses and specify what distribution that they will provide operational support. I'm sure the software will work on many other distributions, but fixing bugs with the ever-changing distribution landscape is an unending game of wack-a-mole.

    5. Re:I Hate Linux Distro Certification by hearnz · · Score: 1

      There's a reason that large companies care about certification on various platforms - if they are going to make an investment of hundreds of thousands, or millions, of dollars in a platform or product suite, they want to be damn sure that it will all work properly together, and continue to do so for its anticipated lifetime. "It should work" just doesn't cut it.

      The configure/make approach produces so many possible combinations of slightly different builds/configurations of a product that certification and support of all of them is pretty much impossible - therefore enterprise customers won't touch it. No customers, no business.

      That, and the fact that configure/make don't help much without releasing source code (which isn't going to happen for commercial apps), are why you almost never see it in commercially-supported software.

    6. Re:I Hate Linux Distro Certification by networkBoy · · Score: 1

      "I doubt we'll see Knoppix in the datacenter any time soon, "
      I realize it's not what you meant, but we have knoppix in our datacenter. It's in the form of live CDs that specifically don't touch the HDD for any reason to evaluate non-booting servers (*nix and windows).
      In that role, it works like a charm.
      -nB

      --
      whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
    7. Re:I Hate Linux Distro Certification by fimbulvetr · · Score: 1

      Because not every distro uses a pkg manager capable of such. Nor does every distro name their versions the same. Version 1.5_p1_11 on debian sarge could be identical to 1.5 on RHEL.

      Also, not every distro puts the same files in the same place. Some might put something in /opt, others in /usr/bin, still others in /usr/sbin. Some might put config files in /usr/etc, and so on.

    8. Re:I Hate Linux Distro Certification by notque · · Score: 1

      The problem with that is that some software will not run, and you will only find out about it midway through a long project on a single dependency that you try to fake in some repeatable, but absolutely awful way. If you would have just listened to them then you wouldn't have this problem.

      So you have to get really good at being able to tell when there is an issue, and what things to test that may be critical.

      Unless it's Centos/Redhat. That will just work (although some applications will complain that you are not running a correct os on dependency checks. Then you just ignore it.)

      --
      http://use.perl.org
    9. Re:I Hate Linux Distro Certification by LarsG · · Score: 1

      Why can't companies release software with a script that checks to see if you have all the required dependencies and tells you exactly what you are missing?

      Would you like the job as the QA engineer that has to test all possible permutations?

      It is likely that the software will work fine on RHEL-clone or SLES-derivative, but look at this from IBM's perspective. If IBM says 'yes, that's supported', they will have to do regression testing on each supported platform and their support staff needs to replicate the same setup in their labs to reproduce any bugs that might show up in the wild. The more platforms officially supported, the more work/risk IBM takes.

      As someone in an other thread said, the standard work-around for customers is to have at least one instance installed on a supported platform (say, RHEL) and install the rest on their distro of choice (say CentOS). If a bug shows up on both CentOS and RHEL, call it in to IBM as a RHEL error. If it only shows up on CentOS, you're on your own as far as official support goes.

      But no, they have to have spiffy graphical installers (Remember: don't run X as root!), that give you such helpful messages as "Could not validate Mozilla version." before exiting with no output to standard out.

      That's a valid point. For some reason there's an abundance of bad installers in *nix land.

      --
      If J.K.R wrote Windows: Puteulanus fenestra mortalis!
    10. Re:I Hate Linux Distro Certification by oyenstikker · · Score: 1

      Also, not every distro puts the same files in the same place. Some might put something in /opt, others in /usr/bin, still others in /usr/sbin. Some might put config files in /usr/etc, and so on. ./configure --prefix=/usr/local

      --
      The masses are the crack whores of religion.
    11. Re:I Hate Linux Distro Certification by oyenstikker · · Score: 1

      That, and the fact that configure/make don't help much without releasing source code. . .

      You could have 'make install' to install without 'make' to compile. Ship it with compiled binaries.

      --
      The masses are the crack whores of religion.
    12. Re:I Hate Linux Distro Certification by fimbulvetr · · Score: 1

      The comment was in response to this question:

      Why can't companies release software with a script that checks to see if you have all the required dependencies and tells you exactly what you are missing?

      Which is to say, it'd be nigh impossible for a script to "just know" if it's dependencies are met on varying distros.

      My apologies for not stating that ahead of time.

    13. Re:I Hate Linux Distro Certification by oyenstikker · · Score: 1

      The configure scripts on many applications I have installed from source seem to figure it out just fine. How do they do it?

      Please forgive any naivety on my part. I don't know C, I've never written a configure script or a Makefile, I've only installed things.

      --
      The masses are the crack whores of religion.
    14. Re:I Hate Linux Distro Certification by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can hate it as much as you like but the reality is that there is no guaranteed compatibility between different Linux distribution. In addition from a commercial SW vendors perspective there is no guarantee that the supplier of the distribution will be able to rectify the issue causing the incompatibility.

      The first issue means that no commercial vendor can afford to take on a new Linux distribution however compatible it may seem to be with say RHEL without doing the testing/QA which in itself can cost millions of dollars.

      The second issue means that each Linux platform is relatively more expensive to support than say a commercial UNIX platform where the OS vendor is prepared to offer ISV's guarantees that provided they use published interfaces that any OS changes which cause apps to break will be fixed by the OS vendor. Regrettably no Linux vendor is able to make this kind of commitment.

      Ironically Oracle themselves provide a utility for the Linux platforms they support which verifies that the platform a customer is raising a support call on is the exact platform that they certified. If they suspect that the platform is not what it seems then the utility can be used to grant or refuse further support calls for the platform.

      Oracles assurance that say IBM's software will run on Oracle Linux will have virtually no impact on commercial customers, in the absence of IBM certification the only option that might satisfy this kind of user would be contractual guarantees from Oracle to rectify any issues and I doubt that Oracle would be inclined to offer anything like that.

  11. Simply don't use IBM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What do they make anyway?

    Instead of DB2 there's Oracle or Postgres, instead of Eclipse (yuck!) there are other IDEs and much better Rich Client development platforms.

    If IBM doesn't want you as a client, you sure as hell don't want IBM as a service contractor!

    1. Re:Simply don't use IBM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What do they make anyway? You obviously have never seen their software catalogue. Granted, there's not much for the desktop PC, but server-side I find it hard to keep track of the number of different IBM products just in the small subset I use at work. You could run a seriously large enterprise with little or no software from other vendors. Lotus, WebSphere, Tivoli, DB2, and Rational are all pretty big product families. Then there's AIX , mainframe stuff (z/OS etc), not to mention hardware.... Not saying you should do so, of course (though I'm sure your local IBM sales reps would fall over themselves to encourage you) - but they make a hell of a lot of stuff, and a lot of it is actually pretty good.

    2. Re:Simply don't use IBM by ArtDent · · Score: 1

      If IBM doesn't want you as a client, you sure as hell don't want IBM as a service contractor!

      Who is the nebulous "you" in this statement?

      The droves of businesses falling over themselves to switch to Oracle's RHEL clone?

      As the article said, if there is customer demand, IBM will certify on it. Personally, I'd be much more interested in certification on Ubuntu or Debian. That would actually offer customers real, technology-based choice, not just "I want to give my money to Larry" choice.

    3. Re:Simply don't use IBM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      DB2 v9 *is* certified on Ubuntu. http://www-306.ibm.com/software/data/db2/linux/val idate/

  12. Luniz by Dogtanian · · Score: 2, Funny

    Linuzzz. Weren't they the rappers that had a hit with "I got 5 on it" in the mid-nineties? ;-P
    --
    "Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
    1. Re:Luniz by NDPTAL85 · · Score: 1

      I got 5 on it what you got homie?

      --
      Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
    2. Re:Luniz by seandiggity · · Score: 1

      It's got a badass beat as long as you can get the P Diddy (post-Puff Daddy, pre-Diddy) rap-over out of your head...

      --
      Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-rms
  13. The Problem Is There's 500 Linux Distributions by NDPTAL85 · · Score: 1

    At any one time. With Windows there's only one current version of Windows. Right now its Vista. Before it was XP. Before that Win2k/98. Now with Linux at any one time there are literally hundreds of distros available. This is why Linux certification is necessary. If you want Linux certification to go away then somehow convince the community to stop spreading itself thin and concentrate on a few major distros.

    --
    Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
    1. Re:The Problem Is There's 500 Linux Distributions by civilizedINTENSITY · · Score: 1

      "With Windows there's only one current version of Windows. Right now its Vista. Before it was XP."

      We live in different worlds. Right now I see laptops running WinXP and Win2k. Vista might as well not exist. We are members of the Microsoft Developer's Network Academic Alliance, so we can download free-as-in-beer copies of WinXP and Vista. I've only ever seen one copy of Vista running on campus.

    2. Re:The Problem Is There's 500 Linux Distributions by NDPTAL85 · · Score: 2, Funny

      "We live in different worlds. Right now I see laptops running WinXP and Win2k. Vista might as well not exist. We are members of the Microsoft Developer's Network Academic Alliance, so we can download free-as-in-beer copies of WinXP and Vista. I've only ever seen one copy of Vista running on campus."

      Of course we live in different worlds. You live in the academic world and I live in the real one. :)

      --
      Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
    3. Re:The Problem Is There's 500 Linux Distributions by Ash+Vince · · Score: 1

      At any one time. With Windows there's only one current version of Windows. Right now its Vista.

      No, there are currently the following versions of windows:

      1)Windows XP
      2)Windows 2003 Server
      3)Vista - but who cares, nobody in corporate land is using it yet so very few companies will be promising to support it yet.

      Then there are all the 64 Bit versions of the above as well. These actually count as different operating systems as the same software designed for 32bit may not run on the 64 bit version (eg - MS Exchange).

      I am currently a sysadmin of the following:
      1 Windows XP Server
      1 Windows NT Server (currently being retired)
      1 Windows 2003 R2 Server
      2 Windows 2003 Servers

      There is no way you tell me there all identical as painful experience has taught me they all have their own peculiarities.

      --
      I dont read /. to RTFA, I read /. to offend people in ignorance.
    4. Re:The Problem Is There's 500 Linux Distributions by Macthorpe · · Score: 1

      You have a fair point. However, without going into too much detail:-

      Current Windows builds: Including Windows 1.0 and later, but excluding 64-bit versions, 16.

      Current Linux distributions: At least 160.

      This doesn't really help GP, who was just plain wrong, but there is an order of magnitude between the number of versions of Windows and the number of versions of Linux.

      --
      "It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
  14. Who modded this insightful? by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 2, Insightful
    http://www-306.ibm.com/software/data/db2/windows/

    Tada! DB2, IBM's database product, certified for Windows.

    If you can read you will also note that they list the versions of 2003 that are certified.

    So your entire argument is null and void. Specific windows distro/version's get certified or not to work with software by the companies supporting said software. You will not that windows XP for instance is NOT certified to work with DB2.

    Doesn't mean you cannot run DB2 on Windows XP (or other versions) just that if you do, you are on your own. Exactly the same as with linux distro's or even IBM's un-certified AIX versions.

    Certification is nothing more the saying, we tested our product with that product and if there are problems we will help you (for an ungodly amount of money) and if you choose to run our product on another product we won't help you, unless you pay an even large sum of money.

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

    1. Re:Who modded this insightful? by segedunum · · Score: 1

      So your entire argument is null and void. Specific windows distro/version's get certified or not to work with software by the companies supporting said software. You will not that windows XP for instance is NOT certified to work with DB2.
      -------> Point




      -------> You

      Hmmmmm. No it isn't. You've missed the point. I bet that DB2 would actually work on Windows XP absolutely fine, but the fact that IBM doesn't certify it is really not of any importance to anyone. The vast majority of software written for Windows is not certified in any way - it just runs on Windows, with some caveats between versions generally. Not so with Linux systems. The binaries may well run on a lot of systems, but paths are different, startup scripts are different etc. etc. etc. in lots of pointless ways.

      The fact that the vast majority of vendors feel compelled to certify for a particular distribution, and exclude another such as Oracle Linux, shows just how bad the situation of third party software installation is on Linux systems. Hell, I can get a huge amount of open source software installed on Windows such as Ruby, and update it, better than I can on any Linux system. Go figure.

      People run around pointlessly certifying software in the Linux world because third party software installation is so bad.
    2. Re:Who modded this insightful? by swillden · · Score: 1

      I bet that DB2 would actually work on Windows XP absolutely fine, but the fact that IBM doesn't certify it is really not of any importance to anyone.

      It's not? It's of great importance to the company that decides to run DB/2 on XP and then runs into difficulties, because whether the difficulties are related to XP or not, IBM is not going to provide support. Even if what they ran into was ultimately a bug in DB/2, IBM's not going to do a thing about it until the company has replicated it on a certified, supported platform, and IBM is in no way unique in this regard.

      The vast majority of software written for Windows is not certified in any way - it just runs on Windows, with some caveats between versions generally.

      Vast majority of *what* software? The vast majority of enterprise software, that comes with real support contracts, is certified on particular versions of Windows -- usually with specific sets of service packs. "Oh, you're using Service Pack 3? Sorry, we don't support that. We have only certified SP2, I'm afraid you'll have to verify the problem on a supported platform before I can help you." I've heard those words, or words like them, plenty of times.

      No, your typical consumer software isn't certified for particular versions of Windows, but stuff like Websphere, DB/2, Oracle, Domino, Groupwise, etc. certainly is.

      Hell, even Microsoft specifies particular Windows versions for their enterprise products. For example, I just hit the MS pages about Exchange Server 2007 and the Planning Checklist page includes these tidbits:

      • Under Active Directory Planning: At least one domain controller in each Active Directory site that contains Exchange 2007 must be running Windows Server 2003 SP1
      • Under Mailbox Server Role Planning: Server is running Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1 (SP1), Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition or Windows Server 2003 R2

      There are more, and if you look at any of the other versions of Exchange Server, Active Directory, SQL Server, etc., you'll find that almost all of them specify similar exact versions and fixpack levels. Of course, the products will generally run on other versions of Windows but Microsoft will not support them, just like any other vendor of software with big-dollar support contracts. Unless, of course, you want to buy a custom support contract, in which case most vendors will support anything you like, assuming it doesn't bankrupt you.

      Linux is no different in this respect.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    3. Re:Who modded this insightful? by segedunum · · Score: 1

      It's not? It's of great importance to the company that decides to run DB/2 on XP and then runs into difficulties
      That's why you would test it before hand and see whether you actually run into any difficulties. If you're one of these people who relies on certification to give you warm fuzzy feelings of not running into any trouble, then you're not doing your job properly. It also renders the rest of your comment pointless, because you don't know what I'm talking about.

      "Oh, you're using Service Pack 3? Sorry, we don't support that. We have only certified SP2, I'm afraid you'll have to verify the problem on a supported platform before I can help you." I've heard those words, or words like them, plenty of times.
      You're getting certification mixed up with "We're just going to decide not to support that at all".
    4. Re:Who modded this insightful? by swillden · · Score: 1

      That's why you would test it before hand and see whether you actually run into any difficulties. If you're one of these people who relies on certification to give you warm fuzzy feelings of not running into any trouble, then you're not doing your job properly.

      Whooooooossssssshhhhhh!

      You completely missed the point.

      The issue isn't whether or not it will work during testing, or even during the first few months of production. The issue is what happens when you run into something that doesn't work and find that the expensive support contract you paid for is useless because the app vendor support staff says "our product isn't supported on that platform. You have to use a certified OS."

      Certification tells you that the vendor will support the platform, and that it will work to some degree, in some configuration, and in some environment. Whether or not it will do what you want with your configuration in your environment is something you need to test.

      The lack of certification doesn't mean that it won't work, but it does mean that when it doesn't you'll be on your own when trying to fix it.

      You're getting certification mixed up with "We're just going to decide not to support that at all".

      Huh? From the point of view of the customer who needs support, there is no difference! Well, there is the difference that some vendors call them "certified platforms" and others call them "supported platforms", but that's just terminology.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  15. It's nice to see... by peterbiltman · · Score: 1

    ... IBM telling Oracle to go to hell. They are my hero.

    1. Re:It's nice to see... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oracle used to have a course on how to beat IBM
      These two are competitors.
      IBM also makes DB2.
      Customers dont value good value for money or honesty.
      why would people go for win solutions /w limitations
      built in instead of good value and honest linux.

  16. it matters to the PHBs .. by rs232 · · Score: 1

    'If Oracle can say "Yes, this will run" to their customers, and their customers try it out and it does actually run, then no one will care'

    I think they are correct and should never certify Larry Ellisons stolen Linux code. Personally speaking I don't want to do business with a self confessed software thief.

    "We can just take Red Hat's intellectual property and make it ours, they just don't have it."

    was: I Hate Linux Distro Certification
    (Score:4, who modded this up Insightful !!)

    --
    davecb5620@gmail.com
    1. Re:it matters to the PHBs .. by segedunum · · Score: 1

      I think they are correct and should never certify Larry Ellisons stolen Linux code. Personally speaking I don't want to do business with a self confessed software thief.
      And what's that got to do with the comment?
  17. This isn't just sabre rattling by postbigbang · · Score: 1

    Running a closed-source app on an otherwise open source platform has problems to start. IBM's service organization status means that the liability for apps running successfully is largely on them. DB2 isn't really competitive with Oracle, but IBM also needs any number of Oracle's famous acquisitions to run on their infrastructure. The lightweight, one-toe-in-the-water support that Oracle has for Linux (despite the PR otherwise) doesn't make for a successful relationship. It's up to Oracle to figure this one out if they really really want to play in the burgeoning FOSS marketplace. This is a good thing: I never used to believe IBM but their efforts towards FOSS have been fairly stellar, and for the right reasons, IMHO.

    --
    ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
    1. Re:This isn't just sabre rattling by dfdashh · · Score: 1

      DB2 isn't competitive to Oracle? Gartner DataQuest's 2005 numbers show otherwise: http://www.gartner.com/press_releases/asset_152619 _11.html/. IBM is @ 22% to Oracle's 48%. Who knows what those numbers look like now, but IBM certainly hasn't been trounced.

      --
      df -h /my/head
    2. Re:This isn't just sabre rattling by postbigbang · · Score: 2, Insightful

      With all due respect, those that believe Gartner are doomed. Let's take a look, however, at the revenue models. The basic DB doesn't make that much revenue, although it's nice. What makes revenue are all of the integration services and respective apps and app-building chores. That's why Oracle and IBM both went on an acquisition bender-- to bolster those revenues.

      When you zoom in on the DB and core-related components, Oracle likely trounces DB2 by a 2- or 3-1 margin depending on whose numbers you believe. Internationally, I'd say that it's more like 3-1. But then, few studies have been done that show how under-used those DB engines are, or if they're a means to an end, like supply-chain infrastructure that uses a DB underneath, but where the big money has been spent in the client-side (fat client) apps. Retail is another good place to look to gauge who's ahead. IBM did wonderfully there for decades, but has seen lots of migration away to other platforms by really big clientele. On the low-medium end, when AS-400's ruled the day, IBM did very nicely with cute little bundled expensive boxes, then Oracle (and others) started eating their lunch during the growth years of the late 90's. It's still a trend, offset by growing FOSS solutions (especially in retail and medical 'retail').

      I wish I could believe Garnter's numbers and forecasts. If they were true, then we'd all be using OS/2.

      --
      ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
  18. Not quite oblig... by wasted · · Score: 1

    Because it has approximately the same features and performance, a more human-friendly UI, no WTFs like VARCHAR3 and empty string IS NULL (if you don't believe it, just try it: oracle actually treats empty char fields as NULL), and it is slightly cheaper?
    Does it have the words "Don't Panic" on the cover in big, friendly, letters?
    1. Re:Not quite oblig... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, but maybe I can convince my managers to do that. I think it'd be the cheapest way to ramp up sales! Thanks for the great idea!

      (Yes, I work for DB2, thus anonymous...)

  19. Eliminating distro. cert. is wishful thinking by sirwired · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I just hate the whole concept of Linux distribution certification, because it tells me that there's something wrong with running software on it.

    For most IT dept.-written apps that rely on super-common well-known library functions, no, the distribution doesn't make much of a difference. But once you start doing lower-level stuff (like the sort of stuff every software application IBM sells does), things start to not work right.

    This is a big problem with Linux, and no amount of wishful thinking will make the problem go away. Apps not working on all distributions is exactly the sort of problem that the Linux Standards Base (went nowhere) and United Linux (supported by Caldera/SCO) were supposed to prevent.

    Organisations generally just try it out on a newer version of an OS, and if it works OK in a trial period (even if they have to tweak things to get it to work) they go with it, and they don't fly into a massive panic.

    Maybe some IT shop that doesn't care about their software actually working can do that, but actual software companies that make their living selling software MUST perform testing.

    Yes, there are many organizations that do that, but those are either small and/or low-quality IT shops and/or non-critical apps.

    I have several healthcare industry customers that are running OS software that is coming up on three years of ageing out of OS vendor support because their app vendor STILL hasn't certified a more recent O/S version. For them, and most customers, the app vendor support is far more important than OS vendor support, because they know that most day-to-day bugs are in their apps, not their OS. Personally, I know that I crash Mozilla (and other apps) a heck of a lot more than I have ever crashed Windows.

    If Oracle can say "Yes, this will run" to their customers, and their customers try it out and it does actually run, then no one will care.

    Those customers will care very much when they try and call IBM to receive assistance under their support contract for their expensive and complex application and IBM says "Sorry Mr. Customer, you are running in an extremely unsupported and untested environment." Usually this will be accompanied by some limited best-effort support to make sure that it is not an obvious bug in the product.

    Now if enough customers ask for it (and are willing to pay), I am sure that IBM will be more than happy to certify their apps on Oracle Linux. Yes, Oracle is a competitor, but so is M$, and plenty of IBM software runs on Windows. But IBM is not going to go out and certify Oracle Linux just because Oracle is whining about it. I am equally sure that if IBM rolled out their own distro tomorrow, Oracle would not be falling over themselves to certify their apps for it either.

    This whole concept of distributors and software vendors protecting themselves (and engineering some lock-in, incidentally) by certifying, or certifying for, certain distributions just isn't helping Linux or open source software get more widely used.

    The fact of the matter is that there ARE differences between distributions, and those differences have been known to break a lot of applications. Because of this, there is no way for a software vendor to get around distribution certification. If you certified your mega-dollar application to run on any Linux distro, what do you do the first time some clown calls up with some home-grown hybrid of five different distros and wonders why it doesn't work?

    Software companies are in the business of making money, not "helping Linux or open source software get more widely used." If Linux distro writers want to make the burden of application certification easier, then the onus is on the Linux folks to get their act together and make Linux distros more homogenous. Don't blame the software vendors for this sorry state of affairs.

    SirWired

    1. Re:Eliminating distro. cert. is wishful thinking by segedunum · · Score: 1

      This is a big problem with Linux, and no amount of wishful thinking will make the problem go away. Apps not working on all distributions is exactly the sort of problem that the Linux Standards Base (went nowhere) and United Linux (supported by Caldera/SCO) were supposed to prevent.
      Yer, and that's where effort needs to go - no on relying on certification.

      Maybe some IT shop that doesn't care about their software actually working can do that, but actual software companies that make their living selling software MUST perform testing.
      Errrrr, whereabouts did I say that testing wasn't peformed? The point is, relying on certification here gets you nowhere, as you've actually admitted, otherwise testing wouldn't be necessary ;-).

      Yes, there are many organizations that do that, but those are either small and/or low-quality IT shops and/or non-critical apps.
      Errrrr, no. Many organisations big and small don't fly into a panic when something isn't certified - it depends on if it works. See testing comment above. With Linux systems, very little can work easily between them, and people even have an easier time installing open source software on a Windows system.

      The fact of the matter is that there ARE differences between distributions, and those differences have been known to break a lot of applications.
      Making that statement doesn't solve the problem.

      If you certified your mega-dollar application to run on any Linux distro, what do you do the first time some clown calls up with some home-grown hybrid of five different distros and wonders why it doesn't work?
      Contribute to the LSB and projects like Portland and make sure that my software works with it. It doesn't stop me from certifying for a few distributions, as before, but it ensures that many people at least have a fighting chance of getting it to work, even when upgrading to a newer version of a certified distro.

      You're just skipping around the root problem, and the solution, I'm describing. You could never feasibly certify for every distro, but you certainly can help get them to work on a technical level. Again, certification doesn't solve anyone's problems.

      Software companies are in the business of making money, not "helping Linux or open source software get more widely used."
      The software company in question here uses Linux and makes huge amounts of money out of it.

      Don't blame the software vendors for this sorry state of affairs.
      Software vendors, whether they like it or not, are a part of getting this to work. If software vendors are creating specific RPMs as they are prone to do, and even trying to detect the distro and version you are installing on, then they are a part of the problem. It is up to distributors, the community, and software vendors, to work together to mitigate this problem. As a result, vendors will have far fewer installation and support headaches and they will sell more software i.e. more money.

      Software vendors throwing their hands over their ears isn't going to help here.
  20. Why is Oracle doing a Linux distro? by cryfreedomlove · · Score: 1

    Would you use it if you were not going to run an Oracle DBMS on it? All Oracle products that are not the core DBMS exist for one reason: sell the DBMS.

    If you buy anything from Oracle that is not the DBMS (such as OAS) then you are buying a me too, second best product.

    1. Re:Why is Oracle doing a Linux distro? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In a way yeah... but on the other hand: all those others (such as the Peoplesoft and JD Edwards stuff) create mountains and mountains of integration and support services revenue -- perhaps altogether more profit than what the Oracle RDBMS brings home. They are primary breadwinners in their own right.

      Well okay, an OS is under not above the database, so it's a bit different case there for Linux. But obviously if Oracle provides "their own" OS they'll have in many ways an easier time integrating it into the client's production, while charging the same old same old not-so-small fortune for the support... so they'll have good reasons for doing it.

      Hell no I'm not the slightest bit interested in Oracle's pet Linux distro... but they likely won't ask me either ;-)

  21. To whom is Oracle selling?!? by mengel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Oracle isn't selling to IT people; they're selling to IT peoples' managers.

    --
    - "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
  22. You kinda missed the point of the name 'Oracle'. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    With a name like 'Oracle', their pronouncements are straight from God. Or someone who thinks he's God...

  23. ORacle is a competitor by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

    Of course they have a vested interest not to support it. IBM makes DB2.

    Also IBM wants you to buy an IBM server with your DB2 database. Oracle linux can run on Sun's which also is IBM's competitor.

    This is purely political and not unexpected.

    --
    http://saveie6.com/
  24. Aww geez! It beginning to sound like... by RoadWarriorX · · Score: 1

    the Unix Wars all over again.

    Look, guys. Interoperate, or die. Simple as that.

    --

    Coderz 4 Life
  25. If your app is big enough to require Oracle... by Schraegstrichpunkt · · Score: 1

    ... wouldn't it be a good idea to keep other stuff off your Oracle box, anyway?

    --
    http://outcampaign.org/
  26. of Red Hats and Yellow Pants by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    First, this is another good reason to not use IBM's software. They have a lot of competition, and all of it is far superior to their offerings, on almost every level.

    Second, it just goes to demonstrate how, as with everything, "free" will always end up being the far more expensive option. I would rather pay a fair price upfront than lock myself in to a "free" offering with no guarantees, certainties, or expectations upon which you can make informed decisions.

    IBM, and especially Linux, will always make an organization a slave to a legion of consultants, the majority of which are under-skilled and over-payed. When you are forced to pay people to work on something so obscure, how can you really judge how good they are at their job?

    1. Re:of Red Hats and Yellow Pants by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


      First, this is another good reason to not use IBM's software. They have a lot of competition, and all of it is far superior to their offerings, on almost every level.


      Maybe... name one competitor product _far_ superior than IBM's? And in what way? How to justify "far superior"?


      Second, it just goes to demonstrate how, as with everything, "free" will always end up being the far more expensive option. I would rather pay a fair price upfront than lock myself in to a "free" offering with no guarantees, certainties, or expectations upon which you can make informed decisions.


      Can I see it as: Managers are afraid of deciding on something which they cannot blame others if something goes wrong?


      IBM, and especially Linux, will always make an organization a slave to a legion of consultants, the majority of which are under-skilled and over-payed.


      Several years ago, I used to use a dual-boot Windows/Linux box to go online via dial up. At the same time, the Linux box could get me data download at 4k/second but Windows can only 1k/second at best, mostly nothing. At that time, Linux is still mostly unheard of, and feared by the Windows user base. Which developer do you think, is getting paid, and under-skilled and over-payed?


        When you are forced to pay people to work on something so obscure, how can you really judge how good they are at their job?


      Real programmers dare go somewhere normally feared by wannabes.

  27. Nah, what you say is by Colin+Smith · · Score: 1

    Well, the software configuration you are using is not supported, our software engineer can be onsite in 3 hours to help you sort the problems out. Oh and btw, that'll be $300 per hour with no guarantee of a fix.

    --
    Deleted
  28. a "spanner in the works"? by Todamont · · Score: 0

    IBM has thrown a spanner in the Oracle Linux works...
    Holy christ, I got a spanner in my computer works once and it let all the magic smoke out!

    --
    Kharma is like a boomerang. Mine is broken.
  29. No certification = chaos by sirwired · · Score: 1

    This is a big problem with Linux, and no amount of wishful thinking will make the problem go away. Apps not working on all distributions is exactly the sort of problem that the Linux Standards Base (went nowhere) and United Linux (supported by Caldera/SCO) were supposed to prevent.

    Yer, and that's where effort needs to go - no on relying on certification

    I am very sure that SW vendors would love to not have to test/certify apps on individual distros. It's expensive, time-consuming, error-prone, and a real Pain In The Butt. but what exactly are they supposed to do until all Linux distros conform to some comprehensive standard? (This will never happen, because somebody will always find a "better" way to do things.)

    Maybe some IT shop that doesn't care about their software actually working can do that, but actual software companies that make their living selling software MUST perform testing.

    Errrrr, whereabouts did I say that testing wasn't peformed? The point is, relying on certification here gets you nowhere, as you've actually admitted, otherwise testing wouldn't be necessary ;-).

    You said "Organisations generally just try it out on a newer version of an OS, and if it works OK in a trial period (even if they have to tweak things to get it to work) they go with it, and they don't fly into a massive panic." That's not testing, at least not testing I'm going to let any vendor get away with.

    Certification IS useful, and is the end-product of a quality testing process. The idea is that customers hold off implementing software on uncertified distros until the SW vendor has verified that it will actually work. Certification is VERY useful, as distro quirks can be found in a vendor test lab before they are found the hard way by a customer. (That isn't to say that certification is flawless, but it is better than a free-for-all.)

    Yes, there are many organizations that do that, but those are either small and/or low-quality IT shops and/or non-critical apps.

    Errrrr, no. Many organisations big and small don't fly into a panic when something isn't certified - it depends on if it works. See testing comment above. With Linux systems, very little can work easily between them, and people even have an easier time installing open source software on a Windows system.

    Whether or not "it works" is something most organizations rely on their software vendor to tell them, at least vendors that they are paying large amounts of maintenance dollars to. It is not a good strategy to render your expensive maint. contract worthless because you start running in an unsupported environment. When something very important like your primary inventory and invoice DB fails suddenly, you most certainly do panic when you call your DB vendor and they tell you "RHEL Vfoo.bar has not been certified yet because of nasty issues. Looks like you found one. Call back when you have backleveled."

    The fact of the matter is that there ARE differences between distributions, and those differences have been known to break a lot of applications.

    Making that statement doesn't solve the problem.

    This statement was merely a response to your statement: "I just hate the whole concept of Linux distribution certification, because it tells me that there's something wrong with running software on it." There IS something wrong with running software on "Linux" because the free-for-all huge pile of distros means there is no such thing as "Linux", at least not in a fashion useful to a vendor of complex software. Stating that you don't like that doesn't make the problem go away either.

    If you certified your mega-dollar application to run on any Linux distro, what do you do the first time some clown calls up with some home-grown hybrid of five different distros and wonders why it doesn't work?

    Contribute to the LSB an

  30. ibm by Ozgur+Uksal · · Score: 1

    This whole concept of distributors and software vendors protecting themselves (and engineering some lock-in, incidentally)
    by certifying, or certifying for, certain distributions just isn't helping Linux or open source software get more
    widely used.

    ozgur uksal http://www.oracle.com/technology/