How Long Will Oracle Stick With Open Source?

snydeq writes "The fact that Oracle has handed over the keys to two major open source projects in recent weeks has some questioning the fate of other prominent open source projects Oracle took on in the wake of its 2010 acquisition of Sun. But while OpenOffice.org and Hudson provided little commercial opportunity for Oracle, it appears that Oracle has plans to keep rein on NetBeans, MySQL, and GlassFish contrary to expectations, analysts contend."

Comments

Why do people keep developing for these guys?

[Anonymous Coward]

Stick a fork in it. It's done.

Re:Why do people keep developing for these guys?

[trackmeifyoucan]

I think that is what LibreOffice did...

Re:Why do people keep developing for these guys?

[williamhb]

Stick a fork in it. It's done.

Hmm. Earlier this year...
Oracle won't hand over the keys to OpenOffice or Hudson! Clearly they have it in for open source! Run for the hills!
Today...
Oracle have handed over the keys to OpenOffice and Hudson! Clearly they have it in for open source! Run for the hills!
Somehow I think there are a few people inside Oracle today shaking their heads and muttering about the press.

Re:Why do people keep developing for these guys?

[Kagetsuki]

How you aren't rated 5 at this point is beyond me. There's not even a story here - if you want it and it's open source right now fork it or lose it.

Re:Why do people keep developing for these guys?

[Darfeld]

Their must be something wrong in your summary. I don't think Oracle could ever not hand over the mentionned project. They are open source! The worry as I remember, was that they might :

1) Drop the open source thing and continue to develop the project as closed. A fork wouldn't eraze the problem, since most Open Office users (for the exemple) won't be willing to change just because of a closed source status. This leading eventually to two products too different for an easy change... bad for open source anyway.

2) Drop the project totally. Bad for most users who don't want to change, even worse for compagny who liked the support of Sun for their product, because clearly the open source community can't be trusted for support, if they even do it... Probably the less of two evil since it doesn't really split the user base or the devs.

Here we have two cases number two. Yes yes, they gave them to the Apache foundation... It's more of a brand trade than anything but it's actually better than a total drop, since the users knows where to go to update they softwares in the futur. But that not conforting for the open source project that are still in Oracle hands. Since it's obvious now that Oracle doesn't want to do Open source, they might end as cases one since they probably won't just drop them.

VirtualBox?

[utkonos]

So much talk about MySQL and Ooo etc etc. Why don't I hear anything about VirtualBox? It seems to be one of the best pieces of open source VM software out there.

Re:VirtualBox?

[drinkypoo]

Best as compared to what? QEMU?

Re:VirtualBox?

[Eravnrekaree]

What other open source virtualisation is there? Virtualbox is actually pretty good, I dont know of any others that provide its features and ease of use.

Re:VirtualBox?

[diegocg]

I use virt-manager and I'm happy with it. But it's not as good as virtualbox for desktops (lacks 3d acceleration on guests, for example)

Re:VirtualBox?

[drinkypoo]

I can count on one hand the number of times I've used VirtualBox's 3d features without VirtualBox blowing up... without using any fingers. And I tried several versions.

Re:VirtualBox?

[Chris Mattern]

What other open source virtualisation is there?

Xen leaps to mind.

Re:VirtualBox?

[RocketRabbit]

I use it to run Tribes 2 no problem.

Re:VirtualBox?

[Skuto]

Does that run on the operating system that everybody is actually using? No.

Re:VirtualBox?

[David Gerard]

VirtualBox is ehh okay at best. If you want to do anything even slightly fancy (manage a BlackBerry over USB, or perhaps run OpenBSD), it fails badly.

More importantly, it's really just not up to serious production use where anything resembling money is at stake. VMware is the only way to go, which is why they can charge such hideous sums of money. I would LOVE not to give money to VMware any more, but VirtualBox is miserably inadequate to the task.

After years of messing around with VirtualBox on the desktop, I've given up and gone with VMware Player. It has the important feature that shit actually works.

Re:VirtualBox?

[TheRaven64]

Xen doesn't run on any operating system. It's a type 1 hypervisor, operating systems run on it. VirtualBox is a type 2 hypervisor, it runs on an operating system. There are very few workloads where Xen and VirtualBox are comparable. For server virtualisation, Xen is a clear winner - fast PV devices, live migration, high-availability VMs via redundant copies and so on - but on the desktop VirtualBox performs well, is easy to use, and supports things like 3D pass-through. I'd be hard pressed to think of a single application where both Xen and VirtualBox were serious contenders.

Re:VirtualBox?

[LoganDzwon]

Funny, I've had fairly opposite experience. I'm not a fan of VMware. For commercial solutions I've had good experience with Parallels. In the OSS areana I've great experience with KVM for servers and VirtualBox for desktops.

Re:VirtualBox?

[David Gerard]

If I were building a personal cloud of Linux VMs, KVM would certainly tempt, yes. At work we're about to shift from a pile of large, expensive, horribly underutilised Solaris SPARC servers to a bunch of Ubuntu VMs in our hosting company's cloud, with VMware to manage them. I'm confident the VM itself is a hell of a lot more robust in KVM than VB - but what are KVM's tools like?

Re:VirtualBox?

[metamatic]

VirtualBox is ehh okay at best. If you want to do anything even slightly fancy (manage a BlackBerry over USB, or perhaps run OpenBSD), it fails badly.

Yeah, but managing a BlackBerry over USB doesn't work in VMware either.

Re:VirtualBox?

[David Gerard]

Does for me - XP in a VMWare Player. BlackBerry 9300, OS 6. What were you trying?

Re:VirtualBox?

[metamatic]

Curve, XP, OS 5. Maybe they fixed it.

VirtualBox

[Toe, The]

I was surprised when I stumbled across Oracle VirtualBox. It's pretty dang nice, at least for the end-user instance. What's in it for them to support this project?

Re:VirtualBox

[twocows]

I don't know, but they've been doing significant development on it. The interface has radically changed since the last version Sun put out. Or perhaps it's not that they've done significant development, but that the old developers just haven't been hindered by Oracle.

Re:VirtualBox

[Airborne-ng]

Thirding the VirtualBox subject, even if it's ninjaing the thread. I have enjoyed VirtualBox for a couple of years as my solution for virtualizing my Windows systems. As far as I know there is no better (free) solution exists and would hate to see it go.

"Stick With Open Source?"

[Anonymous Coward]

How can you stick with something you've never embraced in the first place?

Re:"Stick With Open Source?"

[ackthpt]

How can you stick with something you've never embraced in the first place?

Ellison goes through mood swings. He built a magnificent estate, modeled upon feudal Japanese architecture, now he's selling (or sold) it. Now he's into Yachting, we'll see how long that lasts.

for sail (ha!) one boat, used lightly, to compete in americas cup. includes dinghy, life vests and sails.

Re:"Stick With Open Source?"

[Culture20]

includes dinghy

Ellison's selling himself with the boat?

Because they make money from it?

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll get a personal and evaluation license only for the interesting bits which are inside the "Expansion pack" : USB-2 support etc.

Also is the community version lacking some features like remote display (regardless of OS) etc.

Otherwise then money - I can imagine that VirtualBox is also a strategic project. The reason why Sun bought it firsthand...

Re:Because they make money from it?

[nostrad]

VirtualBox OSE has (Tight)VNC support if you run it through VBoxHeadless. I personally run it to virtualize an older windows installation tucked away on a cheap-o computer which does not do VM-extensions and it works well.

Unless you need USB2 or PXE-boot (or RDP to your virtualized display for some reason), the open source edition is really neat.

Re:Because they make money from it?

[tlhIngan]

You'll get a personal and evaluation license only for the interesting bits which are inside the "Expansion pack" : USB-2 support etc.

Also is the community version lacking some features like remote display (regardless of OS) etc.

Otherwise then money - I can imagine that VirtualBox is also a strategic project. The reason why Sun bought it firsthand...

VirtualBox OSE *ALWAYS* had those limitations.

The thing is, Oracle stopped providing two different versions - the GPL'd source version (VirtualBox OSE) and VirtualBox (commercial license). Vbox OSE never had USB 2, Remote Desktop, etc. Ubuntu etc. provided Vbox OSE with didn't have those functions.

Now Oracle just provides the GPL'd version and the GPL'd sources for it. If you want the features that were in the commercially-licensed version of Vbox, you use the expansion pack. This had the advantage that all the distros had an official binary from Oracle, and it oculd be easily upgaded to the commercial one without breaking your current OS's packaging conventions.

In a sense, Vbox 4 is much easier now than Vbox3 was.

Nothing really changed licensing-wise between 3 (Sun) and 4 (Oracle). All the stuff that was in commercially licensed 3 was moved to an expansion pack that was commercially licensed, so instead of having an OSE and commercial versions of Vbox, you just have one. Helps with code maintainance as well, which is always a plus.

And I suppose, if someone wanted to write their own versions of USB2 and RDP (yes, it used RDP, not VNC) server, they could, and it'll be easier on the new architecture.

Reversed

[Anonymous Coward]

The real question should be how long are people going to stick with Oracle controlled projects?

Re:No Oracle Fan

[MightyMartian]

So has Microsoft if you choose to believe that kind of hype. But so far as I can see, in both cases, they come at FOSS with arms open wide but a knife at the ready.

Re:No Oracle Fan

[sourcerror]

The page lists stuff that they inherited from Sun (+Mysql).

I only know about one of their contribution: Toplink.

AHA!

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody finally realizes the jeopardy these projects are in. Java, MySQL and others. The future of these projects are vulnerable to neglect, mishandling, bad luck - whatever you want to call it. I hope this all works out.

Profit

[erice]

Yes, it is obvious but really, Oracle will do open source whenever and wherever they can profit from it. And by profit I mean actual dollars in the fairly short term. That has been their policy with everything they acquired from Sun. Long term growth and good will be damned.

my prediction is

[FudRucker]

as soon as the cost of R&D and maintenance on their open source products become higher than what revenue they bring in from service & support of said products you can bet they will quickly pull the plug on them...

Don't forget Lustre

[Anonymous Coward]

As a HPC admin, I hope Lustre FS stays open source, nothing else compares to it. http://wiki.lustre.org/index.php/Main_Page

Re:No Oracle Fan

[Lunix Nutcase]

Hell I would do (almost) anything to undo their acquisition of Sun.

Then you need to go back in time and stop Jonathan Schwartz from becoming CEO and running Sun into the ground.

Oracle bought Sun for MySQL

[JabrTheHut]

Oracle won't release MySQL. MySQL is a long-term, strategic threat to their primary product, Oracle database. 10 years ago in the finance sector in London every database was on Oracle, Sybase, MSSQL or DB2. Even the most noddy little applications got an Oracle or other database license bought for them. Now, only customer-facing services get an Oracle or Sybase license bought for them - the rest got MySQL. That's a lot of money Oracle isn't making any more.

Re:Oracle bought Sun for MySQL

[DragonWriter]

Oracle won't release MySQL. MySQL is a long-term, strategic threat to their primary product, Oracle database.

No, its not.

Now, only customer-facing services get an Oracle or Sybase license bought for them - the rest got MySQL.

You know, Oracle already has a free-for-production-use version of Oracle Database (Oracle Database XE) that has been around longer than they've owned MySQL. It may be true that low-cost (open source or not) database alternatives have reduced the number of licenses Oracle can sell, but Oracle has long ago figured out that it was better off if it was supplying the low-cost alternatives (and thus, using them as a vehicle to push upgrades to its more expensive products, or as vehicles to sell optional services) than if those were provided only by its competitors.

MySQL might eventually get cut because it doesn't have a clear distinct market role for Oracle that isn't better served (from Oracle's perspective) by the existing XE product, but its not getting cut on the basis that the existence of low-cost and/or open-source DBs are a strategic threat to Oracle Database (indeed, keeping MySQL as the most visible open-source DB probably is the best way to keep mindshare off of open-source DBs that have the potential to be a strategic threat to Oracle Database, something PostgreSQL, for instance, stands a lot bigger chance of doing than MySQL does.)

Re:Oracle bought Sun for MySQL

[Rich0]

Without getting into the whole Postgres vs MySQL thing, I'm not sure that XE and MySQL are so evenly matched. XE has artificial limits on database size. It might perform better, or be more easily upgraded to something that performs better, but if you have a huge but relatively low-load database you're not going to want to use it. Quite a few databases get large without having the transaction volume of a credit card company/etc...

Lots of people use MySQL, which I think is a big driver for Oracle to try to stagnate it. I suspect they'll just use the FUD approach - be vague enough to discourage forking, but also vague enough that enterprise users think twice...

Re:Oracle bought Sun for MySQL

[afabbro]

I think your analysis is too simplistic. Oracle makes a ton of money from their apps as well. Oracle is more than just a database software company. Oracle bought Sun for MySQL, for Java, and for the hardware for their database machines (Exadata).

Re:Oracle bought Sun for MySQL

[atomic-penguin]

Oracle XE is a loss leader, not a product. You know thats when you get a taste for free, but it'll cost you an arm and a leg the first time you get some undecipherable ORA-XXXX error. You get a version of Oracle Database limited in a number of ways, XE may legally:

• execute a single instance on a single 32-bit CPU
• allocate a maximum of 1 Gb of RAM
• store a maximum of 4 Gb of data

XE is a free for development use, not production use, version of Oracle Database. It can be used by developers, and educators or students for educational/training purposes. Its also licensed for use by Independent Software Vendors whose product fits within these restrictions and this small footprint.

Re:Oracle bought Sun for MySQL

[afabbro]

Without getting into the whole Postgres vs MySQL thing, I'm not sure that XE and MySQL are so evenly matched. XE has artificial limits on database size

XE is an intro DB and really nothing more. It's really a product without an identity. Anyone who wants to use Oracle for training, lab, etc. just downloads the Enterprise Edition and uses it for free (which is fine, as long as you're using it in that role). Anyone who wants to spend money on a DB engine is going to buy one of the commercial engines because XE only supports 1 CPU, 1 GB of RAM, and 11GB of data.

SQL Server's Express DB is more robust. DB/2 Express is kind of the same. I forget Informix Express's terms. But really, they're all "whet your appetite" not "here's a product that meets a need you have".

Re:Oracle bought Sun for MySQL

[DragonWriter]

Without getting into the whole Postgres vs MySQL thing, I'm not sure that XE and MySQL are so evenly matched.

I never said they are evenly matched. I said that they have a lot of overlap in the purpose they can be seen as serving for Oracle (which isn't exactly the same as having overlap in the purpose they serve for users.)

It might perform better, or be more easily upgraded to something that performs better, but if you have a huge but relatively low-load database you're not going to want to use it.

Clearly, if you have a database that is too big for its limits, then -- no matter what the load is -- you won't want to use it. But XE vs. MySQL isn't just a matter of load, Oracle (incl. XE) has a lot of SQL features that MySQL doesn't have. If you are using a RDBMS as a dumb row store, that probably doesn't matter, but that's not really where Oracle's business is focussed.

Lots of people use MySQL, which I think is a big driver for Oracle to try to stagnate it.

It would be if stagnating MySQL would drive people to Oracle, but stagnating MySQL is likely to drive people to other low-cost options. That might be Oracle XE in some cases (but, as you note, XE isn't usable for all the things that MySQL is), but its at least as likely to be other open source RDBMS's that Oracle has no hand in.

Re:Oracle bought Sun for MySQL

[marcosdumay]

XE is great if you are developping software for somebody that uses an Oracle DB, but you don't have one yourself. At least the last time I was on that situation, the Enterprise Edition wasn't free for that.

Re:Oracle bought Sun for MySQL

[marcosdumay]

They'll more likely want to sel "services" (Oracle's definition of services) for those companies using MySQL once they grow bigger and management starts to wonder about "support" (management's definition of support).

Re:Oracle bought Sun for MySQL

[Rich0]

Oracle (incl. XE) has a lot of SQL features that MySQL doesn't have.

Ugh, my pet peeve. Maybe I'm missing something, but I suspect you really mean that Oracle has a lot of PL/SQL features that MySQL doesn't have. ANSI SQL doesn't really do a whole lot more than INSERT, DELETE, UPDATE and such.

Yes, I realize you can write a whole application in triggers and all that, but I've found that straying from ANSI SQL tends to get you an application that is very tied down to a particular database vendor, and often just a few versions for that vendor.

At work every other Oracle upgrade it seems like we have major apps with issues. The ones that never have issues are the ones that targeted ANSI SQL and are platform-independent. The wonderful API that Oracle tells everybody to target is deprecated 5-10 years later and then everybody has to rewrite their apps...

Re:Oracle bought Sun for MySQL

[DragonWriter]

Maybe I'm missing something, but I suspect you really mean that Oracle has a lot of PL/SQL features that MySQL doesn't have.

No, I mean SQL, not PL/SQL.

ANSI SQL doesn't really do a whole lot more than INSERT, DELETE, UPDATE and such.

If by "and such" you mean "and all the rest of the commands in ANSI SQL", then this is true by definition, but standard SQL does quite a bit that MYSQL SQL doesn't in terms both of supported commands and supported options within those commands. And, like most real world databases, Oracle's SQL has several extensions to the standard (within SQL, we aren't talking about PL/SQL which is a separate procedural language.) Oracle both supports more of the standard than MySQL does and has various useful extensions that MySQL doesn't. (The same is true of PostgreSQL vs. MySQL.)

For one broadly useful feature of the standard that is supported by current versions of DB2, Oracle, MS SQL, Postgres, and Firebird, but not MySQL, consider Common Table Expressions.

Stop wishing, start thinking - like Larry

[XB-70]

Oracle does things for one reason and one reason alone: to win by controlling the market. Beat the competition at all costs. That is the driving force of Larry Ellison and the mantra behind the company. Don't ever dream or wish with these guys - they don't operate that way. Example: Oracle will keep MySQL so long as it leads to sales of one sort or another. The same with all the other open source code that it controls. If it's too much hassle and shows no returns, goodbye.

Re:Stop wishing, start thinking - like Larry

[afabbro]

Oracle does things for one reason and one reason alone: to win by controlling the market. Beat the competition at all costs. That is the driving force of Larry Ellison and the mantra behind the company. Don't ever dream or wish with these guys - they don't operate that way. Example: Oracle will keep MySQL so long as it leads to sales of one sort or another. The same with all the other open source code that it controls. If it's too much hassle and shows no returns, goodbye.

s/Oracle/$any_business/g

Re:Stop wishing, start thinking - like Larry

[rusl]

That's not true. Not every business is so focused on the bottom line. Sure you could say the most successful ones are the most greedy. But greed backfires in the long run. Also I'd rather have quality of life than insane wealth any day. By volume, most business is small people doing local things. Small mom and pop operations do things for those around them, not just greed.

well i dont know...

[Gravis Zero]

how long can you hold your breath? yeah, that long.

Fork it?

[antdude]

Can VirtualBox be forked like OpenOffice?

Re:Fork it?

[syousef]

Can VirtualBox be forked like OpenOffice?

No, not all of the source is open. At least last time I checked they kept the code for USB emulation as an incentive to buy a non-free license if you wanted the source - that code is not included in the open source version that you can build from scratch. That makes no sense to me and never did. Someone with a more detailed appreciation might answer more fully. Personally I think it's to prevent an easy fork.

Re:Fork it?

[TheRaven64]

Unlike Sun, the Oracle releases of VirtualBox are now entirely based on the open source release (no non-commercial license for the binaries, build from source if you want the really free version), and have the proprietary bits as an optional extra. I use it quite happily without them installed.

Re:Fork it?

[LoganDzwon]

The non-free version is free for personal use. It is just not open source.

What? Stick With Open Source WTF?

[BrendaEM]

In what way is whOracle doing anything with open source other than attacking it?
They are becoming the next SCO.

Re:No Oracle Fan

[Dragon Bait]

Hell I would do (almost) anything to undo their acquisition of Sun.

Then you need to go back in time and stop Jonathan Schwartz from becoming CEO and running Sun into the ground.

While Schwartz certainly didn't do anything stellar, Sun was already in a tail spin before Scott bailed. While they built their careers (and company) deriding Digital, they seemed to have stolen DEC's play book: establish yourself at the low-end, set your sites on the high-end and ignore the low-end, wonder what happened to your company. There certainly is enough blame to go around.

Re:Apache OOo hilarity

[opk]

What's so totally stupid is that the open source world has to put up with NIH. There's a number of these big software groupings: KDE, Gnome, FSF, Apache, Eclipse and they're all fairly guilty of it. Apache should stick with producing a web server. I really can't see why they didn't decline the Oracle offer of Open Office.

Re:Apache OOo hilarity

[David Gerard]

These days Apache does the world's Java infrastructure and, oh yeah, a web server. Their stuff's pretty good, though they have a nasty tendency to break stuff in minor versions.

Never got 3D working.

[Blaskowicz]

what combinaisons do give you working 3D acceleration? windows guest on linux host, windows host and linux guest, nvidia driver on the host, or non-nvidia driver on the host.. they should provide a compatibility list for us to know.

I never could play even Quake 3 under virtualbox. any game either doesn't work or give you software OpenGL.

Re:Never got 3D working.

[marcosdumay]

I'd guess that the best combination is some working OpenGL acceleration at the host, the corresponding drivers installed on the guest. I've had no problem with the guest drivers (except for programs that try to identify the GPU) on Windows, and I'd bet the Linux ones are even better. I've also had no problem with the host capabilities, using Linux when hardware acceleration is running, didn't try Windows, and I don't expect it to work with the drivers that come with the OS. Now, you have no chance of making it work if you don't have working acceleration at the host.

Re:Never got 3D working.

[RocketRabbit]

OpenGL rendering works fine. Whatever the guest driver uses works great for me.

I have also gotten Quake 3 to run, as well as numerous other 3d games. I had issues with Supreme Commander, but Homeworld 2 runs fine.

XE is free for production

[DragonWriter]

XE is a free for development use, not production use, version of Oracle Database.

False. The free (gratis) license for XE allows both development and production use (internal production use, and redistribution to licensees provided that the licensee accepts the same XE license as well as the license for your software.) Go read the "License Rights" section again.