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Oracle Attacks Open Source; Says Community-Developed Code Is Inferior
sfcrazy writes "Oracle has a love-hate relationship with open source technologies. In a whitepaper (PDF) for the Deparment of Defense, Oracle claims that TCO (total cost of ownership) goes up with the use of open source. They're essentially trying to build a case for the use of their own products within the government. 'The skill required to successfully and economically blend source code into a commercially viable product is relatively scarce. It should not be done directly at government expense.' Oracle also attacks the community-based development model, calling it more insecure than company developed products. 'Government-sponsored community development approaches to software creation lack the financial incentives of commercial companies to produce low-defect, well-documented code.'"
That is the most insulting demonstration of hubris from Oracle I have seen in a very long time.
Can't we just call them advertisements like the waste of time they truly are?
Not sure if I should laugh or cry.
the pot calling the kettle black
Larry, wake the fuck up you dumbass.
Half your product line was developed through open source programmers.
Stupid mother fucker...
Wasnt the kernel of their unbreakable linux open source as well?
If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
OR Oracle !! Or whoever !!
And just what fraction of Java was community-developed?
As usual, when a company makes this kind of claim, my first thought is 'yeah right', and my second though is that it's mostly FUD to convince people to buy the crap you make.
And, if my limited exposure to Oracle Beehive and a few other things means anything ... Oracle can produce some major-league shit code on their own. That stuff was complete garbage, wasn't even what I'd call a beta, but it was being sold as if it was solid and ready for business.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I promise, by the time you're done eating it, you'll feel right as rain.
You said "Government-sponsored community development approaches to software creation lack the financial incentives of commercial companies to produce low-defect, well-documented code."
What you really meant was "Unlike proprietary, hidden commercial code, Government-sponsored back doors in software can't be found in the traditional, open-source, many-eyes, well-documented code.
But that probably doesn't rake in the profits, does it?
Support FSF: Stop thinking with your wallet, and think with your imagination. (cc/non-commercial)
Bull-shit ! The only thing open source does is deny collection of huge fees. I've had more issues with purchased software.
There are many other types of incentives and I have rarely done my best work for strictly financial ones. When contributing to an open source project you have to think that somewhere someone will look at the code you write and have the ability to publicly shame you if you do something truly stupid. Standing, respect, whatever you want to call it, is a big motivator for many people. If the same thing happens in many businesses there *may* be consequences, but often as long as it works well enough to collect the customer's money it ships. Personally, I've found more fugly code turds in various closed source projects than I've touched than in the open source world.
Go decompile some oracle fusion middleware java code sometime. I assure you that what you find will not inspire confidence.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you. Then they fight you, then you win.
IMHO, wouldn't Java be a example of the contrary to this? I don't know any OSS utilities or operating systems that have had as many issues as Java has had, allowing an attacker to seize control of multiple platforms.
The only thing that came close would have been sendmail in the '90s, and that lasted about 6-9 months.
Of course, Solaris is a different beast altogether, and it has stood the test of time, security-wise. However, this is more of Sun's creation than Oracle's.
Does anyone believe Larry after Java, Mysql e.a. within his greedy hands? He is a first class moneymaker but also a first class liar. Larry, go home!
HATE HATE.
He's watched McNealy praise OSS and take jabs at Microsoft while it was Linux and not Windows that was eating away at his more lucrative revenue streams. Hell, he was there to pick up the debris.
I am not talking about the merits of the argument. I am not agreeing with Oracle and saying that OSS is inferior. I am just saying OSS is a threat to companies like Oracle and therefore it is only logical that they would try to persuade their costumers that community code is inferior.
The logic behind this white paper leads me to think that all the lawyers working on the SCO case before they lost that golden goose have changed careers and are now working for Oracle instead.
ha ha ha ha ha ha
really... well i supose they have to try
As we will see, total cost of ownership (TCO) for open source software often exceeds that of commercial software. While minimizing capital expenses by acquiring “free” open source software is appealing, the up front cost of any software endeavor represents only a small fraction of the total outlay over the lifecycle of ownership and usage.
I had a similar discussion once with an engineer. We were looking at the numbers and I doubted some of the numbers. the engineer replied, "Well, that number came from somewhere!"
Me: "Yeah, out of someone's ass!"
Financial numbers are not physical constants where there's empirical evidence to back it up like say 'g'.
And the thing is, there aren't necessarily lies. You can apportion costs in many different ways and still adhere to FASB and to IRS rules.
tl;dr: Let me at those numbers and I'll prove that any Oracle solution costs way more than any F/OSS solution - and it'll pass FASB and IRS muster.
"...the financial incentives of commercial companies to produce low-defect, well-documented code.'
Even under government contract? Or in the private sector? Recently, there have been several large commercial software development efforts that have resulted in some pretty messy crash-and-burn failures.
I really don't want another situation like SCO vs. Linux. It's always these companies with their own proprietary unix distros.
I'm not even sure why Oracle would say this, since Solaris uses large amounts of open-source software. (GCC and friends, X11, gnome 2, I believe binutils, etc. )
Are they saying a lot of the software on their own platform is incredibly insecure? If so, they should take up the task of rewriting and maintaining their own damn code.
Defects get found and fixed by the community. The process is driven by a desire to produce quality software that works. This seems to have been overlooked by Oracle.
Well, I suppose if anyone could use a good costume, it's Oracle, I guess. They're probably the ugliest company in the technology business at the moment.
Open-source documentation is like an insomniac cat. Theoretically it exists somewhere, but no one's ever seen it.
And remember, in this paper Oracle is pandering to risk-averse goverment "managers" in order to get money from them.
Nothing strikes fear in the hearts of bloated corporations more than competent individuals banding together to produce a superior product for free. Socialism!
Not everything is terrible as PHP, Oracle.
It is funny that closed-source software is always the one that has most problems, just by ratios alone, not even number counts.
when you are silly enough to buy it from Oracle. Several shops, I am aware of, are dropping Oracle Linux because their support is worse than useless.
It almost seems that they are trying to prove open source doesn't work by supporting it so badly.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Because Java is defect-free.
Very strange and hypocritical.
Especially since Oracle owns several products that are open-source (some that started off as open source as well).
Let's see....
VirtualBox (it has an open source edition)
MySQL
OpenSolaris
Java
Oracle Linux (Oracle repackaged version of RHEL and not started from a company they bought out)
And Oracle Linux is used as a base for the following product lines from Oracle:
Oracle Exadata
Oracle Exalogic
Oracle Big Data Appliance
Oracle Exalytics
Oracle Database Appliance
I'm sure there's more that people can list....but for me....I don't give a rat's arse about Oracle...shoot, I was rooting for the Kiwi's in the America's Cup and I live in the Bay Area.
Compare the level of integration and usability between say, OS X or BeOS, to your typical linux distribution. Compare how many times a typical component of the open source ecosystem goes through a major API breaking re-write because the core design was so badly broken that maintaining API compatibility was either too difficult or impossible.
Open source is many things, but a generator of superior code, reliably, it is not.
There is masses of half-assed, broken, wretched and downright brain-damaged open source code out there, and anyone who claims otherwise doesn't know what they're talking about. Much of it is written as a quick and dirty hack to solve an individual's problem and then released, with scant regard to long term maintainability.
Yes, there are some gems, but they are hidden amongst many many times more garbage.
The good thing is you can fix it, if needed, and the software will evolve. But typically commercial software has gone through that process several times before it gets to market, because despite what people here may say about microsoft, not many people will pay good money for completely broken crap that doesn't work.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
It looks like Oracle could not handle the load and now they are saying Oracle is better than open source solutions. It might be that two month are needed to port data from Oracle database into something bigtable-like and they are afraid.
Oracle: "We're buying Sun. Next step is to dismantle (MySQL,) close (Solaris, Java,) dissolve (OpenOffice) and generally disrupt all of Sun's open source properties that we can."
Community: "What? You can't do that!"
Oracle: "Watch us!"
Community: "Well, we'll just fork it."
Oracle: "S---! The forks (MariaDB, Percona, OpenIndiana, LibreOffice) and their pre-existing competitors (Linux, FreeBSD, Dalvik) are getting more popular than our versions! READY THE FUD CANNONS!"
worthy of mentioning...
unbreakable linux?
MySQL?
solaris? you know the project you guys killed for no apparent reason?
Good people go to bed earlier.
Oracle has been losing mindshare in the government market for years. They cost too damn much and people are starting to realize that PostgreSQL, MySQL and MS SQL Server really do the exact same damn thing as Oracle for 95% of the meaningful use cases out there. Add on to that that a highly qualified system administrator can learn how to become a decent administrator of any of those with a little ramp up time and of course Oracle is scared of open source (and Microsoft but that's a different story).
...calling it more insecure than company developed products.
Prove it. Lets see the source.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
The NSA has a much easier time getting backdoors set up through corporate code rather than community code. I wonder if they put any pressure on Oracle to say this.
Says the company that borrows from an open source project and puts the word "unbreakable in front of it..... In any case I suppose their point is supported by the fact that current government spending on proprietary software is soooo efficient. :S
I think we all knew they were evil, so this is no surprise to me. Although I hope our government asks the French police how Ubuntu is working out for them, because last time they made a statement, they were saving a *lot* of money.
If open source is so bad, surely maintaining open source projects is a liability, so why not sell them off to an interested party who's willing to take that headache away for them? I'm sure they'd find a few interested parties if the price was right.
I really can't stand hypocrites.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
A company I worked for had some Oracle consultants hired (in order to teach the opaque mess that was their cobbled-together app-server and portal at the time). What they produced was obviously pasted from code examples they had available, instead of actually understanding the code. As useful as telemarketers, then, except far more expensive.
Community developed code is insecure! Community developed code is inferior! Open source must be exterminated! Exterminate! Exterminate!
Of course in the show the Daleks are supposed to be a huge threat, but they're also kind of laughable. Slow, clumsy, thrown together using whatever crap happened to by lying around at the time.
So i guess that kind of fits Oracle and its software as well.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
> Oracle claims that TCO (total cost of ownership) goes up with the use of open source.
Sure. In related news, Weston Bakeries says that homemade bread is more expensive and not nearly as high quality as Wonder Bread.
> 'Government-sponsored community development approaches to software creation lack the financial incentives of commercial companies to produce low-defect, well-documented code.'
Yeah, because community development doesn't care about bugs because they can sell you the software and then sell you massively profitable service contracts to fix their products.
Hey.... Waaaait a minute!
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Pick a project submit a patch, politics takes over, and it's rejected. Just look at webp support for Firefox.
Sure, you can maintain your patch and keep applying it to every release that comes out, but ...
McDonalds proclaims home-cooked meals more expensive and difficult to make than eating at their restaurant.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
Do you expect them to say open source has a lower TCO? They are bidding/positioning themselves for contracts. If you were a real estate agent on a client interview and asked about a competitor, would you give them a glowing review? I doubt it.
There are many factors which contribute to TCO and the code itself is just one piece.
Security, both OpenSource and Oracle have fallen short in this area. In some cases Oracle has left security bugs sitting for a very long time. Sometimes until called on it publicly. However, with open source your relying on the code maintainers to put in a fix quick. Alot of times they do but that depends on the software and how actively supported it is. Sure, you can modify the code yourself but that affects TCO.
We have both Oracle and open source software in house. Based on our experiences i'm not sure that the open source software has a lower TCO than its more commercial alternative. The upfront costs to open source are cheaper but the long term support costs were higher. Before I get flamed, i'm talking about a particular open source product. Since i'm posting from work i'll leave specifics out of it. But the point is, just because its open source doesn't always mean overall TCO is lower. You have to do the analysis on a product by product basis and factor in both upfront and long term costs.
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
As a former Oracle RDBMS user, I know that EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE is true:
You could shoot down the Oracle Listener by
$ telnet oraserver.myEmployer.com 1521
and some random typing on the keyboard. No passwords or accounts required whatsoever.
If you can do that, it is almost sure that one could build an exploit out of that thing.
The fact that Oracle can get away with this kind of shit claims is just a testimony on the corruption of the Western World (which the US is the leader).
And yeah, I read Microsoft is equally shitty. MySQL can be crashed by "oversized" integers and the like.
Never go full SCO.
Have archaeologists discovered something with a _higher_ total cost of ownership than running Oracle?
I'm having trouble believing that is possible.
Holy shit, this is incredible news!
A company with the track record of Oracle does not get to have an opinion on who can write "secure" code.
One of the things I have noticed about commercial software is this...if you pay enough money, they will make sure things work for you.
I'm not saying that's a good or bad thing, just relaying my experience. Our company is a big CA and Oracle customer, and we use a lot of their products in production. All of it is absolute crap, and extremely poorly documented. I can't believe how much work it is to get an Oracle instance running and properly secured/tuned compared to something like SQL Server. But, when you call, your problems are solved even if they have to drag the guy who wrote your problem module out of his cave. One CA product I work with uses a completely proprietary message queue interface to pass messages between different chunks of the product code, and it's over 20 years old. Like I mentioned, one phone call and a few logfiles later, and I had a fix for my problem. The software is God-awful and I can't stand working with it, but at least it's fixable. Who knows what dev resource they had to resurrect from the dead to make the change...but it was made.
Beyond the "scared proprietary dev shop" feelings this piece seems to indicate, I think Oracle is trying to make the point that OSS doesn't necessarily offer you the same level of "we'll move heaven and earth to make your product work." This can be a valid argument with executive types who want to minimize risk. Again, I am not saying it's right, and there are plenty of great support resources for Linux out there...look no further than Red Hat, that's what they make their money on. But, there still is the perception that if big support organizations aren't built around a product, it must be a hobbyist toy.
The other thing that I'm not so convinced that OSS is good at is the user experience. Developers don't make good GUI designers. Look at any line-of-business Java monstrosity you've had to use for work...it's just not a top priority. Of course, Microsoft managed to destroy 21 years of the Windows desktop with Win8, so closed source companies can screw up too.
At least their advertisements say so: http://books.google.com/books?id=gzAEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA1&pg=PA7#v=onepage&q&f=false
One based off of RedHats and one based off Kernel.org. The RHEL kernel has alot more code it in, naturally.
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/linux/technologies/uekr2-features-1897094.html
Some features:
PV Huge Pages
dtrace
ocsf2
btfrs
ksplice..
From what I have seen on Oracle systems OEL is better for largest systems with heavy workloads.
If your running Oracle, IMHO it makes sense to run a tuned kernel. If you've already invested in the Oracle stack, then it makes sense to me to run Oracle Linux as well. Why have unnecessary bloat in there? Sure you could always compile and tune it yourself. Any improvements are sent back to kernel.org.
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
The skill required to successfully and economically blend source code into a commercially viable product is relatively scarce. It should not be done directly at government expense
That is why you pay people like Red Hat, Suse, and many other OSS providers, and you know what Oracle, it is a lot cheaper than what you provide
Overbloated software from private sector sold to government at exorbitant cost with large helping of vendor lock-in to ensure future licensing scheme and render alternatives incompatible.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
How do I know that closed, commercially developed code is lower defect and better documented? Am I meant to take Oracle's word for it?
There are also tons of low quality proprietary solutions, many of them being largely pet projects. There are many different metrics you can use, but at the veyr least, try to apply the same metric to both. That some proprietary software is better than some FOSS doesn't mean anything more than some FOSS being better than some proprietary software. Yes, there are tons of abandoned or otherwise low quality FOSS projects, but you could spend you whole life finding proprietary shovelware as well.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Personally, I've found more fugly code turds in various closed source projects than I've touched than in the open source world.
Is code the only aspect of note in an open source project?
How is the project named? Is it something reminiscent of the function (like PaintShop Pro, Photoshop, Internet Explorer) or something entirely random, forcing more cognitive load on an uninformed user (Gimp, Firefox, Juice)? Does it have a newish, edgy name to give it that extra sizzle (pantyshot, upskirt).
How is the project configured? Is is a list of poorly-written technobabble? Does the installation instructions begin with the history of the project (of which I am not interested), require other packages which I have to research and choose, does it require cryptic installation actions and complex setup that has to be done by hand?
How does the project look? Are the panels laid out with ease-of-use in mind, or they just show everything and "let the user arrange them as they like"? Is the text font and color scheme appropriate, or is it default, the user can choose the one they like?
Are there lots of icons for every little action, no matter how small (the "kitchen sink" philosophy), or is there a well-chosen subset that balances functionality with ease-of-use? Do the icon shapes bring the function to mind, or are they more-or-less random shapes that rely on popups to tell the user what they do?
Is the documentation well-written by people who are good at explaining things, or is it just a wiki editable by anyone, maintained by the users, with no real structure?
Has the code been tested by someone who is not the lead coder (and not the users)? Does the project use regression tests?
Yeah, nice code you've got there. If that's all I wanted in a product, yours would be a slam dunk.
As a user of both Open source software and Oracle products, I can say that, at least with Open source you're well prepared for the complete lack of support when a major issue arises. With Oracle, often you're not only surprised by the lack of support, but the fact that their support structure often leads you in the completely wrong direction, usually to squeeze consulting services fees out of you.
I'm not a programmer but I use Oracle products regularly and I guarantee that the source code is so full of WTF moments it would make your head explode.
[to the Senate] In order to ensure our security and continuing stability, the Republic will be reorganized into the first Galactic Empire, for a safe and secure society which I assure you will last for ten thousand years.
[Senate fills with enormous applause]
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
They are obviously struggling with how to handle both MySQL and the open source community...
We've been using MySQL as a very small part of our application; in fact so small that SQLite could have done the job. Because of licensing costs we decided to move to MariaDB and this is the email we got when they understood what was happening:
I was a little surprised to be honest with your decision of no longer using MySQL as a platform for your 5 modules and the fact that XXX is currently looking at different forks like MariaDB, PostgreSQL or other MySQL Forks.
I want to raise awareness on the impact this change will have on your business and also on the risk XXX will be facing when working with freeware technology DB, as it is important for Oracle to make sure all our partners understand the terms and conditions of distribution in which concerns embedding GPL Software.
I know MariaDB and also PostgreSQL – due to the difference in our business models, Oracle cannot offer similar unlimited usage pricing plans.
Nevertheless, before we move forward I would like to share some general business concerns I hear from other companies similar like yours that have previously looked into PostgreSQL, MariaDB, and other MySQL forks.
About any Open Source GPL-Licensed software: (e.g. RedHat Linux or MySQL Community Edition):
- Anyone can fork the software and rebrand it (e.g. Oracle Linux is fork of RHEL; MariaDB, SkySQL, PostgreSQL are forks of MySQL)
- Anyone can sell Support/Training/Consulting for GPL-licensed software
About Embedding GPL-licensed software:
- Embedding a GPL-licensed component makes the entire product to become "infected", and the entire product (including source) must be released under GPL and must be given back to the community. (e.g. MariaDB embedded within your application results in returning the code of the entire product to the open source community)
Before considering a fork, please answer these questions for yourselves:
1.1. Risk of Lock in
Do you want to get locked into an unstable fork of MySQL from a 3rd party?
Can the forks keep up with the MySQL releases (features, bug fixes, etc.)
What happens when the latest MySQL releases are not compatible with forks?
1.2. Lack of Engineering Resources
How many people are dedicated to Product Development of the fork?
How many engineers do they have working on InnoDB, Replication?
Can they deliver bug fixes for InnoDB, Replication, High-Availability etc. on a timely basis?
1.3. Risk of Software Quality
Are their patches extensively tested by millions of users like MySQL?
Do you want your production system to be the test bed for 3rd party patches?
Can they deliver bug fixes on a timely basis?
1.4. Commercial Licenses for OEM/ISVs
When you need a commercial license, who is going to help you?
1.5. Lack of Support Resources
How many people are in their Support Team vs. MySQL/Oracle?
Do they have the resources to service multiple large customers simultaneously?
What happens when they are unable to escalate a bug/feature directly to the MySQL Engineering Team?
1.6. Risk of Financial Viability
How long have they been in business?
Who are their reference customers?
Are their businesses financially sustainable?
Are you, your investors and customers comfortable having Indra Navia using a replica fork product? We will not be the cheapest but I am sure we can negotiate a good structure for you based on the history behind your relationship with MySQL; plus you will deal with the source.
Are you OK to continue?
Obscurity is not security
Because, you know, how could the open source community have developed code with the exceptional quality of a product offering like, uh, oracle forms for instance?
Oracle would do better by not mimicking Microsoft of 10 years ago, and instead simply state the REAL value of corporate software development for government use: Built-in back-doors for the NSA.
- The Kessel run is for nerf herders. I can circumnavigate the entire Central Finite Curve in a lot less than 12 parse
Research has proven the opposite to be true. So Oracle is barking up the wrong tree with this strategy. In an open world, lies don't work.
that lots of you folks have no idea how much Oracle costs. I mean the Enterprise Database. On lots of cores. In the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Just FYI.
We use weblogic and I find all the time open-source code used within the web container. Isn't that kind of saying i hate myself?
The question is who you want to pay, and what you want the cost model to be. That is, if it's something with both an FOSS and COTS option.
If you want to pay a vendor a fee, typically based on capacity + professional services, go that way.
If you want to use a FOSS technology, and pay only for professional services, go that way.
Generally I think the FOSS model is much better for customers, because:
1) The customer can scale the business without additional licensing costs.
2) The customer has the flexibility to choose any vendor (or internal staff) to do the work.
So, for example, my last startup grew to 70m users on FOSS software, with hundreds of servers, with only physical server, hosting and bandwidth costs (plus a small dev team, which I would need in any case). If I'd used a licensed OS, database, etc., that cost would have made my business not viable.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
Thanks for letting me know that, Oracle.
By the way, how is Hudson doing for ya?
And made it more secure with their internal development wizards. /s
The most secure product that oracle now owns.
Show us your code.
Otherwise shut the FU
Oracle Unbreakable Linux is a copy of RHEL with oracle providing the support. They use it on their Exadata offering. If it is inferior why do they not write their own secure java based OS that runs all.
Whatever. Oracle. Pfffft.
Yep, use to hear alot of smart people knocking GNU licensed and other software that was practically free as being inferior. In 1995 recall trying to convince a very bright architect to try gcc vs some proprietor c compiler and his response "Can't be that good, it is free". Eventually he came around.
I so agree with Oracle, Just look at how stable and secure Java is.
Bagdhdad Bob got a marketing job at Oracle.... good for him.
At this point, I would be satisfied if Oracle could provide a working SSL implementation. FU certicom!
Besides parking a permanent Oracle consultant in your office for eternity......
Fees:
Oracle Db License
Service Contract
vs.
PostgreSQL - Free
How hard can it be to track bug reports and vulnerabilities back to their initial commit to determine whether or not they were corporate-sponsored.
It would be interesting to see what companies provide the highest quality contributions and where un-sponsored individual contributions rank as a group.
" Says Community-Developed Code Is Inferior"
Easy thing to settle, Oracle, we showed you ours, now show us yours.
This sounds like a great way to kill Java as a cross platform language. As Oracle circles the wagons, one might think they would think about what happens as their circle of the entire market shrinks and the world passes them by.
Then, throw up your hands in disgust at the result, and blame the very concept of F/OSS. That's why, but for limited exceptions, I avoid the "community" products of Oracle and Redhat. And when the open source community provides much better alternatives, I avoid their "enterprise" products as well.
Yet another example of their blindness.
Well at least we finaly see the true road map for MySQL. Kill it or close it. The only one happy about that deal was Monty... and his billion dollars.
The reality is that much of it is. Very few open source projects possess really high quality code (e.g. OpenBSD, SVN, gcc). 99% of it is poorly designed, documented, and written. The FOSS community seems to believe that simply developing software in the open makes it better. Sorry esr (Eric S. Raymond) -- eyeballs don't always find bugs because the hard to find bugs are subtle and take years of learning a codebase before you can grasp them. This is of course only true for non-trivial things. But non-trivial FOSS has an entirely different set of problems (usability, documentation, long term support).
It's great that people write code and want the world to see it. But with that comes the need to take criticism constructively. Something I have seen few FOSS communities do well.
They're not entirely wrong. But they are wrong to argue against use of open source. It depends on if you're a nerd who can tweak anything, or if you're a large organization (or joe public) who needs a refined, polished product with extremely high reliability. Never underestimate the incentive of monetary compensation in software development. My experience is most open source projects lack the advancements and refinement that commercial packages have. Notable exceptions are RedHat, Ubuntu, Firefox, PostgreSQL, and others. ...Of course, you'll notice many (most?) of the good open source solutions have corporate backing.
Sour grapes. Is Java a fine example of commercial code? Flash? Get real.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/10/15/oracle_says_open_source_has_no_place_in_military_apps/
Quite frankly, the honest truth is open source code is poorly documented. I have read both the Windows source code and the Linux source code for example, the source code comments in the Windows source code are far more descriptive about what the source code does. This really is important, because it makes it easier for new developers to get involved and quickly understand how the software is put together. There is a strange contradiction in open source projects in general, on one hand they claim to be all about independant developers getting involved, on the other hand they make it as difficult as possible for independant developers to get involved by refusing to document the systems make some open source projects impenetrable to outsiders.
I've heard about that awful EHR (Electronic Health Record) integration effort between the Veterans Administration (VA) and the Department of Defense (DoD) for years. It's a failure of a lot of things, but if open source is even on the list of those things, it's low on the list. At the top of the list is dotted lines and bureaucracy, of course. Heck, IT projects often go off the rails, particularly big expensive ones. Let alone one done for the Department of Defense (DoD). And of course, it's not just the DoD, it's also an inter-department collaboration. Doomed for failure, unless it's managed excellently.
It appears that one big reason that this integration project is so hard is because the VA can't compete when it comes to process and bureaucracy. They don't have nearly as large a budget. This quote is telling:
"The iEHR demise was expected by all, accordingly," one VA source said. DOD officials "outspend, outtalk and outlast us at every engagement. We try to emulate much of their process-based decision-making as if we could afford to. We can't. The overhead is crippling, and we are not funded equivalently."
Source: http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx
It pains me to see any IT project that gets out of control and ultimately fails. I hate it even worse when it's the government. As a veteran, I especially hate to see this one. And as an open source user, contributor and advocate, Oracle blaming that massive failure on open source adds insult to injury.
What makes me so very sad about the Java/J2EE situation, is that so many folks have wasted so much time and energy,
and often written excellent code, to make Java/J2EE the platform that has the most comprehensive and the most advanced
set of libraries available, while remaining, in my opinion, a misguided, marketing-driven, anachronistic attempt at domination,
and a crippled language (forced GC, no delete operator).
All that wasted energy could have gone into a serious programming language and environments supporting it. If you look
at what C++ has become, I feel Java is a joke, and J2EE Application Containers are a foolish attempt at replicating the functions of an OS.
Java failed on the desktop, and is now Legacy in Enterprise environments, on the server-side. There's no future for it since young folks have moved on to more advanced languages, and old folks have stuck with C/C++ and will return to it (I know I am).
And Multiplatform? Gimme a Break! How many viable platforms do you think we have remaining, server-side? I think there's more than one (There's BSD and there's GNU/Linux, and there may one day be HURD), but guess what.. They're all "Not Unix" and therefore, easy to code for as if they were all Unix :-)
Then why is Oracle so afraid of MongoDB?
Britannica said the same thing before Wikipedia took them out of their misery.
Another whining from another dying empire?
Government-sponsored ADJECTIVE NOUN approaches to NOUN-PROCESS lack the financial incentives of commercial companies to produce GOOD_ADJECTIVEx2 NOUN.'
But then it was Microsoft showing up a Yankee group Laura DiDio study
http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/8/7/287fda62-1479-48b7-808c-87333312b93e/Yankee_TCO.pdf
Sure is easy to prove anything when you adjust the parameters of the model in the "right" direction
But to clarify this is not extortion. This is typical business with licensing software. You must pay maintenance for updates.
What I've found over the years is, just because you get paid to develop code for someone doesn't mean you crap unicorns and daisies. I've also found that all of the installations I've run across that were running Oracle (or DB2) really didn't need to be running Oracle or DB2. It's been overkill for every position I've worked at. Of course, they end up needing it anyway because of their crappy table design and because they're afraid to ever throw anything away when they're done with it. But if they'd been paying attention to their business process and designing their tables correctly, they could have saved themselves a LOT of money with a copy of postgres running on some Linux box somewhere!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
oh my... and here I was just about to upgrade the 500 series Pillar to 600 and vest a large sum of cash... Larry, you hurt my feelings... guess I will see what Dell or others can offer...
Open source projects also lack motivation to lock you in to their product (as they have no financial incentive to protect) and therefore have more reason to actually make a product people enjoy and want to use. Of course, there's typically a quality difference between open source projects like Linux and those that fall into the "I built this because I needed it/for fun/for practice, maybe somebody else will find it useful" category.
And that's probably exactly how they ended up with Percona.
I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
Seems like some TCO talk is apropos here; the extra health issues with such fatty and generally low-quality foods as McDonalds may well offset the cost savings ;)
I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
Every couple of years some company tries to pitch how the military shouldn't use open source, well, way, way too late. http://mil-oss.org/get-involved/existing-projects
maybe they should worry more about completing backup tests before talking shit on open source.
If community-developed software is weak, then why Oracle made the strange business decision of purchasing MySQL, a company in charge of a community-developed software?
Linux is the most secure and stable OS. Windows freezes, crashes and is inferior in all stability and security comparisons. So Oracle is just trolling.
And every country that switched said hog wash.
... about Oracle-developed code. It only makes sense that they're finally firing back. Too bad they will never put their development expendatures where their mouthes are.
The government has already pissed a trillion dollars down the Oracle rat hole. If they weren't continuously being backstabbed by politicians, the government would own their own RDBMS, be competing with Oracle, be spending one tenth as much on software, and be seeing better results.
Oracle is such a disappointment. They really don't surprise me much anymore. Sooner they kind of disappear quietly from the scene, the better. There. I said it.
I have worked at a couple of Teleco's that use this POS and the Teleco's pay a fortune for it.
The Teleco's, the users of the Teleco's and there customers, get to endure a poor experience, because it is slow, buggy and crashes more often than the NSA can lie to the population of Planet Earth.
Notwithstanding the idiots that made the call to use this software, Larry can insert it where the Sun no longer shines.
And by the way, the plastic surgery looks as fake as the claim of the white paper, Larry...
I have had a university database course last year using the multimedia-extensions of OracleDB. This could as well habe been undocumented. Sure, the sql-part is quite straightforward but the mm-extensions are a bloody mess.
i will always chose an inferior product over a company that is going to fuck me over every once in a while even though i pay them huge amounts of money. oracles business model depends on curruption, cronyism and customers not knowing shit and thats just despicable.
So Oracle software is superior to Open Source code... That's the assertion made by the asses at Oracle. Well home boy, put up or shut up. Submit some of your software to Coverity and lets do a side by site comparison. In 2008, the Department of Homeland Security underwrote a comprehensive source code audit by contracting Coverity to audit several dozen prominent open source applications/programs including the Linux kernel. Their finding were that the Open Source Software had 10x fewer bugs per million lines of code than 'professional' software, and the buts that it had were less severe than 'professional' software. Coverity is based on the research project called "The Stanford Code Checker". All the bugs found during the Coverity audit have since been fixed. So is Oracle going to put up, or are they just going to fire cheap shots in the dark and hide behind the 'Its Proprietary' bullshit line?
I am pretty sure what Oracle is trying to say is that all your small tinker projects are inferior to an open source project where payed developers are working on. That is why the linux kernel is NOT a community developed project but a commercially backed one.
I was lurking for some time on the btrfs kernel mailing list and >90% of the patches are from developers working in big companies.
It is not that Open Source is bad per se but your project will work out better if you actually have full time developers on it (duh!)
It's about Illumos now. Solaris is stagnant. From what I gather, most of the developers moved from Solaris over to Illumos a while back and have been rather active since.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
OK let me get this straight. Oracle, makers of Java, calling FOSS insecure. OK, right.
That is because Larry is not making money on open source like he is on proprietary efforts. He needs to make money to keep his boat afloat.
Paul E. Bahre
Oracle has thousands of managers and supporting staff (from project managers, product managers to user researchers, testers, document writers)... they *have to* say its better :-)
SOMEONE has to pay for Larry's giant penis boat and fighter jet toys. Those things don't come cheap.
The patches for these issues are intentionally withheld from their products until you encounter them, many of them have existed and have patches for them for several years. Its intentionally crippled code.
Ooooh! I bet Oracle will be in the drain without the GNU compiler!
Oracle is not in the position to criticize anyone on code superiority.
Interesting. I see Oracle berating Open Source, yet don't they own java and write a ton of their code in Java, an open source language?
Is it time to jump ship from Oracle, MySQL, Java, etc?
Jumping ship isn't a hard decision. Stop using Oracle and products they own. Stop using products that require Oracle. If you are entrenched with Oracle-based business systems, then simply look at your upgrade schedule and with each upgrade of a product switch the database (if the software supports other DBs), or switch to a product that doesn't use Oracle. In about 4 years you will be Oracle free, and I will make a huge bet that replacing Oracle with Postgresql will not have a higher cost of ownership.
I don't understand why Postrgesql isn't the most popular DB in the world. It has the most free license. It is well documented. It works fast. It is simple to use. Any Oracle DBA could become a Postgresql DBA with minimal training.
Oracle's strategy for competing is simple. When asked how he deals with competitors, Ellison always says, "Cut off their air supply!" He's not joking. Oracles prime strategy is to underbid any serious competitor. It doesn't matter if Oracle loses money as long as it can deprive the competitor of business. Over time, the competitor begins to fail and Oracle buys them for their customer base and engineers.
What's the point? It's close to impossible to underbid open source/free software so it's a major FUD strategy to talk about the "weaknesses" of open source.It also provides ammunition for legislators who are friendly to Oracle AKA have received large "campaign contributions" AKA "legal bribes" from Oracle.
gosgog:
Notice that Oracle attack is aimed at Government primarily and the idea is that the vast majority of the general public are expected to believe in the Government. After the results of this just relieved shut down, after the whistle being blown on the NSA, I think it can be safely said that there's a major shift in the belief that the Government is SMART & HONEST. This then should point out the stupidity of Oracle's Management to come out with such a statement.
OpenSource us way better and always will be, because any OpenSource Apt that is buggy & problematical gets quickly fixed or replaced. With a Close Source, Oracle & Microsoft are prime examples of the fact you are stuck with it and you paid through the nose for it.
As far as government stupidity, besides Congress's politicians.... take a look at that huge mess called HOMELAND SECURITY.
I will advise the defense force's IT personnel to try and open a SR with Oracle Support to get a gauge on their level of support. I will guarantee you that they will blow their top at the atrociously poor and unresponsive those indian tech support at Oracle support are.
So imagine your mission critical defense system is running on oracle products and face a show stopping bug, just trying to educate those fools at Oracle support will ensure your enemies will succeed in their preemptive attack.
"If you use open source software and are not a competent developer, you can't fix it. You can _pay_ someone to fix it, but at that point, there's a good chance your fix will cost more than a commercial alternative"
Have you tried contacting the original developer or posting a bug request on the developer forum?