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Oracle Attacks Open Source; Says Community-Developed Code Is Inferior

Posted by Soulskill on from the completely-unbiased-and-without-any-sort-of-agenda dept.

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.'"

11 of 394 comments (clear)

  1. Whitepaper? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Can't we just call them advertisements like the waste of time they truly are?

  2. Hmmm .... by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.
  3. Re:Like your own product by djdanlib · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yes, Oracle Unbreakable Linux is repackaged Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

  4. Re:*bitch slaps larry across the fucking mouth* by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    And the ones he inherited from the Sun acquisition got so pissed off with working for Oracle, they all left as soon as they could.

  5. Re:Like your own product by dyingtolive · · Score: 5, Informative

    Blatantly, even.

    [brad@icarus Desktop]$ cat /etc/oracle-release
    Oracle Linux Server release 6.4
    [brad@icarus Desktop]$ cat /etc/redhat-release
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 6.4 (Santiago)
    [brad@icarus Desktop]$ uname -a
    Linux icarus 2.6.39-400.209.1.el6uek.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue Sep 10 20:39:39 PDT 2013 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
    [brad@icarus Desktop]$

    At least CentOS bothered to change the redhat-release file.

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    Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
  6. not entirely false by smash · · Score: 1, Informative

    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.
    1. Re:not entirely false by roc97007 · · Score: 3, Informative

      There have been many third party studies on code quality for large open source and closed source projects. Having worked on both kinds of projects I think you really overestimate the code quality of closed source. A lot of it is simply horrid.

      And one of the reasons it *can* be horrid is that it's closed. There's no peer review, and certainly no customer review.

      We used to get crap from a vendor that it'd cost huge amounts of money and resources to correct significant, obvious errors in their product. We would tell them "Send us the code. We'll fix it and send it back". And we meant it. For one issue, our admin team sent *them* code, saying "we think this is what you're doing. This other code is what you should be doing." (The problem was fixed, even after they said it'd be too much trouble.) The move to open source was precisely due to frustration with basic, stupid errors that we couldn't fix because we didn't have source.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  7. Re:Prejudiced much? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    I came to say what you did. I would add. I have seen brilliant open source projects and crap ones. I have seen brilliant closed source ones and crap ones. That TCO thing is funny. Its like they have never bothered to buy their own flagship product. It is considered one of the highest priced finicky bits of software out there... When you have to hire 2-3 consultants just to figure out how to install and tune it something is wrong.

  8. Re:Yeah, but they nailed the "documentation" part by Bacon+Bits · · Score: 3, Informative

    Man pages are documentation in the same way that -? and --help and .conf file comments are documentation. Assuming you even know the command you want (or apropos can find it when you accidentally use the same name as the developer for something) they typically give you just enough information to know that you should be able to do what you want with the command you've found. These tools are references to remind you what you already know, not teach you what you knew you didn't know already, and certainly not to teach you what you didn't know you didn't know already.

    Mind you, most commercial documentation is crap. MS's is better than most everyone, IMX, as their documentation not only includes references but procedures as well. SQL Server's documentation in particular is quite good, although SQL documentation from any vendor is generally stellar compared to any other software product. SQLite, SQL Server, Oracle SQL, MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc. All have stellar documentation.

    --
    The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
  9. Re:Yeah, but they nailed the "documentation" part by Maow · · Score: 1, Informative

    > The Linux man pages (documenting the Linux API)
    No.

    They sure could use more examples, but FreeBSD has better man pages that qualify as "good".

    Better than Linux / GNU and certainly better than, for example:

    dir /?

  10. Re:Yeah, but they nailed the "documentation" part by jbolden · · Score: 3, Informative

    Oracle is a complex product meant for experts and specialists.