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Oracle CEO Larry Ellison Steps Down

mrspoonsi writes Oracle founder Larry Ellison is stepping down as CEO. He will be replaced by two executives. Former Oracle presidents Safra Catz and Mark Hurd will be co-CEOs. Ellison will be the Executive Chairman of Oracle's Board, and the company's CTO. Oracle's shares are off by 3% on the news. "Larry has made it very clear that he wants to keep working full time and focus his energy on product engineering, technology development and strategy," said the Oracle Board's Presiding Director, Dr. Michael Boskin.

142 comments

  1. DING DONG! by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 5, Funny

    The Wicked Witch is dead!

    --
    "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
    Never been known to fail..."
    1. Re:DING DONG! by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 1

      He's gone where the goblins go,

      --
      "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
      Never been known to fail..."
    2. Re:DING DONG! by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 1

      Below

      --
      "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
      Never been known to fail..."
    3. Re:DING DONG! by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 1

      Below

      Below...

      --
      "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
      Never been known to fail..."
    4. Re:DING DONG! by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 1

      Be Low.

      --
      "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
      Never been known to fail..."
    5. Re:DING DONG! by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 0

      Burma Shave?

      --
      "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
      Never been known to fail..."
    6. Re:DING DONG! by OakDragon · · Score: 5, Funny

      Tsk - it's called Myanmar Shave now.

    7. Re:DING DONG! by bobbied · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The Wicked Witch is dead!

      Apparently not, just replaced with two of her minions. She's still going to be there doing "product development" or some such. My guess is the two minions will take the fall for Ellison's mistakes.

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    8. Re:DING DONG! by smittyoneeach · · Score: 1

      He needed room
      For his Soviet broom
      On which he goes: "Zoom!"
      While plotting your doom
      But he no Burma Shave

      --
      Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
    9. Re:DING DONG! by aaronjp · · Score: 1

      This 5-digit thought it was smirk worthy, maybe not outright LOL, but definitely smirk worthy.

    10. Re:DING DONG! by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 2

      Tsk - it's called Myanmar Shave now.

      Aye. And I'll raise a Mumbai Sapphire martini to that!

      --
      "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
      Never been known to fail..."
    11. Re:DING DONG! by Phreakiture · · Score: 2

      They'll need to find a new name for the company now. ORACLE = One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison

      --
      www.wavefront-av.com
    12. Re:DING DONG! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      there there...

    13. Re:DING DONG! by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 1

      They'll need to find a new name for the company now. ORACLE = One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison

      I wish I'd heard that one before, when I could have used it!

      But? I'm enjoying the hell out of it now.

      --
      "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
      Never been known to fail..."
    14. Re:DING DONG! by Phreakiture · · Score: 1

      Glad I could help ;-)

      --
      www.wavefront-av.com
    15. Re:DING DONG! by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      No, but having an ID that is an important constant in physics means that he's lucky.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    16. Re:DING DONG! by Zeio · · Score: 2

      No, not at all. If you know who Mark Hurd and Safra Catz are, you will be wishing for kind, nice old Larry back.

      I was in a meeting with Safra a while back. I was a fly on the wall. Then a discussion came up about engineering details. Not too relevant to business besides timelines.

      She interrupted the line of thinking and said the "Little people will take care of this."

      She is amazing to hear speak, she has her business acumen, some technical chops, and she has her stuff together. She is one lean, mean chainsaw. Larry is seriously tame compared to her.

      And Hurd, well, he is known for slash and burn techniques that do well for shareholders (in consort with a favorable market) but usually reduce headcount in sometimes painful ways. HP has many coffins with Hurd's name on it.

      Larry is going to sit in a lawn chair enjoying retirement and watch Hurd and Catz vie for total power, control and domination. I put my money on Safra. He gets to watch a cage match to see who wins the title of Larry, Turbo Version 2.0++

      --
      Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.
    17. Re:DING DONG! by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 1

      Herding Cats - Hurd and Catz. LULZ.

      --
      "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
      Never been known to fail..."
    18. Re:DING DONG! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ellison has the superficial appearance and style, though not the charisma, to head over to Apple, and be the next Steve Jobs, kind of like a cult leader image figure show clown, that people so like to listen to. Like Joel Osteen, people like listening to him. He'd need some intense training in confidence and stuttering, but they say you can't teach an old fox new tricks. Maybe.

  2. more evil things to do elsewhere? by dmitrygr · · Score: 5, Funny

    New Microsoft CEO candidate? New member of USPTO?

    --
    -------
    1. Enjoy your job
    2. Make lots of money
    3. Work within the law

    Choose any two.
    1. Re:more evil things to do elsewhere? by Nimey · · Score: 1

      He's got enough money he could be idle the rest of his life, but...

      maybe he'd want to run for a Senate seat or governorship. He already owns a whole island in Hawaii.

      --
      Hail Eris, full of mischief...

      E pluribus sanguinem
    2. Re:more evil things to do elsewhere? by I'm+New+Around+Here · · Score: 3, Funny

      >

      maybe he'd want to run for a Senate seat or governorship. He already owns a whole island in Hawaii.

      Yeah, but it's only the size of a large patio.

      --
      If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
    3. Re:more evil things to do elsewhere? by MobyDisk · · Score: 1

      http://www.forbes.com/sites/cl...
      "...He’ll now own 98% of the lush 141 square mile resort island..."

      Or perhaps you mean the Senate seats?

    4. Re:more evil things to do elsewhere? by devman · · Score: 5, Informative

      For those who don't get the joke. Larry owns most of the real estate on the the island of Lanai. Lanai also happens to be the name of a popular style of roofed patio that originates from Hawaii.

    5. Re:more evil things to do elsewhere? by irq-1 · · Score: 5, Funny

      I made this half-Java, half-Database monster to please you
      But I get the feeling that you don't like it
      What's with all the screaming?
      You like Databases, you like the JVM
      Maybe you don't like monsters so much
      Maybe I used too many Databases
      Isn't it enough to know that I ruined Java making a gift for you?

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

    6. Re:more evil things to do elsewhere? by darkestsoul · · Score: 1

      Apparently he owns a small collection of planes and has a pilot's license. If the history of the rich and famous is any guide, he is most likely to go missing while flying himself to one of his summer residences.

    7. Re:more evil things to do elsewhere? by TomGreenhaw · · Score: 1

      140 square miles is a pretty big patio :-) Considering its pretty much unspoiled Hawaiian wilderness except for a couple of 4 Seasons hotels and its one of the prime spots on the planet.

      If nothing else, the guy has good taste in real estate.

      --
      Greed is the root of all evil.
    8. Re:more evil things to do elsewhere? by CauseBy · · Score: 1

      Thank you. I didn't get it. All I thought was "isn't the island a lot bigger than a patio? what am I missing?"

      I was missing a joke! Whoosh. I know it sucks to explain jokes to rubes but this rube appreciates it.

    9. Re:more evil things to do elsewhere? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      More Mainland misconceptions about Hawaii. When Larry bought the island, it was a wreck. He's rebuilt local resources that had been in disrepair, brought in native Hawaiian consultants to direct the restoration of traditional Hawaiian aesthetics, and is in the middle of a groundbreaking project to make the island completely self-sufficient -- locally generated wind & hydro power, desalinization plant, new forms of agriculture, etc. The guy is really some kind of hero. Unlike the prior owners of the island, who merely raped & pillaged, he's investing enormous amounts of money to create a showcase of just what properly appllied 21st-Century technology can do.

  3. One of the most overpaid execs in history by Blahblagger · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's about time he stopped siphoning off shareholder value via executive compensation.

    1. Re:One of the most overpaid execs in history by Lilith's+Heart-shape · · Score: 2

      Screw the shareholders. What about the rest of Oracle's workers? You know, the people who make Larry Ellison look good by busting their asses? Why not give them a raise?

    2. Re:One of the most overpaid execs in history by binarylarry · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Oracle workers look GOOD?

      The fuck up everything: http://koin.com/2014/09/17/ora...

      --
      Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
    3. Re:One of the most overpaid execs in history by I'm+New+Around+Here · · Score: 2

      Screw them both.

      What about their customers?

      --
      If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
    4. Re:One of the most overpaid execs in history by imidan · · Score: 1

      FTFA: Larry Ellison will remain CTO and Chairman of the Board of Oracle. He will still get paid more money in a year than I will likely make in my life.

    5. Re:One of the most overpaid execs in history by bobbied · · Score: 2

      Screw them both.

      What about their customers?

      That's what MySQL is for...

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    6. Re:One of the most overpaid execs in history by uncqual · · Score: 1

      Since he personally owns over $45B of Oracle stock (and billions in other assets), a 0.01% increase in Oracle's stock price results in his net worth increasing by (in current dollars) about what a "typical" software engineer will make during their entire career.

      --
      Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading /.
    7. Re:One of the most overpaid execs in history by fnj · · Score: 1

      On the other hand, if the stock goes DOWN 0.01%, he will lose the equivalent of bankrupting a bunch of software engineers. And still be one of the richest sons of bitches in the history of the world. Hell, the stock could go down 99% and he would still be very rich.

    8. Re:One of the most overpaid execs in history by Shoten · · Score: 2

      Screw the shareholders. What about the rest of Oracle's workers? You know, the people who make Larry Ellison look good by busting their asses? Why not give them a raise?

      Oh don't worry about the employees, they'll be fine. With Mark Hurd at the helm, they'll be...*laughing*...*doubling over laughing*

      Oh, I'm sorry...I couldn't QUITE make it through the rest of that sentence without laughing my BALLS off!

      --

      For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
    9. Re:One of the most overpaid execs in history by viperidaenz · · Score: 4, Informative

      He is 1/4 of the shareholders.
      He makes all his money from shares
      His salary is $1.00
      He does get 7 million shares a year though. Pittance compared to the 1.1 billion he already owns.

    10. Re:One of the most overpaid execs in history by wezelboy · · Score: 3, Informative

      They look great for hardware manufacturers! If Oracle were to go away, RAM manufacturers would go out of business.

    11. Re:One of the most overpaid execs in history by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Screw the shareholders. What about the rest of Oracle's workers? You know, the people who make Larry Ellison look good by busting their asses? Why not give them a raise?

      You must be new here.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    12. Re:One of the most overpaid execs in history by CauseBy · · Score: 1

      He also owns the land that Oracle buildings sit on. They pay him rent of approximately a gazillion dollars a year. That $1 thing is propaganda. Trust me, he gets his. Trust me, he also gets some of everyone else's.

  4. Good news for Oracle engineers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Those really neat hacks that Larry checked into source control in 1981? You can delete those now.

  5. Good riddance by JohnFen · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now, if only we could get rid of the rest of the company.

    1. Re:Good riddance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Eh, it'll take a few more Ages for this.

      This is just Melkor, who is Morgoth, Black Foe of the Industry being cast out.

      We've got to wait for a Sauron to appear, then fall, then appear again. Possibly some H1Bs will be involved in taking a ring to an island in Hawaii.

    2. Re:Good riddance by jandersen · · Score: 4, Informative

      Just to represent another side to the argument, and because I like getting modded down for expressing my opinion - I don't think Oracle deserves ALL the flak it gets. Just to make it clear - I work for them as an engineer, so I may come with a certain bias, but I also have more actual insight than most on /.

      Firstly, I don't think anybody can deny that Oracle RDBMS is top notch; I have worked with many other databases - MS SQL Server, Informix, DB2, MySQL, and I still prefer Oracle. The documentation is better than what you get from the competition. DB2 is the only one that comes close. Plus, you can legally download even Oracle Enterprise Edition for free and use it for development and testing. I think it is excellent.

      Secondly, Oracle was amongst the first of the big companies to come out in support of Linux with version 8 of their database. I think that was before IBM came out with an official port of Linux to their mainframe. To me that counts for a lot in terms of street cred.

      Thirdly, in my experience Oracle is a very decent company to work for. They are not hugely generous, but they have some good benefits and I feel valued as an employee. I don't whether Larry Ellison is good or bad; I don't expect to find out for myself, but so far I have no complaints.

    3. Re: Good riddance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      stopped reading after you stated you work for

    4. Re:Good riddance by CauseBy · · Score: 1

      No, wait! I want them to buy the startup I work for first! I'm not greedy, a few tens of millions is enough for me.

    5. Re:Good riddance by Xordin · · Score: 1

      Agreed, Oracle engineers are typically well off. Or even people who work for a 3rd party Oracle consultancy.

      If you contrast the lifestyle of an Oracle engineer with an open source engineer... well, let's just say only one can afford a car.

  6. actually not gone by swschrad · · Score: 1

    he's just going to sit on top-level strategy and stuff as CEO. as long he doesn't get his damn plane landed during sleepytime any more, that's a good thing. the evil will continue.

    --
    if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
    1. Re: actually not gone by kyjellyfish · · Score: 2

      I agree... It's not possible to detach an ego like Ellison's from a company like Oracle without killing the patient. Larry knows this, which is why he so generously offered to stay on as CTO and Chairman. "After the revolution, business as usual"....

  7. Wow by M3.14 · · Score: 2

    Just wow. I wonder what happened. Maybe there's some money threshold where you just say: "naah, I've got enough". Or maybe his bank just phoned and said - "your account balance does not fit anymore in our VARCHAR2(10) column.."
    Anyway - looking forward to see the bright *snicker* future.

  8. Jerk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    What's the difference between God and Larry Ellison? God doesn't think he's Larry Ellison

    1. Re:Jerk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      So Larry Ellison thinks he's Larry Ellison? What a nutbag.

    2. Re:Jerk by ClickOnThis · · Score: 1

      Y'know, I could say Larry Ellison can go fuck himself.

      But then again, I wouldn't be surprised if he married himself.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
  9. What's the background? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Anybody know what's the background on this?

    1. Re:What's the background? by Hussman32 · · Score: 1

      The only reason I can see is that he turned 70 years old a month ago. Why not spend a little of his time doing other stuff? Also, he's still chairman.

      --
      "Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
    2. Re:What's the background? by walterbyrd · · Score: 1

      I think Oracle is announcing earning today.

      If earning suck, and Oracle tanks, Oracle will be able to say that it was only because their beloved CEO resigned.

    3. Re:What's the background? by Livius · · Score: 1

      ...and then they beg him to come back for vastly more money.

    4. Re:What's the background? by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Anybody know what's the background on this?

      Mr Ellison is the head of a software company called Oracle.
      If your computer is a car, then software is the fuel that runs it.
      Hope this helps.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    5. Re:What's the background? by ConceptJunkie · · Score: 1

      Mr Ellison is the head of a software company called Oracle.
      If your computer is a car, then software is the fuel that runs it.
      Hope this helps.

      If your computer is a car, then Oracle software is the crank in the front that you use to start it up.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
  10. Herding cats by Xoc-S · · Score: 1

    They are going to be Hurding Catz for a long time to come.

    1. Re:Herding cats by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All your java are belong to us?

    2. Re:Herding cats by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Best comment so far :)

  11. Stable as a three-legged... by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 2

    >> Former Oracle presidents Safra Catz and Mark Hurd will be co-CEOs. Ellison will be the Executive Chairman of Oracle's Board, and the company's CTO

    I can see why the stock dove. Ellison appears unsure that either Safra or Mark has the stuff to run the company by appointing them both to do part of the former job of one man.

    In a best case scenario (where this triumvirate works for a while) I wonder which one's Brutus and which one's Cassius, because I'm pretty sure I know who Caesar is here.

  12. Co-CEOs.. by Rodness · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Because that worked out SO well for Blackberry.

    1. Re:Co-CEOs.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It has for Chipotle, Whole Foods and Deutsche Bank. Samsung has 3 CEOs now.

  13. Larry's putting the Hurd on Oracle! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Cascading waves of layoffs in 3... 2...


    Sorry, I have no direct experience with Catz fucking up everybody's lives, I have no witty jib there...

  14. Time to update that Oracle joke ... by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 5, Funny

    /Oblg.

    O/ne
    Rich
    Asshole
    Called
    Larry
    Ellison

    1. Re:Time to update that Oracle joke ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      One Retired Asshole.

      For everyone else, Obligatory Redundancies Are Coming, Look Elsewhere. Because as much of a ORACLE that Oracle has been, whatever his replacement ends up being will inevitably be a child of wall street.

  15. And now, Mark Hurd can continue spying by sconeu · · Score: 1

    Just on Oracle employees and board members instead of HP.

    --
    General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  16. Attention Oracle Employees - by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    For those not familiar with the Hurd game plan, let me tell you how it goes.

    1. He will say all the right things in front of employees. Part of the team, all in it together, shared sacrifice.
    2. He will make the numbers look good for Wall Street.
    3. Your cubicles / office space will shrink.
    4. Employees will be asked to work from home
    5. Real estate will be targeted as a way to reduce expenses.
    6. The stock will look good for a while, then implode.
    7. When he's finally run out, the next person in charge will realize the business fundamentals are seriously lacking and will have a major cleanup job to do.

  17. Maybe he can fix that hot mess called "peoplesoft" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Good to see the Larry will be working in product development. Perhaps he will finally make sure that peoplesoft actually makes life easier for someone other than the suits who do not have to use it. GET TO WORK LARRY! (Maybe they should make him start using that piece of dog "food.")

  18. So there's a GNU Hurd in charge at Oracle? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    So there's a GNU Hurd in charge at Oracle?

    1. Re:So there's a GNU Hurd in charge at Oracle? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The next version of Oracle will be out in 20 years.

  19. What Is He Thinking? by FrankDrebin · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sheesh, I know he has a big ego, but even Larry Ellison can't Hurd Catz.

    --
    Anybody want a peanut?
    1. Re:What Is He Thinking? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      wow, now I'll actually remember the names of Oracle's CEOs!

    2. Re:What Is He Thinking? by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      XI have never had any difficulty herding cats. We have six of them here who will follow me anywhere I carry an open can of tuna.

  20. Just out: Oracle misses Street 1Q forecasts by walterbyrd · · Score: 1

    Related?

    http://finance.yahoo.com/news/oracle-misses-street-1q-forecasts-205042793.html

  21. So, the most dangerous game? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is he switching full time to hunting humans from a helicopter on his island?

  22. Reminds me of The Office... by bi$hop · · Score: 1

    ...when Michael and Jim were "co-managers" and Jo Bennett comes in and says, "Two guys doing one job? We gotta do something about that!"

  23. Leisure lawsuit Larry by Mister+Liberty · · Score: 2

    Is gonna miss boat.

  24. The Hurd is the Word by WiiVault · · Score: 1

    Time to start tapping the phones and spying on those pesky board members again!

  25. Skid Mark Hurd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hp still hasnt recovered from mark hurd. Expect more of the same. Sell now.

  26. Oracle bought Sun who owned MySQL. by attemptedgoalie · · Score: 1

    So no.

    MariaDB is the fork of MySQL that's out of his hands.

    --
    My mom says I'm cool.
    1. Re:Oracle bought Sun who owned MySQL. by bobbied · · Score: 1

      I suppose if you don't want to feed his ego... But if you just don't want to fatten Oracle's wallet, MySQL is good in the GPL form...

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  27. New acronym? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    One Retired A-hole Called Larry Ellison?

  28. I commented because I could not mod in good faith. by slack_justyb · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I just couldn't stomach the idea of up-voting all of the ding-dong the witch is dead comments, no matter how much I wanted to blow all my mod point here. Instead I'll just add to the crush of Ellison hate, especially considering the whole notion of copyrighting APIs that the smug dickface motherfucker is trying to pander to make a few quick ones from Google.

  29. Mark Hurd? by LocutusOfBorg1 · · Score: 1

    did you mean GNU/Hurd, right?

  30. Bollocks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What a load : Larry has made it very clear that he wants to keep working full time ....
    Right. He is looking at nice powerpoint presentations and dreams about exascale super fast IO ..... well what he peaks from presentations .
          He wants to enjoy the Hawaii Island and the Superyacht.

    1. Re:Bollocks by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      He's got another America's Cup to ruin.

  31. Re:Maybe he can fix that hot mess called "peopleso by Lennie · · Score: 1

    Why do you think he cares about people like employees or customers or even products ?

    He likes to quote Genghis Khan who said, “It’s not sufficient I succeed. Everyone else must fail.”

    He has also been called a lawn mower:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    His most popular and _authorised_ biography is entitled: The difference between God and Larry Ellison: God doesn’t think he’s Larry Ellison.

    --
    New things are always on the horizon
  32. Wow. The end of an era. by msobkow · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That's almost as big as when Bill Gates stepped down from Microsoft -- it's the end of an era.

    It'll be interesting to see what direction Oracle heads without him at the helm.

    --
    I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
  33. Larry steps down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'm surprised he didn't break a pool cue in half and walk out of the room saying "there's only one opening boys, make it quick."

  34. Maybe just wishful thinking but... by malraid · · Score: 1

    ...any chances we'll get boolean column types in Oracle? (Yes, I know I can use 'T' and 'F', or 1 and 0, blah blah....but guess what ... the app I'm maintaining now uses 'T'/'F' on half the tables, and 1/0 in the rest.... fun...)

    --
    please excuse my apathy
    1. Re:Maybe just wishful thinking but... by FlyingGuy · · Score: 1

      I feel your pain. The problem is the ambiguity across platforms. It is very much akin to representing the absence of information, ie: null, there is nothing there since that is very different from zero ( 0 ) since zero is a value. Perhaps one day though.

      --
      Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
    2. Re:Maybe just wishful thinking but... by ArsonSmith · · Score: 1

      Zero and Null are not completely different. If I look at the balance of money I have in a bank I do not use it is both Null and Zero. Where I've come into issue with this is when looking at exit status if you transform Null to Zero it becomes success rather than what would often be expected as failure.

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
    3. Re:Maybe just wishful thinking but... by war4peace · · Score: 1

      Good luck performing a rolling average calculation using zeroes instead of NULLs.

      --
      ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
    4. Re:Maybe just wishful thinking but... by ArsonSmith · · Score: 1

      The problem is what to infer out of a NULL, In some instances it should be Zero, like in my account balance example. In other instances it should be non-zero like in exit status. In other instances it should be non-existant/excluded from a list such as your example of a sting of numbers similar to monitoring something like cpu load.

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
    5. Re:Maybe just wishful thinking but... by FlyingGuy · · Score: 1

      I think that it is very context dependent. Think of it this way:

      You have an instrument monitoring something, it is remote. You poll it every hour. In the first 10 hours you get some values. One of those values is zero (0) and that is a valid value for that particular measurement. In second 10 hours you notice you have some null's. Should I interpret those as zero or should I interpret those as no data acquired ?

      I do know that Oracle will not count null values when doing any kind of averaging.

      --
      Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
  35. Stable as a three-legged... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > Safra Catz and Mark Hurd will be co-CEO

    Nope they are both CEO. No "CO" in their title. I guess this makes as much (English) sense as have a five book trilogy.

  36. TLDR; by KieranC · · Score: 1

    Something about herding cats I think

    --
    Like food, this sig will also pass
  37. Let the hate fly! by FlyingGuy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    But here is the problem...

    You cannot deny that he built a huge empire on something as banal as a database. Arguably the best RDBMS pretty much ever and where is the competition?

    I use Oracle extensively. I am a DBA and of all the alternatives out there ( and I have tried most of them ) the only thing that comes even close is DB2 with postGres running a close third and depending on your POV, catching up fairly quickly. Perhaps postGres will eclipse Oracle one day, but not unless they get some serious money behind the project and that probably won't happen because no one wants to pump the millions of dollars it would take into a project that cannot even fix the TXID problem, and make no mistake about it, it is a problem. Also if someone dumps that kind of money into a project they expect some kind of ROI. There might be a few white knights that have that kind of money but they are few and far between and most can find more worthy causes to spend that kind of money on. Don't get me wrong, postGres is a fine DB but it has some faults that make it not so attractive.

    Larry understands how to stitch technology together around a DB better than most anyone else I have seen. Arguably Microsoft gets it, but they are stuck running in the windows universe which despite a lot of progress is still broken. You cannot run MS-SQL Server across hundreds of Intel machines and expect it to hold together, but they ave built and end to end ecosystem and MS-SQL Server is tightly integrated, but you can't drop it on a Z-Series mainframe under either IBM's native OS or Linux. PostGres has the same problem but they are moving to fix that, but I am not sure they really understand the problem. Of the other DB's out there ( Mongo, Hadoop, et all. ) that you can do that with, they don't support things like ACID which, like it or not, is pretty much a requirement in way to many situations.

    The facts speak for themselves. If Oracle really sucked as a Database it would not be in the vast number spaces that it occupies. You can cap on Larry Ellison all you want, question his lineage, say he is an ego maniacal asshole, but you have to give the man his due. He built a company that does have the answer to almost all the spaces where a DB matters and he built a business that relentlessly pursues those spaces to the betterment of their stock holders and 98% of the people and organizations that use their products.

    --
    Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
    1. Re:Let the hate fly! by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Oracle is the big hairy ape database who has prevailed.

      That success doesn't mean it isn't a big shit-hurling ape.

      It's way too late to second guess what we would have if the big hairy ape hadn't prevailed and didn't dominate. But there probably wouldn't be the overwhelming stench of apeshit we've all been forced to be accustomed to.

      It probably pays well, being that close to the ape shit.

    2. Re:Let the hate fly! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Never thought there would actually be Oracle fanboys in this world...

    3. Re:Let the hate fly! by FlyingGuy · · Score: 1

      Hey, so I am going let the invective roll right on by...

      Is Oracle a huge turd throwing ape? That is not an unfair analogy and in some ways I agree with you.

      I have been in the database business for a very long time and I have watched them come and go. Some self destructing and others just fading into obscurity but the one thing that I have observed over the years is that the database is pretty much at the heart of anything non trivial. There are only TWO RDBMS's that have stood the test of time and that is Oracle and DB2.

      That is a good because something that important cannot be flavor of the month like so many programming languages and frameworks are these days.

      In a perfect world we would have infinite choice and they all would work as good as the other and software patents would not exist. Sadly, Elvis isn't making records anymore and there is no Santa Clause.

      --
      Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
    4. Re:Let the hate fly! by cowwoc2001 · · Score: 1

      I'm not too familiar with PostgreSQL. Out of curiosity, can you elaborate what you mean by the TXID problem? You can share a link that elaborates on the problem if that's easier for you.

    5. Re:Let the hate fly! by FlyingGuy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Happy to share, and I have posted a link as well.

      So every SQL database, Oracle included, has to have some way of keeping transaction order, which is to say which transaction got there 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc. This is part of ACID and it cannot be ignored. Oracle and others solved the problem by using a synthetic number. Oracle's "number" type is not a recognized IEEE standard like an INT or a FLOAT, DOUBLE etc. It i stored using a proprietary scheme in the DB that Oracle guarantees to be correct when it is accessed and it is completely portable. The last estimate I saw ( I rarely look ) was that pushing Oracle to its absolute limits was that it would take ~ 141 years to wrap around. Personally I am not going to be alive then and I doubt Oracle will be either.

      In postGres they use a 32 bit unsigned int to keep tract of this. Now 2^32 is 4,294,967,296 transactions, which is a very large number indeed, but when you get into extremely hi volume transaction environments this can get used up pretty fast, like in a few days fast! Since the number is unsigned and postGres is written in C ( although I don't think it matters ) when you hit INT MAX it wraps back to 1!!! and that is a disaster. In older versions it just kept going and corrupting your data and there was really no way out of it, you were just hosed. In the latest version, the database will only go so far and it will force itself down before it wraps around AND will refuse to come up until the vacuum process is complete. On VERY large tables this can take days!

      Now the guys who write PG are no dummies. They recognized this and came up with a process called VACUUM, it does many things and it will reset the TXID and keep you safe. In most every application this is fine. In Extreme transaction environments where you build up billions of rows very quickly you have to set the VACUUM process to it's most aggressive level to keep up with inbound transactions and it just kills performance and your TX rate falls into the basement.

      This link explains it better than I can. PostGres Wrap Around Problem

      --
      Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
    6. Re:Let the hate fly! by RelliK · · Score: 2

      > the only thing that comes even close is DB2 with postGres running a close third and depending on your POV, catching up fairly quickly.

      But PostgreSQL is enough for 90% of the installations and it doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

      --
      ___
      If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
    7. Re:Let the hate fly! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oracle might have the answer to everyone's database problems but there is an answer that they don't appear to have... ... the question of why those that use Oracle want to get off it.

    8. Re:Let the hate fly! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You lost me by not even knowing how to type 'postGres'. Let me learn you something genius Oracle boy. PostgreSQL. Some people just say 'postgres'. There is no such thing as 'postGres'.

      More genius:

      "If Oracle really sucked as a Database it would not be in the vast number spaces that it occupies. You can cap on Larry Ellison all you want, question his lineage, say he is an ego maniacal asshole, but you have to give the man his due."

      If you can't even speak coherently, why should anyone believe other parts of your brain work better? Don't worry, COBOL didn't die quickly, and neither will Oracle. You'll be paid until the end of your days for continuing to be a button pushing moron.

    9. Re:Let the hate fly! by FlyingGuy · · Score: 1

      I can't disagree with that statement, but for the other 10% there really is no substitute for Oracle. Like I said in my original post PG may eclipse Oracle and that will be OK. In the mean time use what works for the situation as there are many choices, many that are good, many that are not so good and we as software professionals get paid to advise the right course for the write set of tasks. One thing we are all guilty of though is retreating to our comfort zones and like it or not we weight all of those decisions with out own particular set of likes and dislikes.

      --
      Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
    10. Re:Let the hate fly! by FlyingGuy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Don't worry, COBOL didn't die quickly...

      I don't usually feed the trolls so I am so very sorry to put a damper on your rant, but it is far from dead.

      --
      Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
    11. Re:Let the hate fly! by msobkow · · Score: 1

      Properly tuned DB/2 UDB outperforms Oracle so badly it's not even funny. Sorry, dude, but popularity != quality.

      --
      I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
    12. Re:Let the hate fly! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > ... when you hit INT MAX it wraps back to 1!!! and that is a disaster.
      > ... a process called VACUUM, it does many things and it will reset the TXID and keep you safe. ...

      Not exactly. VACUUM doesn't "reset the TXID", what it does is to cleans up the old transactions so that it knows it's safe to reuse their TXID. The TXID will keep increasing until it wraps around -- but this is not a problem if VACUUM has done it's job. Where this becomes a problem is when there are a lot of transactions, billions per day as you said, and one cannot reasonably run VACUUM on the entire database in time. VACUUM can only free up the oldest TXID's for reuse where all transactions have completed, so if you have some transaction that hasn't commited or rolled and four billion transactions have been run in the meantime then you're quite hosed, and PostgreSQL will have to stop new transactions and go into forced vacuum mode.

      The best comparison I can come up with is the TCP transmission window.

    13. Re:Let the hate fly! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      An important thing to mention is that it is not billions of rows but billions of transactions in a day that cause problems. If you are importing 100000000 rows at a time, billions of rows will not stress out vacuum to the least, though maybe analyze will be a problem.

    14. Re:Let the hate fly! by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      You lost me by not even knowing how to type 'postGres'. Let me learn you something genius Oracle boy. PostgreSQL. Some people just say 'postgres'. There is no such thing as 'postGres'.

      Er, he did know how to type "postGres", as evidenced by his post which contains the word "postGres".

      And if your standards are so high that you can't cope with someone typing "G" instead of "g" you must find using the internet a fucking nightmare.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    15. Re:Let the hate fly! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's what I said.

    16. Re:Let the hate fly! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually you used the past tense "didn't die" which most people would say indicates the death has already occurred.

    17. Re:Let the hate fly! by FlyingGuy · · Score: 1

      I am quite sure that this is true in a lot of spaces and I am quite sure the opposite is true in a lot of spaces.

      That brings up another point though. Tuning a database... This is seeming to be a lost art. Over time I have witnessed what I think is an alarming trend of otherwise mostly competent developers wanting the database to just be a magic box. So much code has been written to hide the database, to turn it into objects that match oop models. Pick any of them, springDB, Hibernate et all. No one wants to recognize the database as being an integral part of a well thought out and balanced system. They simply want to throw a framework in front of it an attempt to ( poorly IMHO ) make it non existent when IMHO is the best place to implement the vast majority of business rules, but that is another discussion.

      But back to your main point. As I said, if Oracle just sucked as a database it would not have the market share that it does and if DB2 ( a mighty fine DB in its own right ) was that much faster and better then it would have a much larger market share then it does. Each DB has it's own set of strengths and weaknesses and each one has its sweet spot.

      --
      Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
    18. Re:Let the hate fly! by CauseBy · · Score: 1

      I like derby. Why don't you like derby?

      kidding!

    19. Re:Let the hate fly! by Zordak · · Score: 1

      and there is no Santa Clause

      [SIGH OF RELIEF] For a minute there, I thought you were going to say there is no Santa Claus. But I can live without his grammar Nazi cousin Santa Clause.

      --

      Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
    20. Re:Let the hate fly! by FlyingGuy · · Score: 1

      I do not like auto correct and at times I miss its mangulation -- New word ?? ~giggle~

      --
      Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
    21. Re:Let the hate fly! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In postGres they use a 32 bit unsigned int to keep tract of this. Now 2^32 is 4,294,967,296 transactions, which is a very large number indeed, but when you get into extremely hi volume transaction environments this can get used up pretty fast, like in a few days fast!

      Given the currently supported platforms, I don't understand why the PG team didn't simply move the ID to a 64-bit unsigned integer with 9.0. That would seem to avoid the problem without requiring aggressive vacuuming - as in, "A few billion days ought to be enough for anybody". But perhaps there is some consequence I don't see.

      - T

    22. Re:Let the hate fly! by FlyingGuy · · Score: 1

      I do not know either. Backwards compatibility perhaps? I do know that if you have written code and have used bit mapping ( INT AND 0xA23F4D ) and things like that you will more then likely run into to trouble ( in theory it should not matter since the number of bits is not shrinking ) when your INT goes from 32 bits to 64 bits and the same thing goes if you using any ROT commands so who knows.

      --
      Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
  38. O.R.A.C.L.E by 12WTF$ · · Score: 2

    One
      Rich
        Arsehole
          Called
            Larry
              Ellison

    --
    Cryonics - Keep cool and carry on.
    1. Re:O.R.A.C.L.E by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      From (O)ne (R)ich (A)sshole (C)alled (L)arry (E)llison to Hurd'n Catz... A certain symmetry I'd say...

  39. The prophecy is now complete by atari2600a · · Score: 1

    The time has now come to cleanse ourselves of his filth.

  40. disaster by slashmydots · · Score: 1

    Their company sucks. Their prices suck. They're overbudget on everything. Their business strategy sucks. Java is the worst thing that has happened in all human history. No wonder nobody wanted the job and they had to half fill it with two people.

    1. Re:disaster by tehcyder · · Score: 2

      Java is the worst thing that has happened in all human history

      It's OK, you don't have to sit on the fence. Just tell us how you feel.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    2. Re:disaster by neminem · · Score: 1

      So, yes, their company sucks. Yes, all their products suck. Yes, the world would probably be a bit better of a place without Java in it, but I think you're being just a *tad* bit hyperbolic, or are you literally saying, given the choice between a world were 11 million people didn't die in the Holocaust, or one with no Java, you'd choose the latter?

  41. Two Sith apprentices? by bigsexyjoe · · Score: 1

    What about the rule of two? Larry is going to have two apprentices? What if they team up and kill him?

  42. Re:Wow. The end of an era. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That era ended when Oracle ripped apart Sun Microsystems and shat it all out.

  43. Re:I commented because I could not mod in good fai by wezelboy · · Score: 1

    Hell yeah! Mod parent up!

  44. Mod parent up by cbhacking · · Score: 1

    Just after my points expire... *MAD* props to you, irq-1!

    --
    There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
  45. Concealing Witnesses from The Court? Not Nice. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0