Oracle Finally Decides To Stop Prolonging the Inevitable, Begins Hardware Layoffs (theregister.co.uk)

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Oracle Finally Decides To Stop Prolonging the Inevitable, Begins Hardware Layoffs (theregister.co.uk)

Posted by msmash on Friday September 1, 2017 @02:00AM from the so-it-begins dept.

Shaun Nichols, reporting for The Register: Oracle is starting layoffs that will hit its hardware division, The Register has learned. Current and some soon-to-be former staffers have whispered that the database giant is shipping out packages containing the paperwork for ending their employment. The workers have received alerts from FedEx that the packages, which will need to be signed for, are en route for a September 1 delivery. "One of my co-workers emailed that he received a notification from FedEx of a label created by Oracle America, Inc," writes one anonymous employee. "I just checked and a label has been created for my home address. This is in the US. Looks like Friday is it for Sparc MicroElectronics." The layoffs are hardly a surprise, given the performance of Oracle's hardware unit as of late. In the last financial year, Oracle reported hardware revenues of $4.15bn. By comparison, in 2016 the unit logged hardware revenues of $4.67bn. In 2015 it was $5.2bn, and 2014 saw $5.37bn.

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Oracle? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 02:15 · Score: 4, Funny

Well, they should have seen it coming!
1. Re:Oracle? by DontBeAMoran · 2017-09-01 02:32 · Score: 2
  
  They were too busy baking cookies.
  
  --
  #DeleteFacebook
2. Re: Oracle? by dougdonovan · 2017-09-01 03:40 · Score: 1
  
  larry likes his toys.
3. Re:Oracle? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 04:21 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  I'm sure sparcs will fly over this.
4. Re:Oracle? by knorthern+knight · 2017-09-01 17:16 · Score: 2
  
  > I'm sure sparcs will fly over this.
  Mind if I JOIN the pun cascade?
  
  --
  
  I'm not repeating myself
  I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
5. Re:Oracle? by ebvwfbw · 2017-09-02 05:37 · Score: 1
  
  > I'm sure sparcs will fly over this.
  Mind if I JOIN the pun cascade?
  Join eagles Tour venue with catering. output hotel california;
6. Re: Oracle? by trekon · 2017-09-02 05:56 · Score: 1
  
  If Sparcs were flying, there wouldn't be this thread... I guess the Sun has really set on those Microsystems... The Oracle predicted this, no?
7. Re:Oracle? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2017-09-02 06:18 · Score: 1
  
  I saw your comment coming, actually. But this couldn't help Oracle's hardware division. It's ironic. They could save others from death, but not themselves.
  
  --
  Ezekiel 23:20
8. Re: Oracle? by ebvwfbw · 2017-09-02 06:35 · Score: 1
  
  The sun is setting. Kind of sad in a way. SUN built my house. I used to make all kinds of money with Sun and Sun technology.
  I'll start digging the grave in the computer cemetery for them. Think I'll put SUN next to Wang. Then we can have a sunny wang.
  I know, don't quit my day job.
9. Re: Oracle? by cosuna · 2017-09-03 10:50 · Score: 1
  
  Jajaja
10. Re: Oracle? by cosuna · 2017-09-03 10:54 · Score: 1
  
  The Hardware unit died years away. Sun would have switched to ARM some years ago. Keeping SPARC but dropping Itanium, was a shit at one's leg, since it actually said that only IBM remained as a serious competitor to Intel. With that in mind, the UNIX/RISC torch has long been handed to IBM and Apple, with Swift set to replace Java as the must learn language in the future.
but don't forget kids! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 02:15 · Score: 0, Insightful

Electrical Engineering is a very lucrative career!
https://www.bls.gov/ooh/archit...
Now fork over all that cash to the cult, I mean university and you'll get a piece of paper worth marginally more than toilet paper.
1. Re:but don't forget kids! by __aaclcg7560 · 2017-09-01 02:26 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  The EE degree isn't the problem. It's taking out student loans to get a MBA and not being able to find a job to pay off the student loans. I have several friends who graduated with EE in the 1990's, decided to get their MBA after getting laid off during the Great Recession, and now do IT support because they can't find a higher paying job. It's a bit of shock to go from $200K per year to $50K per year.
2. Re:but don't forget kids! by DontBeAMoran · 2017-09-01 02:33 · Score: 2
  
  What is better? To have one person making $200K per year paying $48K in taxes to support four persons barely surviving on $12K per year or four persons making $50K per year?
  
  --
  #DeleteFacebook
3. Re: but don't forget kids! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 02:43 · Score: 0
  
  If they were making 200K a year, modestly saving should have had them retired in 5 years. Fuck time for trying to keep up with the Joneses.
4. Re: but don't forget kids! by Junta · 2017-09-01 02:56 · Score: 2
  
  retiring on a total savings of *maybe* half a million at best at age 30 or so (after taxes and at least some semblance of living expenses)? Yeah that isn't going to pan out...
  
  --
  XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
5. Re: but don't forget kids! by __aaclcg7560 · 2017-09-01 03:05 · Score: 2
  
  If they were making 200K a year, modestly saving should have had them retired in 5 years.
  That only works if you retire to Mexico, build a mansion (by local standards), marry an underage sweet thing and bequeath all your possessions to the village.
6. Re:but don't forget kids! by luis_a_espinal · 2017-09-01 03:08 · Score: 1
  
  The EE degree isn't the problem. It's taking out student loans to get a MBA and not being able to find a job to pay off the student loans. I have several friends who graduated with EE in the 1990's, decided to get their MBA after getting laid off during the Great Recession, and now do IT support because they can't find a higher paying job. It's a bit of shock to go from $200K per year to $50K per year.
  No. It's going to schools in other cities without consideration of costs, which causes ppl to take loans more than necessary, for pursuing fields of study that cannot possibly provide the necessary ROI.
  If someone is going to get $80K in students loans, it better be for pursuing post-grad education at, say, a prestigious medical school. It should not be for getting a BA degree in psychology from an unknown but expensive private school (the later happens a lot.)
  Most people could do well to pursue the first two years at cheaper, local community colleges and then transfer to (also local) universities. With the right grades people can do this with just pell grants or a scholarship combined with very minimal student loans.
  Hell, most people would do well with getting a technical AS/AAS degree or a technical certificate at a community college and call it quits. I've never seen a good HVAC specialist or master plumber/electrician or 2-year degree nurse being out of work or saddled with impossible loans.
7. Re: but don't forget kids! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 03:09 · Score: 0
  
  No wonder you're a virgin and have no hope of a female friend, probably ever.
8. Re:but don't forget kids! by __aaclcg7560 · 2017-09-01 03:14 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Now that Obama is gone and his policies are going in the dust bin of history, we are seeing 3% growth rate in the economy.
  We're getting 3% growth because of Obama's policies. Trump policies, if anything ever gets passed by the Republican congress, won't go into effect until next year.
9. Re:but don't forget kids! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 03:17 · Score: 1
  
  The cult is not the university, it's the belief that you have to pay an outrageous amount of money for it. You do know that in many parts of the world you get higher education for free or for a very, very modest fee, right?
10. Re: but don't forget kids! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 03:19 · Score: 0
  
  somebody pays for it.
11. Re: but don't forget kids! by __aaclcg7560 · 2017-09-01 03:20 · Score: 1
  
  No wonder you're a virgin and have no hope of a female friend, probably ever.
  What does my sexuality have to do with the topic being discussed? Or were you just making snide remark because you have nothing worthwhile to add to the discussion?
12. Re:but don't forget kids! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 03:38 · Score: 0, Insightful
  
  Neither.
  Trump's ideas/policies are not in place yet.
  Yet while Obama was around things were bad for 8 years. Real bad. Everything was window dressing, pumping stocks with inflation, and faking numbers. But real private sector was full on conservative low risk mode.
  Now that a somewhat pro-business change has happened this pro-business future is priced in. So now we see risk taking, investment and hiring - betting on the future a bit more, etc. Labor participation still stinks and 8 year bull markets (not bull economy, just market) tend to get tired.
  On top of that FANG is holding everything up. I think the bull will correct soon, by late 2018.
  Obama was toxic to investment and risk taking and only the mega monopolies, oligarchs and large companies did ok during his tenure, small and medium business suffered horribly.
13. Re: but don't forget kids! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 03:43 · Score: 0
  
  If they were making 200K a year, modestly saving should have had them retired in 5 years. Fuck time for trying to keep up with the Joneses.
  In order to make 200k, they had to live in a place where a house starts at 500k. When you and your neighbors are bidding on a scarce resource (housing), not keeping up means not living where the jobs are.
14. Re:but don't forget kids! by __aaclcg7560 · 2017-09-01 03:46 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Yet while Obama was around things were bad for 8 years. Real bad.
  Thanks to the Republicans who spent eight years dragging their feet. They're still dragging their feet because it's easier to say "no" but saying "yes" requires compromises. Not with the Democrats, but with themselves.
15. Re: but don't forget kids! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 03:57 · Score: 0
  
  Society shares be burden of keeping the education system running because society reaps the fruit of education.
16. Re: but don't forget kids! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 03:59 · Score: 0
  
  Things weren't bad for eight years. My career took off but I have an education and marketable skills.
17. Re: but don't forget kids! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 04:04 · Score: 0
  
  Somebody also CHARGES less for it.
18. Re: but don't forget kids! by trg83 · 2017-09-01 04:06 · Score: 1
  
  Impartial observer here: you brought sexuality into this by discussing underage lovers.
19. Re:but don't forget kids! by doctorvo · 2017-09-01 04:06 · Score: 1
  
  The EE degree isn't the problem. It's taking out student loans to get a MBA and not being able to find a job to pay off the student loans. I have several friends who graduated with EE in the 1990's, decided to get their MBA after getting laid off during the Great Recession, and now do IT support because they can't find a higher paying job.
  Well, it was their decision and now they have to live with the consequences.
20. Re: but don't forget kids! by __aaclcg7560 · 2017-09-01 04:15 · Score: 1
  
  Impartial observer here: you brought sexuality into this by discussing underage lovers.
  You must be new around here. I don't have underage lovers. Everyone on Slashdot knows that I'm a 48-year-old virgin. Why they have a problem with that I have no clue. As for my comment, I've heard stories of engineers retiring at 50, moving to Mexico and marrying underage girls. Since I work with ex-military, the Philippines is a popular retirement spot for marrying underage girls as well. It's all about getting the most bang for your retirement dollars.
21. Re:but don't forget kids! by OhPlz · 2017-09-01 04:22 · Score: 0
  
  Yea, like the compromises with the AHA? Oh wait, there weren't any. Democrats did that all on their own. There wasn't anyone willing to compromise on either side for those eight years. I agree with the parent. The new administration signals a more promising environment for business, and it's showing in the stock market.
22. Re:but don't forget kids! by __aaclcg7560 · 2017-09-01 04:32 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Yea, like the compromises with the AHA? Oh wait, there weren't any. Democrats did that all on their own.
  
  You mean the 200+ amendments that were sponsored or co-sponsored by Republicans that were included in the final bill? Since the Democrats had enough votes to pass the AHA, the Republicans voted "no" and ate their cake too.
  
  The new administration signals a more promising environment for business, and it's showing in the stock market.
  The eight-year-old bull market is starting to show its age. What's going to happen when the stock market corrects itself and the economy will goes into a long overdue recession in the next two years?
  I'm building up a cash reserve in my brokerage account so I can buy stocks all the way down in the Pence recession.
23. Re: but don't forget kids! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 04:40 · Score: 0
  
  Ah yes, the arrogant naivety of youth. When you grow up, you will cease to be marketable, no matter how much you kept your skills up.
  See you at the soup kitchen, real soon. We have all the tech hotshots. The guy who installed our mesh network has 20 years of network engineering experience. Of course he only got paid for 10 years, then he got kicked to the curb and never worked again.
  The soup kitchen is nice. The special today is tomato basil and cornbread. Enjoy free wifi, courtesy of mesh guy.
24. Re:but don't forget kids! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 05:01 · Score: 0
  
  Hell, most people would do well with getting a technical AS/AAS degree or a technical certificate at a community college and call it quits. I've never seen a good HVAC specialist or master plumber/electrician or 2-year degree nurse being out of work or saddled with impossible loans.
  Quit injecting common sense into the discussion.
  As an aside, my two undergrads from podunk state were paid for by the GI Bill, and to be honest they've done little for me in IT. My diploma in electronic systems repair from the army and my associates in IT from the local two year school, however, have enabled me to climb up into 70k territory here in the midwest. A decent associate degree from a state run two year college (total cost for two years of tuition, books, etc is about $11,000) and maybe an entry cert or two is a great way to start here in the midwest. A fresh grad making $19.00 an hour in Ohio beats the hell out of working fast food, and with co-op programs you will likely graduate debt free.
  I have worked in higher education at a large state school, and while some may find this controversial, as far as I'm concerned vast swaths of higher ed are oriented toward bilking the government and students out of billions for degrees that don't amount to much by design, and that's the way they like it. We flat out admit students that we *know* won't make it for those FTE numbers (admitting somebody to a four year school with an ACT of 13 or 14? gtfo). We need more community colleges and polytechs, and fewer traditional universities.
  It's not like those damned philosophy and art history professors are going to get a real fucking job.
25. Re: but don't forget kids! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 05:04 · Score: 0
  
  You're so gone you can't comprehend how deviant this sounds.
  
  underage girls as well. It's all about getting the most bang for your retirement dollars.
  This snippet is particularly distressing.
  Be it social or professional if anyone ever made such a statement to me I'd terminate our relationship on the spot. As former military and a current engineer I must admit I've encountered a small number of the kind of men you're talking about in both communities and they are not and never were accepted even if this sort of shit used to be more common.
  Back in the day Navy guys would sometimes kill their shipmates for fucking little kids in Subic Bay and that's reality. How is it you can so casually talk about a person being exploited?
  This is not a rhetorical question I'd really like to know what sort of things you've seen where you think this is ok.
26. Re:but don't forget kids! by dgatwood · 2017-09-01 05:12 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  You mean the 200+ amendments that were sponsored or co-sponsored by Republicans that were included in the final bill? Since the Democrats had enough votes to pass the AHA, the Republicans voted "no" and ate their cake too.
  Forget the amendments. The entire design was a compromise to win Republican votes. The Democrats wanted to set up a single payer system, and the Republicans nearly ruptured an aneurysm, so they walked it back to a design that the Republicans said they would be willing to vote for, and then they still didn't.
  The Republican party are amazingly skilled manipulators. The Democrats compromise, allowing the Republicans to trick them into adding flaws into bills, and then the Republicans turn around and use the flaws that they introduced to help them attack "the Democrats' bills" so that once they gain enough power, they can put in something entirely different without having to compromise. It's utterly disgusting.
  To be fair, the Democrats attempt this sort of manipulation, too, but they're nowhere near as good at it.
  
  --
  Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
27. Re: but don't forget kids! by __aaclcg7560 · 2017-09-01 05:16 · Score: 1
  
  You're so gone you can't comprehend how deviant this sounds.
  I don't think you can comprehend how far up your ass you're riding your high horse.
  
  This is not a rhetorical question I'd really like to know what sort of things you've seen where you think this is ok.
  You're aware that are some states in the U.S. that allow underage marriage as young as 14 years old?
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_marriage_in_the_United_States
  From all the stories that I've heard, the families and the village elders gave their permissions for the marriage. The end result is not some deviant American banging an underage bride but the village getting everything he owns when he dies.
28. Re: but don't forget kids! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 05:22 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah, but those colleges' football stadiums don't have cup holders in the seats.
29. Re: but don't forget kids! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 05:37 · Score: 0
  
  I don't think you can comprehend how far up your ass you're riding your high horse.
  If the horse cock is up your ass, the horse is riding you. So you like horse cock, do ya? We knew you were a technical virgin who gets laid at the zoo.
30. Re: but don't forget kids! by guruevi · 2017-09-01 05:48 · Score: 1
  
  Free? There is no such thing as free. The US has a very cheap education system compared to Europe. In the US the costs are individual, in Europe they are socialized.
  
  --
  Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
31. Re:but don't forget kids! by wyHunter · 2017-09-01 05:57 · Score: 1
  
  And exactly what planet are you on? The two parties have policies that are virtually identical.
32. Re:but don't forget kids! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 06:08 · Score: 1
  
  You need to look at the records, Republicans gained control of the House in 2011, they took the Senate in 2015. So Democrats had all three bodies from 2009 - 2011 and control of 2 from 2011-2015. Harry Reid refused to put any legislation through the Senate while he was in charge through 2015 so it wasn't the Republicans for the last 8 years dragging their feet, it was the Democrats and Harry Reid. Now for the last 8 months the Republicans haven't done jack, and I seriously doubt they will over the next 16 either.
33. Re: but don't forget kids! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 06:38 · Score: 0
  
  Good post from Creimer with facts. Keep it up. Cut out that affiliate spam please.
34. Re: but don't forget kids! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 06:42 · Score: 0
  
  Great thread by Creimer. They tried to twist your words but you set them straight. We want this Creimer not spam Creimer. Thanks.
35. Re: but don't forget kids! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 06:42 · Score: 0
  
  Socialized = the marginal cost to me of attending is zero = free
36. Re:but don't forget kids! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 06:57 · Score: 0
  
  I'd vote that "Funny" if I weren't an anonymous coward.
  The democrats wanted a bill to please their donors, and the health insurance and pharmaceutical industry particularly. There was no way in hell they were passing a single-payer health care bill, regardless of any rhetoric to the contrary, without massive public pressure (= "do this or we'll vote you out ASAP"). Remember the ACA cut federal health care spend by hundreds of Billions (about $800 Billion but my number might be off), and health insurance company stock soared.
37. Re:but don't forget kids! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 07:01 · Score: 0
  
  That's like digging a hole on the street and blaming the people who fall in it at night for not having taken a different turn at the last intersection.
38. Re:but don't forget kids! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 07:06 · Score: 0
  
  Revisionist history, pure and simple. You are a liar, and I suspect you know you are.
  The DNC wrote the bill they way they did because Democrats were not willing to vote on single payer. In fact they had to literally bribe 2 of their senators and outright lie to a third to get the votes. The ACA was not passed in any legal way or moral way and I'm actually shocked it hadn't been brought up as a court case.
  It was such a GREAT bill, the GOP took over both the House and Senate, and then the White House with Donald Trump all running on getting rid of the ACA. Sounds like a winner. Since the ACA, Democrats have lost 1000+ seats in federal and state levels. Nothing but winning there.
  So I understand your wanting to rewrite history and make it a bill written by the GOP who then forced the DNC to vote for it, but you are lying and know it. The ACA, written by the DNC, bribed to get passed by the DNC, lied to get it passed by the DNC, MASS had to change rules on senator replacement to steal an additional seat to get it passed, without a SINGLE vote from the GOP.
  The fact you have to lie about it, shows exactly how bad the bill is. You know it sucks, I know it, everyone else knows it, and here comes the revisionist history. In another 20 years it will have been passed by the GOP against DNC outrage if you have your way.
39. Re: but don't forget kids! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 07:09 · Score: 0
  
  1. The US has plenty of state-funded institutes of higher education. In fact, many of the top US universities are state-funded (probably even state-owned although I'm not sure).
  2. "Cheap" in what way?
  3. Costs of private higher ed are also "socialized" but in a different way: They're covered by a group of people with typically no savings nor sufficient income - young students. In my humble AC opinion, that's ridiculous and sad.
  Finally, you can say many things about the education systems of various European countries, but they do seem to do a better job in terms of assuring people are not totally clueless.
40. Re:but don't forget kids! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 07:19 · Score: 0
  
  I'm building up a cash reserve in my brokerage account so I can buy stocks all the way down in the Pence recession.
  Coming from somebody who's got so much 24% APY credit card debt that he needs a consolidation loan to have a hope of paying it off, you're not going to do shit, tubby. You're going to keep on flailing until you run out of money again, and then you're going to declare bankruptcy, because you're a lazy, dishonest, fraudulent piece of shit.
  You'll be one of the first people laid off when the "Pence recession" hits, and when you end up filing for bankruptcy again, any assets you have will be liquidated to pay off pennies on the dollar of your debt.
41. Re:but don't forget kids! by __aaclcg7560 · 2017-09-01 07:44 · Score: 1
  
  Coming from somebody who's got so much 24% APY credit card debt that he needs a consolidation loan to have a hope of paying it off, you're not going to do shit, tubby.
  I'll be debt free in three years, if not sooner. Suck it.
  
  You're going to keep on flailing until you run out of money again, and then you're going to declare bankruptcy, because you're a lazy, dishonest, fraudulent piece of shit.
  Maybe you're right. I got a paid off credit card. I could buy a new car with it and head off to Mexico to find a chica to marry.
  
  You'll be one of the first people laid off when the "Pence recession" hits, and when you end up filing for bankruptcy again, any assets you have will be liquidated to pay off pennies on the dollar of your debt.
  If all my assets were liquidated, I would still have enough cash to buy a new car and head off to Mexico to find a chica to marry.
42. Re:but don't forget kids! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 07:53 · Score: 0
  
  I'll be debt free in three years, if not sooner. Suck it.
  Pretty dumb to take three years paying off those debts and paying interest for three years, when you have enough to pay them off today from all that fuck-you money you've got saved up to finance your move to Mexico.
  Oh wait, that money doesn't exist except as imaginary cash from your imaginary revenue streams. That's why you'll continue living paycheck to paycheck, racking up more and more consumer debt, until you get fired from your position again, and end up having to declare bankruptcy because you're a loser who makes bad decisions in every aspect of his life.
  
  Maybe you're right. I got a paid off credit card. I could buy a new car with it and head off to Mexico to find a chica to marry.
  No, you couldn't. You could buy a 20-year-old used Geo Metro, and drive about 300 miles down the road before you ran out of gas and discovered you have no money to buy more. Then you'll suck dicks for cash while hitchhiking to Mexico, where you'll discover that not even the most desperately poor, hideously ugly Mexican woman in existence will so much as look at you, much less agree to marry you. Because once she discovers that you're a lazy, useless, disgusting old man, she'll have too much self respect to spend more than 30 seconds in your presence. And yes, I'm even talking about the whores in Mexico - who will no doubt tell you, "Sorry honey, you can't afford my time at all."
  
  If all my assets were liquidated, I would still have enough cash to buy a new car and head off to Mexico to find a chica to marry.
  no you wouldn't, but you do have a rich fantasy life. You're desperately poor, sinking further into debt, and have no hope of ever reversing your course, because you're too stubborn and stupid to change your behavior in a way that might afford you a chance of some small amount of success and happiness.
43. Re:but don't forget kids! by LeftCoastThinker · 2017-09-01 09:29 · Score: 1
  
  First off, the fascist alt-left with their sock puppet accounts are out in force today.
  Regarding your statement, sorry, but that is a flat out lie. Obama's policies gave us 1% per year for 8 years. The growth rate right now is partially forward looking by businesses, who are expecting Obamacare to be repealed, taxes to be cut, regulations to be rolled back, and in part due to actual EOs that have been rescinded by Trump. Regulations can stifle business even worse than taxes, something Obama never understood. Businesses operate in part on what is, and in part on projections and expectations. Now that they don't have to worry about the EPA raping them unexpectedly, the EEOC making up BS claims on them, Obama pulling another regulation out of his ass that costs them 10% off the top, they are starting to ramp up.
  This is exactly because of Trump, just like the massive reduction in illegal immigration (70%) even though there has been no walls built yet, just the fact that Trump will be enforcing our laws on immigration and will be building a wall has resulted in massive reductions in illegal immigration, though not much on the ground has actually changed yet. http://www.washingtontimes.com...
  
  --
  If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
44. Re:but don't forget kids! by dgatwood · 2017-09-01 09:54 · Score: 1
  
  Revisionist history, pure and simple.
  The things I'm saying match what the news outlets were saying while the ACA was being designed. Read that second paragraph again. The whole reason the ACA is a train wreck is because of concessions the Democrats made to the Republicans. This is all well-established fact. Anyone arguing against those facts need only spend two minutes doing a Google search of historical news articles to find out that their opinion is based on pure fantasy and lies.
  One of us is spouting revisionist history, but it's not me. You've been lied to. Now go back to Fox News or Breitbart or whoever fed you that disinformation and tell them, "Stop with the fake news already."
  
  --
  Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
45. Re:but don't forget kids! by LeftCoastThinker · 2017-09-01 14:35 · Score: 1
  
  Sorry, that is revisionist BS. The changes made to the ACA were to get Democrats to vote for it who were not alt-left nut jobs (there were some at that time). Most of those who did vote for it have since lost their seats anyway because the public didn't want that monstrosity in the first place.
  Trying to blame Republicans for a Democrat authored bill voted for exclusively by Democrats is a nice trick though.
  
  --
  If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
46. Re:but don't forget kids! by Applehu+Akbar · 2017-09-02 00:41 · Score: 1
  
  The only reason that didn't happen was Obama shat all over the recovery with Obamacare and his pen and paper regulations.
  The other problem was Obama being afraid to confront the anti-science wing of the party. That's why the stimulus was frittered away on 'shovel ready' (noncontroversial) construction projects rather than the kind of large-scale infrastructure that returns value for generations to come.
47. Re:but don't forget kids! by ebvwfbw · 2017-09-02 05:40 · Score: 1
  
  I guess they didn't have the foresight to look at job predictions. That can be found in the library. I was a EE in the 1980s and found in 1985 that there would be *NOTHING* for me when I graduated. Men with decades of experience were projected to be out of work so I switched.
  Besides, I was a foreigner in my own school. Seemed to be nothing but Chinese students that had everything paid for them while they were here. Their best of the best. They were really bright.
48. Re:but don't forget kids! by __aaclcg7560 · 2017-09-02 05:53 · Score: 1
  
  I guess they didn't have the foresight to look at job predictions.
  
  I had a roommate who took automotive design on the west coast because he liked cars, leaving him with $25K in student loans and no job prospects. That was in the late 90's. Automotive design might make sense today with Tesla HQ down the street. Fortunately, his wife to be was a career counselor and turned his six years as a grocery clerk into a logistics and warehouse career.
49. Re:but don't forget kids! by ebvwfbw · 2017-09-02 06:32 · Score: 1
  
  I don't know what I'd do today. Too many people going to college. Just to get into anything medical, nutrition, dentistry, etc, you're look at a 4.0+ GPA or forgetabout it. So some people look at the bullshit liberal arts type stuff, that doesn't pay squat.
  Think if I were doing it today I might go into automotive, or a trade like electrician or plumbing. Elevator Mechanic is a bit easier in that it's indoors and they make a lot of money but you have to be very bright to pass the test. Hardly any black people in it and they can't bitch because it's the Feds that set the standards, so they can't do anything about it (i.e. fuck them).
OMG Frist P0st by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 02:16 · Score: 0

Who will get to train their replacements?
In some ways this is good. Better utilization. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 02:18 · Score: 2, Interesting

Of course, this is terrible news for the people losing their jobs. Nobody wants to have their livelihood taken away. But in other ways this is a good thing.
It shows the tremendous work these people did in creating extremely powerful hardware. But we're also seeing improvements on the software side, too. Virtual machines and cloud computing have vastly increased the utilization of the hardware we do have. It's no longer a case of a company having 20,000 servers, and collectively they're idle 85% of the time. Now the same company has perhaps 1,500 powerful physical servers running 20,000 VMs, and the physical hardware is idle only 5% of the time.
The switch to VMs has also put more focus on writing efficient code, and using efficient programming languages like C++, Go and especially Rust. Native, highly optimized binaries are back in favor, after we've seen the alleged benefits of just-in-time compilation never pan out. Fewer computing resources, and much less energy, is needed to run this highly-optimized software written in efficient and effective modern programming languages.
This vast increase in efficiency, both at the hardware and software level, will unfortunately mean that some people will become unemployed. But the overall effect is a net win for society, the economy, and the environment. We're now doing a lot more with a lot less.
1. Re:In some ways this is good. Better utilization. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 03:12 · Score: 0
  
  And where does the money saved by conserving energy and fully utilizing the hardware end up? Why not use it to keep people employed instead of increasing profit margins and bonuses? Then (and only then) would this be a net win to society.
2. Re:In some ways this is good. Better utilization. by jenningsthecat · 2017-09-01 03:39 · Score: 1, Troll
  
  We're now doing a lot more with a lot less.
  "We", Kimosabe? The folks losing their jobs will be doing a lot less because they now have a lot less, unless and until they find other jobs with equivalent pay. Of course those at the top will be doing a lot more with a lot more, and the newly unemployed people can surely take comfort in that while they're struggling to make the next mortgage payment, right?
  
  ... a net win for society...
  Still subscribing to that ol' trickle-down theory, are you? Heck, even the bastards at the IMF have finally realized that it's bullshit.
  
  --
  'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
3. Re: In some ways this is good. Better utilization. by tigersha · 2017-09-01 03:39 · Score: 2
  
  Sorry to break the news to you but most stuff running on VMs in the last few years is weitten JavaScript or Java. Not C++. Efficient binaries are decidedly not in favour
  
  --
  The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
4. Re:In some ways this is good. Better utilization. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 04:51 · Score: 0
  
  Why not use it to keep people employed instead of increasing profit margins and bonuses?
  Because keeping people employed is harmful to society. Jobs are bad. People should not be toiling.
  The goal of society is to get every able-bodied person to lay down on a couch, where robots can feed them grapes. This is what we are working for, and the more jobs we can obsolete, the closer we are to reaching the ideal of leisure. The humans of WALL-E were not a joke; they were perfection!
5. Re:In some ways this is good. Better utilization. by Tablizer · 2017-09-01 07:26 · Score: 1
  
  Virtual machines and cloud computing have vastly increased the utilization of the hardware we do have. It's no longer a case of a company having 20,000 servers, and collectively they're idle 85% of the time. Now the same company has perhaps 1,500 powerful physical servers running 20,000 VMs, and the physical hardware is idle only 5% of the time.
  People don't buy database hardware for smallish apps, they buy it for big-iron apps that have a lot of transactions and/or data. Small apps with low CPU utilization would typically put on a software-based database (regular server).
  
  The switch to VMs has also put more focus on writing efficient code
  If you mean custom/specialty apps, then people costs are usually far more than hardware casts. Machine-efficient code that takes more developer effort to work with is not an economical trade-off for most orgs. A bigger machine is usually cheaper than a bigger dev staff.
  
  --
  Table-ized A.I.
6. Re:In some ways this is good. Better utilization. by Cramer · 2017-09-01 10:53 · Score: 1
  
  Except no one uses SPARC hardware to do any of that stuff. It's all common Intel x86 based systems, which Oracle did actually make. Unfortunately, everything Oracle makes (made) is somewhat over-engineered, and way overpriced. There are far cheaper x86 hardware vendors.
  Oracle has always been mostly a software giant. I'm surprised the hardware side of Sun Microsystems has lasted as long as it has.
"which will need to be signed for" by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 02:18 · Score: 0

Good news! As long as you can avoid FedEx, you can keep your job.
1. Re:"which will need to be signed for" by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 03:00 · Score: 0
  
  Just accept the package.... They could just use a process server, or disable your badge and fire you for cause. (If you are fired for cause you'll need to fight to get unemployment benefits)
Revenues of only a few billion by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 02:18 · Score: 0

Boy, they sure must be mad they aren't making any money!
1. Re:Revenues of only a few billion by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 02:24 · Score: 0
  
  Revenue isn't profit.
  Your revenue could be say $1 trillion, but if it costs you $1.1 trillion to acquire the $1 trillion, then you're actually better off not trying to earn that $1 trillion.
  Ideally you'd find some way to get that $1.1 trillion cost down below the $1 trillion you earn, but that's often easier said than done.
2. Re:Revenues of only a few billion by pz · 2017-09-01 03:54 · Score: 2
  
  The real argument is that they have been on a consistent decline, and are attempting to increase profitability by decreasing costs. In a downward spiral that's usually the harbinger of an eventual end since a decrease in personnel usually leads to a decrease in sales and profit, which begets a vicious cycle.
  If they're lucky, they'll be able to trim some fat and stave off the shutdown, but given the declining revenue ... the writing is on the wall despite the stunning numbers involved (4 BILLION? Oracle can't figure out how to make a profit on 4 BILLION in sales?!?!).
  
  --
  
  Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
3. Re:Revenues of only a few billion by Junta · 2017-09-01 04:03 · Score: 1
  
  Of course, essentially supporting an entire processor architecture by yourself is very high operational expense nowadays. And I suspect they are including some sort of revenue that is not strictly hardware, because that number is higher than the analysts say most other vendors make, but do not consider Oracle as having enough server revenue to track).
  So assuming you aren't too crazy on volume (and I'm pretty sure they don't have much volume), 4 billion should leave a healthy amount of operational expense to make a respectable enough x86 type product in conjunction with the likes of Intel, AMI, Broadcom, et al, but not so much if you are rolling a lot of your own stuff as Oracle pretty much has to do to support SPARC.
  Of course if they had, say 4 billion revenue on 40 million servers sold, well that would be a pretty extreme loss (100 dollars is not going to cover the material cost of a server).
  
  --
  XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
other inevitabilities they can consider. by nimbius · 2017-09-01 02:22 · Score: 5, Interesting

Oracle Linux: you squandered solaris, one of the great operating systems of our time, and did everything you could to make it a complete pain in the ass to own. Now you expect to slap an Oracle sticker on RedHat Linux/CentOS and ancicipate people will care? You do know that all the well-defined chicanery in the oracle unbreakable linux distro is easily recreated in any distribution a customer could desire, right? and that these distributions dwarf your kernel contributions and community? if customers choose to do 'oracle' in say, Arch or centos, they not only get to skip the 5 hours on the phone with your tech support, but they get to skip the outrageous quarterly fees for the privilege.
MySQL: Shes dead, jim. All your best and brightest jumped ship a long long time ago to projects like Maria and Percona and now the only people who still use mysql are the ones that havent migrated off redhat 5 yet. In short, the customers that are either transitioning to windows or hired someone to move them to something else.
zfs: now this ones a bit of a controversy but stick with me here. What sun did to ZFS was great, but its licensing was crippled intentionally. You've had every opportunity as its owner to do something about that and you havent. There isnt much indication you will, so why not GPL or BSD it fully and concentrate on what you do best: shaking down customers for license fees. In the absence of competent licensing ZFS has been attacked on all sides from Redhats LFS and resurgent life support commits to the XFS tree, as well as BTRFS, which already handles disk pools, dedup, and cow and in a few months will handle multi device raid. So if you take any interest in ZFS stop hobbling the community.
oracle cloud: no one has heard of this, its hardly advertised, and is dwarfed by ec3 and other more competitive providers. just...stop.

--
Good people go to bed earlier.
1. Re:other inevitabilities they can consider. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 02:25 · Score: 1
  
  Just switch to FreeBSD already and quit complaining about ZFS not available on Linux.
2. Re:other inevitabilities they can consider. by Predius · 2017-09-01 02:32 · Score: 1
  
  Or run an Illumos based distro, or any distro that ships ZFS on Linux which is the shared code FreeBSD, Illumos and Linux ZFS consumers are all basing and contributing to.
3. Re: other inevitabilities they can consider. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 02:33 · Score: 0
  
  Does FreeBSD support systemd or docker?
4. Re:other inevitabilities they can consider. by Junta · 2017-09-01 02:38 · Score: 2
  
  On ZFS, while it may be hampered by license, there's sadly nothing that Oracle will gain by bothering to relicense it, unless it's part of a much friendlier open source stance to turn their image around, which seems to be something they aren't remotely interested in. I agree it's not worth the investment, just like everything else you listed, with respect to Oracle's culture.
  Also, we have speculation here, is it just layoffs and keep working the product (the usual), abandoning all hardware, or just the SPARC side of things. I think most observers would agree it's worth giving up on the whole hardware division at this point, which is sad after the heyday of Sun roughly 2 decades ago, when people were excited to get a Solaris SPARC workstation.
  
  --
  XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
5. Re:other inevitabilities they can consider. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 02:54 · Score: 0
  
  > there's sadly nothing that Oracle will gain by bothering to relicense it
  Really?
  If they drop Solaris, what use will there be for ZFS? Are you suggesting they have no use for ZFS themselves?
  Or that they'll switch to FreeBSD (does Oracle even support running their products on FreeBSD?)
  Because the only alternative to that is to use ZFS with Linux and hope there are no licensing issues with that.
  Long term it seems fairly likely that the 2 possible outcomes for ZFS would be that either Oracle drops it or relicenses it, because I don't see Solaris going anywhere. (but of course people have valid reasons to strongly disagree there)
6. Re:other inevitabilities they can consider. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 02:59 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  when people were excited to get a Solaris SPARC workstation.
  They weren't excited because it was a SPARC workstation. They were excited because it was a Solaris workstation. For much of the 1990s, and even into the early 2000s, Solaris provided perhaps the best workstation OS experience around. It had the best desktop environments, it had the best userland software, it had excellent development tools, it had a lot of advanced functionality, and compared to its contemporaries it was very pleasant to use. Although Solaris workstations weren't exactly cheap, they were relatively affordable to serious users.
  Yes, part of Solaris' appeal was due to its tight integration with the hardware, but the hardware itself was largely irrelevant to most users. It was the Solaris experience that they wanted and desired.
  NeXT systems running NeXTSTEP were a real competitor to Solaris and SPARC workstations, but NeXT systems were prohibitively expensive for even many deep-pocketed business users. It wasn't until Apple came out with Mac OS X that this technology started to become accessible to a winder audience.
  Solaris also started facing more competition from Linux and the BSDs at the low end, which by the early 2000s had started to mature. Interestingly, we've actually seen a lot of regression lately within the Linux sphere of influence, such as systemd, GNOME 3, GTK+ 3, PulseAudio, and Wayland. FreeBSD has managed to avoid these shenanigans, while actually incorporating some of the best parts of Solaris, such as ZFS.
  Solaris' success was typically far more about the software than the hardware it was running on.
7. Re: other inevitabilities they can consider. by BronsCon · 2017-09-01 03:09 · Score: 1
  
  no (a positive) and yes (a positive).
  
  --
  APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
8. Re:other inevitabilities they can consider. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 03:10 · Score: 0
  
  OpenZFS has rewritten half of the zfs code and much as mysql is applying improvements from mariadb, oracle ZFS is applying improvements from openZFS.
  With redhat dumping btrfs and ubuntu shipping ZOL/openzfs, oracles influence in everything but extortion licensing is diminishing, in the low-end with mariadb and in the corporate-end with PostgreSQL. The extortion is done with such bad grace that that has to a limited time thing as well.
9. Re: other inevitabilities they can consider. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 03:14 · Score: 0
  
  Thankfully no, a win win.
10. Re:other inevitabilities they can consider. by Junta · 2017-09-01 04:06 · Score: 1
  
  Oracle dropping it seems more likely than changing licensing. Oracle will relicense any of it's IP over Ellison's dead body.
  Either:
  a) ZFS is a value add for Solaris and they enjoy that edge
  b) They stop caring about Solaris, but they *still* don't feel like bothering to revisit the license, because they don't get anything out of it that they would see as valuable.
  
  --
  XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
11. Re:other inevitabilities they can consider. by Junta · 2017-09-01 04:09 · Score: 1
  
  I'll give credit to their hardware too. A lot of users at the time were somewhat disappointed at their Ultra10s (which were SPARC, but with IDE drives and such).
  The Ultra1, Ultra30 and Ultra60s were very highly regarded from a hardware standpoint, as well as the higher end server stuff.
  
  --
  XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
12. Re: other inevitabilities they can consider. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 04:22 · Score: 0
  
  You mean, "Does systemd support FreeBSD?"
13. Re: other inevitabilities they can consider. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 04:32 · Score: 0
  
  And this is why, just today, I formatted my home LAN Ubuntu server 16.04 and installed FreeBSD 11.1-RELEASE. Never paid too much attention to the systemd squabbles when I was running older distros. But I tried to go with something modern... and wow, coming from a *nix-familiar background, nothing in systemd is intuitive. I had to jump through hoops to turn off whatever time server it uses, so that I could make the box a LAN ntp server. Same for DNS. At that point I gave up...
  FreeBSD installed quickly, and now less than an hour in, I'm running more of my services (configured how *I* want) than I was able to get running on the Ubuntu install in several days.
14. Re:other inevitabilities they can consider. by JaredOfEuropa · 2017-09-01 05:37 · Score: 1
  
  License cost, license hassles and the Oracle License Death Squad have always been problematic, to the point where a couple of my clients (large corporations) have a "No Oracle" IT policy.
  
  --
  If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
15. Re:other inevitabilities they can consider. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 05:59 · Score: 0
  
  I was issued an Ultra 1 workstation in my first job out of college and within 6 months I bought my own 233 MHz Pentium MMX laptop computer from Dell and ran Linux on it because I was tired of waiting for compile jobs on the workstation.
  That Ultra with Solaris was an example of the kind of machine that motivated the term "Slowaris". I had a surplus DEC Alpha thin client at home that I also used as a Linux workstation. It was also faster than the Ultra 1, in spite of being the hobbled model with half the memory bus width of good Alphas at the time.
16. Re:other inevitabilities they can consider. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 06:14 · Score: 0
  
  I think you meant SunOS. Solaris was largely garbage piled on top of SunOS.
17. Re:other inevitabilities they can consider. by Bruce+Perens · 2017-09-01 06:25 · Score: 1
  
  There could be a LibreOffice-like project for ZFS. If you remember, once OpenOffice was separated from Sun and reborn as LibreOffice, it prospered.
  
  --
  Bruce Perens.
18. Re:other inevitabilities they can consider. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 06:28 · Score: 0
  
  There isnt much indication you will, so why not GPL or BSD it fully and concentrate on what you do best: shaking down customers for license fees. In the absence of competent licensing ZFS has been attacked on all sides from Redhats LFS and resurgent life support commits to the XFS tree, as well as BTRFS, which already handles disk pools, dedup, and cow and in a few months will handle multi device raid. So if you take any interest in ZFS stop hobbling the community.
  The Sun Eng folks wanted BSD, but Sun Legal didn't. They went with a copyleft license that works on a per-file basis as a compromise. Bryan Cantrill has talked at length on the subject. Given that DTrace was incorporated into other BSDs and Mac OS, and ZFS is in FreeBSD, there doesn't seem to be a conflict with other open source license (or even proprietary products a la Apple). This has led some to conclude that the problem is either with the GPL or the interpretation of GPL-CDDL compat.
  Oracle doesn't care because changing the license won't make them any more money so they're not going to bother doing anything.
  Given that Btrfs still lose data for many people, it's hardly a replacement for ZFS. Btrfs was been ready for production Real Soon Now for like ten years, and yet how many distros ship is as default? There are many, many installs of varous OS that have ZFS available as default-root available. (And I'm sure it was"fine" for many people, but anecdotes aren't data.)
19. Re:other inevitabilities they can consider. by Zontar_Thing_From_Ve · 2017-09-01 06:37 · Score: 1
  
  Oracle Linux: you squandered solaris, one of the great operating systems of our time, and did everything you could to make it a complete pain in the ass to own.
  Yeah, Solaris really was great. I spent years as a Solaris admin on my 2 jobs previous to this one and I do miss Solaris at times. I'm not knocking Linux at all, which we use at my current job, but I did like Solaris. Now if you want to talk about not very good OSes, I'd put AIX, DGUX and HPUX as some of the ones I worked with and didn't like much. Every now and then on my current job, and by the way as a company I think we don't officially support Solaris internally any more, I run into people who if they even hear the word Solaris they start foaming at the mouth in anger. I press for details and the typical story is that they only got Linux training and not much of that and their previous employer had maybe 1 old Sun box somewhere in a data center and they didn't know how to administer it because they never got Unix admin training, only a scant amount of Linux admin training, and they aren't always the same. Sorry folks, but don't be playa hatin' just because you didn't get the right training. Totally agree with you here.
20. Re:other inevitabilities they can consider. by hAckz0r · 2017-09-01 07:23 · Score: 1
  
  I could not agree more. Lets face it. Oracle is where they send good products to die. Its the legacy of Larry Ellison's death grip on newly acquired technology. Whether its milking it for all its worth, or for deliberately ensuring the competitors product dies a painful death, its all pretty much the same result.
  if it happens to be a software based product that can fork without a lawsuit following close behind, then it might just survive that bad experience. Unfortunately there is seldom any victory celebration after that escape due to the fragmentation of all the Open Source developer resources that often follows. To be "blessed" by Oracles attention is to die a painful death.
21. Re:other inevitabilities they can consider. by erice · 2017-09-01 12:20 · Score: 1
  
  when people were excited to get a Solaris SPARC workstation.
  They weren't excited because it was a SPARC workstation. They were excited because it was a Solaris workstation. For much of the 1990s, and even into the early 2000s, Solaris provided perhaps the best workstation OS experience around. It had the best desktop environments, it had the best userland software, it had excellent development tools, it had a lot of advanced functionality, and compared to its contemporaries it was very pleasant to use. Although Solaris workstations weren't exactly cheap, they were relatively affordable to serious users.
  Yes, part of Solaris' appeal was due to its tight integration with the hardware, but the hardware itself was largely irrelevant to most users. It was the Solaris experience that they wanted and desired.
  NeXT systems running NeXTSTEP were a real competitor to Solaris and SPARC workstations, but NeXT systems were prohibitively expensive for even many deep-pocketed business users
  As I recall, Next machines were actually cheaper than contemporary Sparc Stations but Next was targeting users who were mostly unwilling to pay so much. With rare and mostly weird exceptions* Sparcstations were not used by nor priced for rank and file paper pushers. These were engineering workstations. They were use for tasks beyond the reach of contemporary PC's. In the beginning this was about raw computational power and 32-bit addressing when PC's were 16-bit. In the mid to late 90's, it was 64-bit addressing. PC's were catching up in raw power but they were still 32-bit. Unix wasn't given much thought. All engineering workstations ran some form of Unix. Sparc machines were never fully on top in either hardware or OS. Alphas were faster. IRIX had a better gui. Neither was a well supported by third parties. Then, as now, if too you need is only available for vendor A's systems, you buy vendor A's systems. It doesn't matter that vendor B's machines are faster or vendor C's machine have a nicer OS.
  The big change was 64-bit PC's. x86's machines had already passed Sparc in performance in the push to 1 Ghz. But the lack of 64-bit addressing meant that couldn't be used for the big jobs that really needed the performance. Once that obstacle was removed, there was a huge push to move everything to PC's. Software vendors followed because their customers demanded it.
  *In the mid-90's, Charles Schwab tried to replace all PC's with relatively cheap Sparc Classics. It was an attempt to reign in risky behavior by their employees by giving them computers that were not only locked down but physically incapable of running software they may have brought from home. It whole operation failed miserably.
22. Re:other inevitabilities they can consider. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-02 00:45 · Score: 0
  
  Oracle Linux, MySQL, zfs and oracle cloud, but what about Java?
23. Re:other inevitabilities they can consider. by ebvwfbw · 2017-09-02 05:52 · Score: 1
  
  Solaris used to be great. Then they came up with Solaris 11. What a turd that is. Did you know they put a lot of /etc a database? Sure, the files are there, they often don't do anything. You have to use their bullshit commands to configure it instead of being able to hack the old files. Just like Windows and their pain in the ass registry. It's a really bad idea, don't do it.
  By the way, nobody I know is transitioning to Windows. They were up until about 2 years ago, now they realize their stupidity when MS Sql can't even do without the really old RC4/MD5 stuff breaking it. I.e. get off of SMB 1/NTLM. When they moved back to RedHat 7 and Mysql, everything ran a lot faster. Their words, not mine. The managers running the projects. They've also said the numbers show far less down time. So we're blowing away Win hosts and moving back to Linux. We're also firing up Linux hosts for things that Microsoft hasn't even thought of yet, like Hadoop.
  Wish we had something to replace sharepoint. What a POS that is. Works great as a document incinerator. Put your doc in there and it could be gone for good.
24. Re:other inevitabilities they can consider. by ebvwfbw · 2017-09-02 05:53 · Score: 1
  
  And party like it's 1999?
  BSD is missing too much to be considered an option today.
25. Re:other inevitabilities they can consider. by Junta · 2017-09-05 04:00 · Score: 1
  
  The challenge being there was that OpenOffice was already appropriately licensed to let the community take it, Oracle's IP strategy be damned.. Here the crux of the problem remains how it is licensed, and thus you need Oracle's participation to modify it, and Oracle is unlikely to play ball. It's just completely out of character for them, and it's hard to make a strong *business* case they can't deny (people saying 'it would help oracle linux', but it would help redhat linux just as much, so it'll be even handed.
  At this point, it's probable that Oracle axed a critical amount of ZFS experience anyway, so they might not even be able to credibly claim to be the experts in it anymore.
  
  --
  XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Only $4.15bn!? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 02:22 · Score: 0

I really don't know how their hardware unit is going to survive with only $4.15bn in revenue.
1. Re:Only $4.15bn!? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 02:43 · Score: 0
  
  I really don't know how their hardware unit is going to survive with only $4.15bn in revenue.
  Kindly acquaint yourself with the difference between revenue and profit.
2. Re:Only $4.15bn!? by Junta · 2017-09-01 02:45 · Score: 1
  
  Something smells about that number.
  So all the analysts put Oracle in the 'others' category, not enough revenue to even break out.
  However, Cisco is the last 'big enough' vendor, and they seemed to have turned in under 4 billion in revenue on the server business.
  But in any event, companies like IBM, Cisco, and Oracle are too profit obsessed to really live in a hardware business filled with competitors living with sub 10% margins.
  
  --
  XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
3. Re:Only $4.15bn!? by cheesybagel · 2017-09-01 02:55 · Score: 2
  
  I have heard of other companies doing this funny accounting and failing before. Typically they do not account for sales they wouldn't do otherwise had the hardware not been there. So they should, IMHO, account for the SPARC hardware sales and services, Solaris OS sales and services, and Solaris OS dependent applications (e.g. Solaris Oracle DB) sales and services which they are in the position of being able to account.
  Otherwise they might be cutting something they think doesn't make them a profit, and end up throwing the baby with the bathwater. Fact is hardware today doesn't cost as much as it used to. With 3rd party foundry services, you only need a CPU design team, which can be as few as like a dozen people or even less. Most of the cost will actually be in taping out first silicon, i.e. creating the masks to fab the first prototype, actually.
4. Re:Only $4.15bn!? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 03:14 · Score: 0
  
  Ridding yourself of an entire division that is making that much revenue cannot be justified with your simplistic reply. A significant RIF or reorg, maybe, or a fire sale to another owner, but not just dropping everything. Then again, this article is only assuming it's the entire division, rather than just a few employees.
5. Re:Only $4.15bn!? by whoever57 · 2017-09-01 03:31 · Score: 1
  
  With 3rd party foundry services, you only need a CPU design team, which can be as few as like a dozen people or even less
  10 people to design a CPU? That hasn't been true for decades, unless you want to design a tiny CPU with uncompetitive performance.
  
  --
  The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
6. Re: Only $4.15bn!? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 03:48 · Score: 0
  
  Fact is hardware today doesn't cost as much as it used to.
  
  Intel processors are about twice as expensive as they were a few years ago, using performance per dollar as measurement. Graphics cards are getting cheaper still, and I guess Ryzen will shake up the Intel monopoly.
7. Re: Only $4.15bn!? by Junta · 2017-09-01 04:44 · Score: 1
  
  There's cost and price.
  To Intel, unit cost of a processor is exceedingly cheap. They however have massive operational expense to cover to get to that point. The price on top of that is still to a large extent the luxury of a vendor able to set their own margins, to some extent. Too high people won't upgrade, and if they get desperate enough go to AMD. On the desktop side, it no longer takes desperation to get people to not pay Intel because AMD is competitive in desktop. In the dual socket arena, Epyc has a lot of caveats to be the universal replacement for all Intel workloads, but it is compelling in some scenarios.
  
  --
  XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
8. Re:Only $4.15bn!? by Hognoxious · 2017-09-01 05:58 · Score: 1
  
  Ridding yourself of an entire division that is making that much revenue cannot be justified with your simplistic reply.
  
  It rather depends on what the associated costs are, which is the point the "simplistic reply" was correctly making.
  
  --
  Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Don't sign for the package? by DatbeDank · 2017-09-01 02:28 · Score: 1

I had a meeting with my manager and someone from HR the last time I was laid off.
You're telling me they announce lay offs by mail? What happens if I ignore the delivery?
Seems like a bad way to deliver bad news...
1. Re:Don't sign for the package? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 02:34 · Score: 0
  
  At least you don't have to go in, for some people the gas/time to get to work isn't worth it. I always tell them just call me in the morning so I can sleep in, and/or start drinking early.
2. Re:Don't sign for the package? by geekmux · 2017-09-01 03:02 · Score: 2
  
  I had a meeting with my manager and someone from HR the last time I was laid off.
  You're telling me they announce lay offs by mail? What happens if I ignore the delivery?
  Seems like a bad way to deliver bad news...
  
  I had a meeting with my manager and someone from HR the last time I was laid off.
  You're telling me they announce lay offs by mail? What happens if I ignore the delivery?
  Seems like a bad way to deliver bad news...
  Someone probably paraded some bullshit statistics in front of management that claimed the chances of an ex-employee going postal was minimized if you deliver a firing via postal worker.
  How ironic.
3. Re:Don't sign for the package? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 03:10 · Score: 0
  
  It's called externalizing risk, to the postman no less!
4. Re:Don't sign for the package? by thegarbz · 2017-09-01 03:44 · Score: 1
  
  You're telling me they announce lay offs by mail? What happens if I ignore the delivery?
  Doesn't everyone? Normally the formalities are done via internal mail.
  I mean you can feel free to ignore it as much as you want, but you may find at some point you're no longer let into the building, no longer paid, and someone comes knocking at your door to return that company phone that you failed to give back.
5. Re:Don't sign for the package? by thomn8r · 2017-09-01 03:59 · Score: 1
  
  We find it's always better to fire people on a Friday. Studies have statistically shown that there's less chance of an incident if you do it at the end of the week.
6. Re:Don't sign for the package? by CaptSlaq · 2017-09-01 04:04 · Score: 1
  
  We find it's always better to fire people on a Friday. Studies have statistically shown that there's less chance of an incident if you do it at the end of the week.
  
  "It's been good talking to you, Bob, and Bob."
7. Re:Don't sign for the package? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 06:45 · Score: 0
  
  Well, unless there's a glitch down at payroll, you'll probably find your next paycheck doesn't come through.
8. Re:Don't sign for the package? by Tablizer · 2017-09-01 06:58 · Score: 1
  
  announce lay offs by mail? What happens if I ignore the delivery?
  Just come into work anyhow. Maybe they'll forget they laid you off.
  
  --
  Table-ized A.I.
Oracle is the 15 ton elephant by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 02:33 · Score: 0

Jesus, even their layoff method is both bureaucratic, inefficient, and poorly handled. This is the final nail in the coffin of SPARC, which is too bad, really. It was a pleasure to develop software for.
1. Re:Oracle is the 15 ton elephant by geekmux · 2017-09-01 05:34 · Score: 1
  
  Jesus, even their layoff method is both bureaucratic, inefficient, and poorly handled...
  Wait, don't tell me...let me guess.
  Oracle HR runs on...Oracle?
You can't blame Oracle for at least trying by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 02:47 · Score: 0

Oracle Spart T7/M7 processors are still the fastest on Spec 2017 beating all of the latest Intel / AMD processors despite being nearly 2 years old. They are at the top in Spec 2006, TPC and so on. Solaris is still a solid OS. But unfortunately, the Sparc had weakened considerably before Oracle acquired and no one was even expecting Oracle will keep it alive and upgrade to the extent it did.
1. Re:You can't blame Oracle for at least trying by cheesybagel · 2017-09-01 03:01 · Score: 2
  
  Had Sun open sourced Solaris sooner perhaps Linux would never have gotten a foothold in the market. Then again they would have also lost their competitive advantage. So being this late in the game, I think they would have been better off keeping the kernel on internal development, and switching all the tools to as many open source components as they could, much like Apple did.
  As long as they designed the hardware to have higher RAS, or density, than what can be achieved with off the shelf x86 solutions, I think they would have had a market. Unfortunately Oracle simply does not understand the hardware market, and late stage Sun didn't understand the market, period.
  Oracle should just focus on their services division, like the cloud services, and task their hardware division to produce hardware that works well in that environment, and then sell that product to the wider market to people who prefer to have everything in house.
2. Re:You can't blame Oracle for at least trying by LoonyLonesome · 2017-09-01 08:08 · Score: 1
  
  Well Sun had no intention of open sourcing Solaris at all, it wasn't until it was clear that they were being killed by Linux that they decided to go open source in a last-ditch effort for survival. This was likely a particularly hard thing to swallow since the Sun president Jonathan Schwartz had previously been very critical of open source and GPL in particular, claiming that it was 'a tool allowing United States businesses to pillage developing countries of their intellectual property.', but again they really had no other options at that stage. Alas it was indeed to late.
The Most Shocking Thing by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 02:50 · Score: 1

The thing that shocks me most about this article and comments is how few people understand the difference between revenue and profit.
Revenue is not profit. It is not money that comes in that you get to keep. Profit is what you get to keep. Profit is revenue minus all of your costs.
One important metric withing a large company is called "return on capital." Capital is the amount of money you have invested in property, building, tools, and other things that keep the revenue coming in. The return on capital is the amount of profit made for every dollar of capital invested.
If the return on capital is too low, it makes sense to sell the capital and invest it in something that has a higher profit. That is what Oracle is doing. Their return on capital on all of the resources committed to hardware development is too low, and they would generate more shareholder value investing that capital in some other revenue-generating activity.
People are not part of capital. They are part of cash flow. But, it makes no sense to sell the capital that the people use to generate cash flow first, so the people are the first to go. This frees up cash flow to make investors happy while the capital is revested elsewhere.
This is all basic stuff that I _thought_ they taught in 9th grade economics class. Guess I was wrong ..
1. Re: The Most Shocking Thing by Strider- · 2017-09-01 03:10 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Yes, but if you get rid of the people, that capital equipment is worth a whole lot less because you got rid of the knowledge and skills to work with it, and likely sent a lot of that expertise to potential competitors.
  
  --
  ...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
2. Re:The Most Shocking Thing by gtall · 2017-09-01 03:54 · Score: 1
  
  I do not think people are strictly part of the cash flow. A lot of investment went into those people creating institutional memory, and if you did it right, some sort of emotional investment of the people in the company. Treating people as strictly part of cash flow tells them they do not count, are more or less worthless, and the company has not allegiance to them. All of this represents selling off the people and getting squat for them.
3. Re:The Most Shocking Thing by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 04:54 · Score: 0
  
  Employees don't show up on the balance sheet. Employees show up on an income statement as an expenditure.
The myth the more education is always better. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 02:50 · Score: 0

When I was thinking of going for my MBA - hey, I want to better myself and climb up the soci-economic ladder and I was about to age-out of tech (pushing 40 at the time) - I asked folks who had one if it was worth it.
Some though about it a little and said , "Yea, I guess so."
Some got pissed - which I couldn't understand why.
And of course, those that didn't have one said, "Absolutely! Education NEVER does to waste!!"
Well, unless you get a MBA from Harvard and get a job at one of those "consulting" companies like McKinsey, a MBA is totally worthless. No one gives a shit and a few hiring managers accused me of going to school because I couldn't get a job. (I went full time to get it over with.)
Yep, I have student loans that will probably have to be paid with my Social Security on day.
In the meantime, no new cars, no house, no new gadgets, no new or used anything unless I really NEED it: food, shelter, medical, clothing.
1. Re:The myth the more education is always better. by __aaclcg7560 · 2017-09-01 03:28 · Score: 2
  
  Some got pissed - which I couldn't understand why.
  One friend is mad at me for making more money than him in IT support. Never mind that I never took out student loans for my education and I've been working in IT Support for many years longer than him. Having in an EE and MBA doesn't mean squat in IT support when you don't have a track record of getting the work done.
2. Re:The myth the more education is always better. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 03:58 · Score: 0
  
  This true for anything though. If you don't have a CS Phd from Stanford you're not going to be making 250k in SV. You'll be making 50k code monkeying it up with a bunch of H1Bs in some office park in flyover country. At this point, if you don't get in to a top ten school, there's really no economic point to getting an education. On the other hand, I think people should get college degrees to become well rounded people, so if you're only in the top 50 just do philosophy or history or something for fun, and then get an IT job crawling under lawyer's tables or whatever that doesn't need a degree.
3. Re:The myth the more education is always better. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 04:55 · Score: 0
  
  Many people think an MBA translates into a bonus during salary negotiations. I have interviewed many engineers for non-management positions that ask for more money because of the MBA. A decade ago I managed QA for a company and interviewed a women that recently graduated from Santa Clara University with one and she probably thought she could lean on her MBA because her technical skills were bad. She wanted more money than I was making. I asked her why she got an MBA and she said her fiance thought it would be a good idea. I told her the fiance was wrong.
4. Re:The myth the more education is always better. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 05:15 · Score: 0
  
  Your friend must be extremely creepy or something because a highschool dropout that can code fizzbuzz and get around in linux can make $5?,000 in silicon valley.
  I wonder if this is part of the same group of friends you talked about earlier who wants to "get the most bang for their retirement buck" by moving to the 3rd world and buying a child bride.
5. Re:The myth the more education is always better. by __aaclcg7560 · 2017-09-01 05:22 · Score: 1
  
  Your friend must be extremely creepy or something because a highschool dropout that can code fizzbuzz and get around in linux can make $5?,000 in silicon valley.
  Nah... Just a bitter EE who made $200K per year, got laid off, took out $100K in student loans to get an MBA, and now makes $50K. Retirement looks bleak with $100K in student loans that can't be discharged in bankruptcy.
  
  I wonder if this is part of the same group of friends you talked about earlier who wants to "get the most bang for their retirement buck" by moving to the 3rd world and buying a child bride.
  I don't have any friends like that. I just have friends who have friends who are like that.
6. Re: The myth the more education is always better. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 06:18 · Score: 0
  
  Education is only an HR filter. Your salaries are also way off. 150k for a college grad quickly accelerating to 300k-450k for competent software engineers
7. Re:The myth the more education is always better. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 06:38 · Score: 0
  
  It's worked out really well for me--doubled my salary. I went to a second-tier school (ranked about 25th in the country at the time).
  I started working in the fall after graduation and haven't missed a paycheck since. It's been 18 years. Even with the most conservative assumptions, I believe I've been paid half a million dollars more in those 18 years than I would have otherwise, for an investment of about $25,000 in tuition (because my GMAT was off the charts vs. their average student, they incentivized me with half-price tuition).
  Timing is everything, I'm not saying I could have done better than you under your conditions. But the MBA completely changed my life for the better.
8. Re: The myth the more education is always better. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 06:39 · Score: 0
  
  >150k for a college grad quickly accelerating to 300k-450k for competent software engineers
  bwahahaha, is that what they told you when you signed up for that bootcamp? lollll people with finance degrees from harvard barely start at that working on wall st.
9. Re:The myth the more education is always better. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 07:27 · Score: 0
  
  Retirement looks bleak
  Says the guy with almost nothing in savings, no home, no retirement package, and no family to help out. Enjoy spending your golden years in a trailer park eating cat food.
10. Re:The myth the more education is always better. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 07:31 · Score: 0
  
  Nah... Just a bitter EE who made $200K per year, got laid off, took out $100K in student loans to get an MBA, and now makes $50K.
  Then again: he must be extremely creepy or dumb as a box of rocks. Anybody with a shred of technical talent can get hired for more than 50k if they try. You don't need the degrees to get a job doing technical work, especially if you have a lot of experience in the industry, even if it's not directly in the programming area. He must be one of those people (like you, creimer) who are tremendously unpleasant to be around and work with.
  
  Retirement looks bleak with $100K in student loans that can't be discharged in bankruptcy.
  They *can* be discharged in bankruptcy, if you can prove undue hardship. Now, that can be difficult to do, but that doesn't mean they "can't" be discharged - just that there's a fairly high hurdle to overcome. A decent lawyer could take the tack that his age & current income level translate to an undue hardship that effectively means he'll never be able to pay them off. Or, if he's loath to be a bankrupt loser (understandable), he could crack a few books open, learn some hot new skill, and get a higher paying job. It's not as if IT ticket dispatch with Creimer is the high end of the IT industry - it's the low end, and it pays accordingly. With 6 months of studying, he could easily brush up on a skill to convincingly interview for positions that require them. If he's forthright about what he can and can't do, and he's not a complete creepshow, he can easily find a company that thinks he's a good enough fit that he can come up to speed on the job in an entry level position.
  This won't work for you, creimer, because you're one of the aforementioned creepshows. But hopefully your friend isn't as damaged a human being as you are, so should be able to do all right for himself.
11. Re: The myth the more education is always better. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 09:03 · Score: 0
  
  When attempting a dressing down of your fellow humans, you should make sure to do so, not as an AC. You call him or her out by name, you should have the same done to you.
Who wrote this? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 02:53 · Score: 0

We laid off a bunch of people, but they should have all seen it coming.
It's like you're taking Oracle's side and making it the fault of the workers for underperformance when clearly it was the failings of management if they had declining sales for three years. And it might be surprising to some of the people being laid off.
1. Re:Who wrote this? by supremebob · 2017-09-01 03:08 · Score: 1
  
  What I want to know is who is still buying new SPARC servers in 2017? Almost everyone moved off to either commodity Intel hardware or Amazon/Azure/Google/IBM cloud instances years ago.
People with more money than brains... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 03:33 · Score: 2, Insightful

And a nepotic or incestuously cozy relationship with the Oracle Salesguys.
I actually knew someone in the medical tech field whose company had a few dozen sparc servers left a few years ago. They even had a few later model sun/oracle fire servers as storage arrays.
However their last big licensing/sales renegotiation resulted in them getting Oracle x86_64 storage appliances instead and pulling out all of their sparc hardware, over concerns exactly like this.
Guess this is proof they made the prudent choice.
Honestly though, sparc was killed by oracles mismanagement rather than any performance limitations. If they hadn't kept trying to charge a 'big iron' premium and had priced their silicon slightly more competitively between Intel and IBM they could have retained or increased marketshare. But leaving their roadmaps hanging, charging fresh out the fab prices for multiple year old silicon without revisions, you name it, and it is no wonder Oracle's hardware sales have dwindled. If the customer doesn't trust that you'll be there in 10 years it is a bad bet to throw all in, especially on premium priced hardware requiring proprietary software.
Today I learned... by hackel · 2017-09-01 03:36 · Score: 1

Today I learned that Oracle apparently has (had?) a hardware division. I'm amazed it's lasted this long, honestly. As crappy as their overpriced, proprietary software is, I can't imagine *also* trusting them with hardware. Sucks to be one of the workers, for sure, but you have to expect it when you choose to work for such a monolith. The faster we get to Oracle's demise, the better for everyone.
1. Re:Today I learned... by CaptSlaq · 2017-09-01 04:00 · Score: 2
  
  Today I learned that Oracle apparently has (had?) a hardware division. I'm amazed it's lasted this long, honestly. As crappy as their overpriced, proprietary software is, I can't imagine *also* trusting them with hardware. Sucks to be one of the workers, for sure, but you have to expect it when you choose to work for such a monolith. The faster we get to Oracle's demise, the better for everyone.
  They bought Sun Microsystems waaaaaaay back. That hardware was rock solid for the most part when it was Sun. I'm unclear as to it's actual reliability after the purchase.
2. Re:Today I learned... by Cramer · 2017-09-01 11:03 · Score: 1
  
  A lot of hardware is actually designed and built by Fujitsu. (I've wormed my way through Fujitsu's sites to get updates before, since the greedy bastards at Oracle require a support contract to even download drivers.)
3. Re:Today I learned... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 15:36 · Score: 0
  
  Nope. The Fujitsu hardware is developed independently from the Oracle-owned, Sun-branded stuff. I believe FJ is moving away from SPARC, in favor of ARM, for its future high-end kit. Oracle might sell Fujitsu boxes, but I can't imagine that going on much longer except for sustaining (e.g. government contracts).
The Sun buy is a failure by Tailhook · 2017-09-01 03:36 · Score: 3, Insightful

No one is buying SPARC. Solaris is fading away. OpenOffice is forked and everyone runs the fork. About the only thing of value Oracle has after buying Sun is Java; $7.4 billion for a language they can't really monetize. ZFS I suppose... another thing 90% of its users don't pay for.

--
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
1. Re:The Sun buy is a failure by Athanasius · 2017-09-01 04:02 · Score: 1
  
  About the only thing of value Oracle has after buying Sun is Java; $7.4 billion for a language they can't really monetize.
  It seems Oracle is trying to hand off responsibility for Java as well https://developers.slashdot.or... , although maybe not, at least with respect to security... https://developers.slashdot.or...
2. Re:The Sun buy is a failure by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 04:35 · Score: 0
  
  About the only thing of value Oracle has after buying Sun is Java
  Control of Java was really the only thing Oracle really wanted. They tried to see if they could do the deal with someone else picking up some of the other parts, but there were no takers, so they reluctantly took it all, and tried to figure out how to monetize some of those assets. In many cases, just like Sun before it, they could not figure out a way to make money (and not making money is not their goal).
  The only other (possibly) interested party the purchase of Sun was IBM (although they ultimately passed), and if IBM bought Sun, they would have terminated SPARC earlier anyway (one can have long discussions regarding whether SPARC or Power is a better architectural design, but Power would have always won at IBM)
3. Re:The Sun buy is a failure by pots · 2017-09-01 04:51 · Score: 1
  
  Don't overthink this, the purchase of Sun accomplished it's primary goal: Larry Ellison got to wave his dick around.
  
  A better company might have been able to monetize that purchase more effectively, but don't think that Oracle didn't get what it was after.
4. Re:The Sun buy is a failure by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 06:39 · Score: 0
  
  Don't overthink this, the purchase of Sun accomplished it's primary goal: Larry Ellison got to wave his dick around.
  between the basketball arena and the yacht racing you really think he needs to buy dead companies to show his prowess?
5. Re:The Sun buy is a failure by virtig01 · 2017-09-01 06:44 · Score: 1
  
  About the only thing of value Oracle has after buying Sun is Java; $7.4 billion for a language they can't really monetize.
  
  But they tried! Twice so far. They were seeking $9B from Google in that lawsuit.
6. Re:The Sun buy is a failure by cthulhu11 · 2017-09-02 10:01 · Score: 1
  
  You do realize I hope that SunOS / Solaris has run on x86 / x64 systems as well since the late 1980's?
  Back in the day the x4100/x4200 Intel/AMD series of systems were among the best rackmount x64 servers one could source. People even bought them to run MS Windows on.
No internal mail? by thegarbz · 2017-09-01 03:44 · Score: 1

Since when do people get fired via FedEx? I mean it's fitting for Oracle because it really seems like the single most expensive way of doing something.
1. Re:No internal mail? by bobstreo · 2017-09-01 04:20 · Score: 1
  
  Since when do people get fired via FedEx? I mean it's fitting for Oracle because it really seems like the single most expensive way of doing something.
  I've heard some places just text you to let you know.
2. Re:No internal mail? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 04:26 · Score: 0
  
  Since when do people get fired via FedEx?
  All the conference rooms are reportedly book by HR staff for the entire day. Those that are in the impacted group will get their in-person meeting. But there are some that are "work from home (Friday)" people, or people who hear what is coming and decide to be "sick", and those on vacations, etc. The FedEx paperwork is the notification in lieu of that in-person meeting.
3. Re:No internal mail? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 05:09 · Score: 0
  
  Some contracts require either part to do use this kind of communications.
  In particular the one im working now requires a registered telegram with notice of delivery.
Dear ex-oracle employees : by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 04:48 · Score: 0

I'm sorry to hear you got fired. I hope you and your loved ones won't go without critical Healthcare. I hope that this wasn't that much of a surprise, and your skills are fungible enough to not go without a job for too long. I hope that oracle gave you enough severance to bridge between oracle and what's next.
Sincerely, a bunch of us who've been there
1. Re:Dear ex-oracle employees : by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 04:53 · Score: 0
  
  This is America! No healthcare, and you'll never work again. There's nothing next. Kill yourself now.
Gain? Oracle Linux ZFS is what they will gain. by emil · 2017-09-01 04:56 · Score: 1

How long do you think it will take Red Hat to jack in ZFS once the license is compatible?
It would probably appear as a technology preview within a week.
Is this appropriate? by leadfoot · 2017-09-01 05:08 · Score: 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

--
"We're gonna need a bigger boat"
Ellison couldn't have done a worse job with Sun by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 05:37 · Score: 4, Insightful

Ellison is a fool. I don't care if he's rich.
First, when buying Sun, a legend in the industry and the origin of countless software and hardware technologies everyone now takes for granted, he decides to exterminate anything with the Sun name on it.
SunSolve.Sun.com, an enormous wealth of technical and debugging information, gone in an instant.
Docs.Sun.com, an even bigger wealth of research and documentation (ever gone through their Blueprint docs? Phenomenal)... also gone. Yes, they pretended to copy everything over to Oracle, but they didn't. The vast majority was purged, what was left was filled with perpetually broken links, and they ignored any requests for docs that other (remaining) docs referenced. The wealth of info lost here is astonishing.
When a group published the Blueprints, Oracle went after 'em and shut 'em down.
Idiotic.
Next shot at his own foot was to pull out of OpenSolaris without so much as an announcement.
OpenSolaris.org? Shut down and purged from existence. (I managed to grab a tarball of their Solaris AD integration that predates the mismatched crap in Solaris 11 and got it working in Solaris 10, and in Solaris 11... works better than their official solution).
By this time they were well into the self-destruction phase where they were treating Sun engineers like absolute crap under their boots, so they drove the majority of them out. When internet legends are leaving your company en masse, you've done something really, really stupid.
Another shot to his foot was to eliminate the free license for education and personal use... every University still teaching Solaris immediately switched to Linux. Now those entering the market are trained in Linux (and have a poor opinion of Solaris, much of which is beyond what is deserved). WTF did he think would happen?!?
As if he has infinite feet, he takes another shot and removes all entry-level SPARC servers... you used to be able to get a T2000 for ~$2k. After this *($# move, their cheapest hardware was ~$40k! If I had his ear, I'd tell him "listen dipwad, it didn't work for IBM or HP, why the heck do you think it'll work for you?" (in reference to his "we only want the richest customers" approach). If you're thinking "but IBM & HP are doing well...", you're missing my point. I'm talking about their Unix systems. I haven't seen AIX in many years, and I haven't seen HP/UX in at least 2 decades.
Fast forward... they're still (up to recently) putting amazing R&D into Solaris & SPARC, but they fail miserably to properly market them. Solaris 11 is nothing short of astonishing. I love Linux, but it's barely approaching Solaris 10 tech at this point... and Solaris 10 is archaic compared to Solaris 11. The newest SPARCs are absolute monsters, and are actually starting to get slightly more affordable again (I saw a 64-core, 256-thread, 64GB RAM entry level machine for $9k early this year), but when you go to their sales pitches, they can't let go of their grudge against IBM! Every single benchmark and price comparison is against IBM's AIX hardware (which they apparently actually still make). I asked about x86 comparisons, as it was pretty obvious by some of the numbers that they could actually compete against Xeon offerings (which was actually mentioned by Ellison!) and they got pissed like I was heckling them!
Morons, the lot of them, but this all boils back to Ellison's ego. He's a moron, plain and simple.
1. Re:Ellison couldn't have done a worse job with Sun by Cramer · 2017-09-01 11:15 · Score: 1
  
  Every university I knew was already pushing Linux heavily well before Oracle took over. Oracle wants to be paid for everything, so sunsolve and docs had to go away.
  IMO, Solaris 10 is where Solaris died. "smf" (*cough*systemd*cough*) absolutely fucking NO.
Speaking of GTK3... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 06:28 · Score: 0

Could someone with some free time and developer experience test out Firefox+GTK3 on the major vnc servers and see if it works correctly for them?
On both VNC and older fglrx drivers, since the GTK3 migration in FF53 or something, both break with the Profile window, and some/all of the browser window either showing up completely blank, or flashing parts of the screen between the 'blank' background and the 'normal' background. It doesn't seem to happen with GL compositors running, but does on any non-accelerated 2d hardware, even with 32bpp color.
It is horribly annoying and just one more reason I stick to gentoo and gtk2 for all my normal desktop needs. GTK3 has been such a horrible clusterfuck of bad experiences for me (dating back a couple of years when the lag on older computers made gtk2->gtk3 apps completely unusable.) to now with even more annoying breakage.
It really concerns me the way the quality of the open source software ecosystem has gone down as people try and make a particular project 'their career' to the point of damaging what made the project worth using. This happened with GTK/GNOME, Mozilla, depending on who you ask GCC/GLIBC and LLVM/CLANG. Hell, even the linux kernel seems to be suffering from it. The configuratoin menus have become a clusterfuck of features, many of which get enabled by default even on an empty .config file, and some of which present themselves even on arches which they are impossible to use. It seems like nobody committing patchsets even bothers to check if the project's kconfig matches its physically usable configurations anymore. (Hint: Linux 2.4 and early 2.6 did, go try some non-x86/arm configs for examples.)
Ironic. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 06:35 · Score: 0

The only sparcs that make sense to buy anymore are the PCI/PCIe models.
Personally I would buy an Ultra 45 (basically the Sun equivalent of the Mac Pro G5). Only desktop models with PCIe and ECC DDR2, making it the perfect boxes for cross platform Mesa development.
If anyone else has the free money and dev time, I know for a fact at least some if not all of the llvm/gallium stuff has broken builds on SPARC and maybe PPC. Would be nice if someone could go through and get it building and regression tested, while the systems are still even slightly relevant, if only to ensure RISCV or other processor support in the future is easier to port.
Normal yearly schedule by cpurdy · 2017-09-01 06:45 · Score: 1

Oracle always has layoffs around this time of the year. Sometimes they happen as early as July, or as late as December, but basically every group has to manage to a number that they get when the new FY begins, and the sooner they cut the headcount, the more people that they can keep. Oracle's hardware group has been cutting people every year around this time. Every. Single. Year. Sorry, no news here. Nothing to see. Move on.
SGI? XFS? by emil · 2017-09-01 07:20 · Score: 1

Irix was a much friendlier player with Motif and made it look good and work well. As I'm still using the Irix filesystem in CentOS - there was certainly better technology in Irix than Solaris.
And Sun really couldn't challenge anyone on the high end until Cray was forced to give them the e10k. And why was Cray forced into this? Because SGI bought them.
Sun got SGI's table scraps. I will grant you that NFS and a number of other important technologies came from Solaris, but Irix was nothing to sneeze at.
student loans need chapter 11 and 7 by Joe_Dragon · 2017-09-01 07:55 · Score: 1

and then costs will come down / a lot of joke classes will be gone.
No more $150K+ masters in medieval studies people.
We discuss the ethics of sexual slavery. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 08:25 · Score: 0

You're aware that are some states in the U.S. that allow underage marriage as young as 14 years old?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_marriage_in_the_United_States

That's all for special cases, I am not a lawyer but your chances of being a special case past 25 are slim. Right on the same page it says the GENERAL CASE is 18 and a 50 year old is getting the GENERAL CASE.

From all the stories that I've heard, the families and the village elders gave their permissions for the marriage. The end result is not some deviant American banging an underage bride but the village getting everything he owns when he dies.
Your logic here is atrocious... you're not un-fucking a child because the village got a new well and a pickup truck. The end result is still some deviant American banging a child bride he bought off some 3rd world villagers
1. Re:We discuss the ethics of sexual slavery. by jabuzz · 2017-09-01 09:48 · Score: 1
  
  Odd we should be mentioning this, but underage brides in the USA was one of the main stories on the BBC news app yesterday or possibly the day before. The thrust of the story was that their was a huge increase in it in recent years so much so that a number of states have recently brought in minimum ages of 18 for marriage.
  Then again I live in Scotland that only brought in any sort of minimum age in the 1920's and even then it's 16 with on requirement for parental consent. (rest of UK it's 16 but parents have to consent). There is a reason why Lydia was though to be running off to Gretna with Mr. Whickham.
Fitting, really by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 09:15 · Score: 0

Oracle tried to screw their VARs by cutting deals with customers the VARs had been selling hardware to for years. IOW, Oracle tried to destroy their own established distribution channel.
The VARs took to selling people Oracle hardware, if the customer asked about it. Otherwise, push anything else. So it ends up that Oracle has destroyed their own established distribution channel.
And then they wonder why they're not pushing enough hardware to turn a profit on it?
Time to ramp up H1B by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-01 11:17 · Score: 0

There's not enough STEM workers, doncha know???
That's one way to get rid of SUN by ebvwfbw · 2017-09-02 05:56 · Score: 1

We have some people that are making us use Sun/Solaris crap. Even though we showed them it worked better under Linux. If they have no choice, they'll finally have to do what we told them years ago and switch.
How not to look too smug when they admit they must ditch Solaris.