When things are just bad enough, nothing changes.
I'm also in favour of complete madness. Perhaps when we hit the bottom, these companies will be the ones advocating against software patents or at least to reform the current system.
Same physical connector with different electrical wiring. Now we can fry all those expensive SAS parts. Yay!
I don't see this taking off. The storage industry is moving to SAS 6Gb/s now.
Sorry, I don't live in a fantasy world.
If you think banks, telcos and financial institutions are dumping Solaris as fast as they can, tell me what fantasy world you live in.
You know the official Oracle answer for that: get a support contract on a supported hardware and they'll fix it for you.
Sadly as it is, that's how they are running the business now. They want mid-range and high-end servers and support contracts for everything.
They dumped OpenSolaris and have repeatedly said they have no interest in the entry-level server market. I also have many bugs opened (for whitebox hardware) that have had to attention from Oracle after the acquisition.
Personally I think they are missing a lot of opportunities to spread Solaris, but they seem happy with those 50k paying Solaris customers. Let's see how long that lasts. As a sysadmin working on Solaris daily, I hope it does... but I'm also being realistic as to where Oracle wants to focus when it comes to servers and Solaris.
The high-end server market doesn't need as many drivers as desktops. Oracle has all the agreements with Intel, LSI and whoever helps them build servers to have drivers developed. For the high-end, they aren't going to expect the community to do that for them.
Oracle is wasting time on Linux because Sun failed to bring Solaris to the masses. Now Linux is the mainstream datacenter OS and Oracle can't ignore that. But I'm sure we'll see they pushing Solaris a lot more now.
If the idea was to cause panic or start a conspiracy theory, it failed miserably. Nothing to see.
Oracle is simply making a new kernel available which is newer and has more enhancements. Instead of waiting for RH, they are taking control of that piece of the distribution (if customers want it).
Oracle should do the same with the rest of the OS and try to innovate there, instead of simply distributing pristine RHEL with their logos. But then, they already have Solaris which is much more suited for the markets they are aiming at (high-end enterprise servers), so why waste the time ?
Next time all telecoms agree behind the scenes to keep the prices up to help each other, tell me what you think. I'm sure you will say they are private companies
Sorry for using that adjective. BTW, I meant crippled/kid's version (crippled version OR kid's version), not "crippled kid"'s version. Little English mistake.
My point is that a company is walking a very thin line between having an open source version which includes the necessary bits vs. a kid's version.
Just thinking now, if it narrows down its target market where it can be confident that customers' needs won't deviate too much.. that would help. But most companies want to reach to everybody they can. And thus COULD have very disappointed customer on the bottom of that pyramid.
In you case they have got it right: you're happy with what you got and it suits your need. The paid version would ADD UP to that and make you even happier.
What happens in most cases is that companies in the urge to not compete against themselves (how can a salesperson sell the paid version when the open source has everything), take essential bits from the open source version. The end result is more like that of shareware than what most people would expect when they hear "open source".
Anyway, everybody is free to do as they please. I just think open core sends a conflicting message to customers and has the potential to upset them instead of get them interested.
In "open source" your right to distribute the code you received with/without modifications is a RIGHT. You don't have to ask the original developer if you can. You CAN.
Now, if you want to distribute that modified version under a different license... you gotta talk to who holds the copyrights.
Agreed. I think what's causing stress is that plain simple software companies are calling themselves "open source companies" when in fact they only decided to release a crippled kid's version of their proprietary product as open source.
Another point of stress is what most people come to expect when they hear "open source": a project with code available where people are encouraged to participate actively. Most "open CORE" companies don't have a community around them and contributions are usually rejected if it doesn't meet the company's roadmap (which is fine, but they usually don't tell what that roadmap is).
What most people really hate is to contribute to an open source project, assign copyright to another party only to see that party sell a proprietary version of your code.
For a software to be "open source" you MUST make the source available for free. Period.
The problem with open core companies is that in most of them, the "open source" (or kid's) version is not usable providing only a minimal set of features. They will then pitch their "professional" edition as it came with "add features". In fact, it comes with essentials features that wouldn't possibly deploy in production without.
Open core companies are trying to set feet in both open source and proprietary worlds and will fail in both.
With "open core" there is a conflict of interests. The sponsoring company has to carefully select which features will be open source and which will go into their "professional" edition. I've still to see a company that gets it right because it's impossible. You'll get a lot of pissed customers when they find the open source version cannot be deployed.
It's either open source or proprietary.
SugarCRM has adopted the Open Core model.
Open source version - nice for a try, useless for deployment
"Professional" version - what you actually was expected.
Sounds like shareware uh?
I doubt they have a active community of contributors around it either.
One funny side of software patents is that every time one gets published to Slashdot, the authors get a free peer review of their flawed process. And later they can charge companies for infringing it.
I was at one of those Welcome Sun events. There were hammering the message "Oracle software will run better on Oracle hardware" all the time. At some point the guy saw all the worried faces thinking "what about my IBM/Dell/HP/etc server running Oracle?" and said "but it'll also run on other hardwares too" with a yellow smile on his face.
So I think their troubleshooting procedures will probably follow this sequence:
1) Check if software is running on Oracle hardware
2) Suggest customer buy Oracle hardware
3) If doesn't work, actually troubleshoot the issue
Agreed. One long-term downside of focusing only in the high-end hardware is that you make it easy for people in the low-end/mid-range areas to look for alternatives like IBM, HP, Dell, etc.
When these companies grow enough to require high-end servers, they will biased towards what they've been running for years. And then Oracle will have a hard time getting into those markets.
And even today Oracle's high-end servers aren't the most obvious choice, so they have to fight with IBM mostly.. and that company sure does have a hell of cash to go aggressively after Oracle customers.
Oracle just shows how short-sighted and greedy it is.
As a sysadmin I'm thinking if I should stop looking at Solaris/SPARC as a viable career path. I might not have enough companies to work for in the future with Oracle screwing up like this.
Oracle has already said they won't care about low-end hardware.. only mid-range and high-end stuff. That shrinks the number of potential employers.
Oracle is about predictable constant revenue generation.
When you realize that it makes all sense. You want to own some Oracle gear, you must have a support contract.
They don't see why you shouldn't have a support contract thus removing public downloads of firmware makes total sense to them.
It's not about the end user, it's about $$$.
To the point of competing with the worst tabloids out there.
Who ares if M$ thinks OO is a threat ? It sure is so what's the news ?
"OMG M$ admits OO is a threat.. wow! OO is super powerful now. See!"
Slashdot Mirror
Or the people being exploited will resort to more radical action.
When things are just bad enough, nothing changes. I'm also in favour of complete madness. Perhaps when we hit the bottom, these companies will be the ones advocating against software patents or at least to reform the current system.
Same physical connector with different electrical wiring. Now we can fry all those expensive SAS parts. Yay! I don't see this taking off. The storage industry is moving to SAS 6Gb/s now.
Sorry, I don't live in a fantasy world. If you think banks, telcos and financial institutions are dumping Solaris as fast as they can, tell me what fantasy world you live in.
You know the official Oracle answer for that: get a support contract on a supported hardware and they'll fix it for you.
Sadly as it is, that's how they are running the business now. They want mid-range and high-end servers and support contracts for everything.
They dumped OpenSolaris and have repeatedly said they have no interest in the entry-level server market. I also have many bugs opened (for whitebox hardware) that have had to attention from Oracle after the acquisition.
Personally I think they are missing a lot of opportunities to spread Solaris, but they seem happy with those 50k paying Solaris customers. Let's see how long that lasts. As a sysadmin working on Solaris daily, I hope it does... but I'm also being realistic as to where Oracle wants to focus when it comes to servers and Solaris.
The high-end server market doesn't need as many drivers as desktops. Oracle has all the agreements with Intel, LSI and whoever helps them build servers to have drivers developed. For the high-end, they aren't going to expect the community to do that for them. Oracle is wasting time on Linux because Sun failed to bring Solaris to the masses. Now Linux is the mainstream datacenter OS and Oracle can't ignore that. But I'm sure we'll see they pushing Solaris a lot more now.
If the idea was to cause panic or start a conspiracy theory, it failed miserably. Nothing to see. Oracle is simply making a new kernel available which is newer and has more enhancements. Instead of waiting for RH, they are taking control of that piece of the distribution (if customers want it). Oracle should do the same with the rest of the OS and try to innovate there, instead of simply distributing pristine RHEL with their logos. But then, they already have Solaris which is much more suited for the markets they are aiming at (high-end enterprise servers), so why waste the time ?
Next time all telecoms agree behind the scenes to keep the prices up to help each other, tell me what you think. I'm sure you will say they are private companies
Sorry for using that adjective. BTW, I meant crippled/kid's version (crippled version OR kid's version), not "crippled kid"'s version. Little English mistake.
My point is that a company is walking a very thin line between having an open source version which includes the necessary bits vs. a kid's version.
Just thinking now, if it narrows down its target market where it can be confident that customers' needs won't deviate too much.. that would help. But most companies want to reach to everybody they can. And thus COULD have very disappointed customer on the bottom of that pyramid.
In you case they have got it right: you're happy with what you got and it suits your need. The paid version would ADD UP to that and make you even happier.
What happens in most cases is that companies in the urge to not compete against themselves (how can a salesperson sell the paid version when the open source has everything), take essential bits from the open source version. The end result is more like that of shareware than what most people would expect when they hear "open source".
Anyway, everybody is free to do as they please. I just think open core sends a conflicting message to customers and has the potential to upset them instead of get them interested.
In "open source" your right to distribute the code you received with/without modifications is a RIGHT. You don't have to ask the original developer if you can. You CAN. Now, if you want to distribute that modified version under a different license... you gotta talk to who holds the copyrights.
Agreed. I think what's causing stress is that plain simple software companies are calling themselves "open source companies" when in fact they only decided to release a crippled kid's version of their proprietary product as open source. Another point of stress is what most people come to expect when they hear "open source": a project with code available where people are encouraged to participate actively. Most "open CORE" companies don't have a community around them and contributions are usually rejected if it doesn't meet the company's roadmap (which is fine, but they usually don't tell what that roadmap is). What most people really hate is to contribute to an open source project, assign copyright to another party only to see that party sell a proprietary version of your code.
Under which license was the original code ? Care to mention company and product ?
EXACTLY!
For a software to be "open source" you MUST make the source available for free. Period.
The problem with open core companies is that in most of them, the "open source" (or kid's) version is not usable providing only a minimal set of features. They will then pitch their "professional" edition as it came with "add features". In fact, it comes with essentials features that wouldn't possibly deploy in production without.
Open core companies are trying to set feet in both open source and proprietary worlds and will fail in both.
With "open core" there is a conflict of interests. The sponsoring company has to carefully select which features will be open source and which will go into their "professional" edition. I've still to see a company that gets it right because it's impossible. You'll get a lot of pissed customers when they find the open source version cannot be deployed. It's either open source or proprietary.
SugarCRM has adopted the Open Core model. Open source version - nice for a try, useless for deployment "Professional" version - what you actually was expected. Sounds like shareware uh? I doubt they have a active community of contributors around it either.
One funny side of software patents is that every time one gets published to Slashdot, the authors get a free peer review of their flawed process. And later they can charge companies for infringing it.
I was at one of those Welcome Sun events. There were hammering the message "Oracle software will run better on Oracle hardware" all the time. At some point the guy saw all the worried faces thinking "what about my IBM/Dell/HP/etc server running Oracle?" and said "but it'll also run on other hardwares too" with a yellow smile on his face. So I think their troubleshooting procedures will probably follow this sequence: 1) Check if software is running on Oracle hardware 2) Suggest customer buy Oracle hardware 3) If doesn't work, actually troubleshoot the issue
Agreed. One long-term downside of focusing only in the high-end hardware is that you make it easy for people in the low-end/mid-range areas to look for alternatives like IBM, HP, Dell, etc. When these companies grow enough to require high-end servers, they will biased towards what they've been running for years. And then Oracle will have a hard time getting into those markets. And even today Oracle's high-end servers aren't the most obvious choice, so they have to fight with IBM mostly.. and that company sure does have a hell of cash to go aggressively after Oracle customers. Oracle just shows how short-sighted and greedy it is.
As a sysadmin I'm thinking if I should stop looking at Solaris/SPARC as a viable career path. I might not have enough companies to work for in the future with Oracle screwing up like this. Oracle has already said they won't care about low-end hardware.. only mid-range and high-end stuff. That shrinks the number of potential employers.
You can try FreeBSD 8-STABLE today for ZFS.
Oracle is about predictable constant revenue generation. When you realize that it makes all sense. You want to own some Oracle gear, you must have a support contract. They don't see why you shouldn't have a support contract thus removing public downloads of firmware makes total sense to them. It's not about the end user, it's about $$$.
To the point of competing with the worst tabloids out there. Who ares if M$ thinks OO is a threat ? It sure is so what's the news ? "OMG M$ admits OO is a threat.. wow! OO is super powerful now. See!"
The graphics of the Pokémon games entertain me as much as the graphics of Crysis. I think both are beautiful. So, why is the current generation of games giving so much importance to the realism in graphic games? You must balance realism, gameplay, etc. Some games will favor one over the other and will get some attention initially... then they'll fade with time. But I think that's how it works. Some cool graphics technology will be invented and applied to extremes in a given game. Then another title will show up that favors a little bit more gameplay... then another one that mixes both.. that's evolution.
You can always live in the woods.