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Hubris like this triggers unstoppable nerd rage in me. I can't even imagine how big of a jerk one would have to be to seriously believe they can appropriate the

by korch 16y ago

Hubris like this triggers unstoppable nerd rage in me. I can't even imagine how big of a jerk one would have to be to seriously believe they can appropriate the work & passion of hundreds of thousands of developers from all over the world who are giving the fruits of their labors and imagination to the world. Ellison flat out doesn't understand software and thus he deserves to get completely steam-rolled by the open-source community, just like we did to Balmer a decade ago with Linux. Oracle could not be killed fast enough for my liking. For far too many decades Ellison has fucked up the software industry, like a parasite siphoning money off of everybody. Now you may think that's an inflammatory remark and that Oracle really does provide "real" value to their customers. (I've had to use Oracle for real work, and there is not a single thing I like about it.) Bollocks! Invert the question: for every dollar of "profit" diverted to Ellison, imagine the lost opportunity cost to the rest of us—what else could those billions of dollars have been spent on other than a shitty, obscenely overpriced database that belongs back in 1983 and that is entrenched into the biggest Gordian-knot of enterprise vendor-lock-in? A helluva a lot more good could have been done in the world if Ellison was a pauper. He might have even been a good man before he had all that money, though I doubt it. My only question is: how best can the open-source community align itself to cut off Oracle's air supply? Now that Google is unabashedly marching under the evil flag of Mordor, can't they just open up Big Table or something for enterprise customers, and snatch the pebble from Ellison's hand? Since day one, Google's dominant strategy has always been to take an expensive, over-engineered technology that other megacorps sell, scale it off the charts of those selling it, and then give it away, recouping the difference by becoming the quasi-impartial steward of the Internet. I don't think NoSQL yet has the traction to put two bullets in the back of Oracle's skull and call it suicide, though as we saw with the success(and then failure) of MySQL, the situation can change in as little as a few years.

artsrc 16y ago
Oracle is a many headed beast. I think that PostgreSQL (RedHat database etc.) can serve most (but not all) of the applications Oracle DB serves. There is an application server business (BEA), hardware business (Sun) and applications (PeopleSoft, Siebel).
StavrosK 16y ago
I don't understand. If you substitute "take" with "use", which is basically what he says, what's the problem? Having Oracle DBs run on Linux is good for Linux, surely, no? Having whatever-he-was-talking-about run on Apache is a vote of confidence for Apache, and it's probably getting some corporate patches. Where's the harm in that?
- korch 16y ago
  You are absolutely right in pointing out that Linux has greatly benefited from being able to run Oracle. But I would argue that Linux no longer needs Oracle more than Oracle needs Linux. Linux has been mainstream for many years now, while Oracle has lost a lot of ground to Mysql, Postgres, etc and is greatly waning in influence. (Even though Oracle will never go away, much in the same way IBM and mainframes will never go away). IMHO Ellison's lack of distinction between "take" & "use" is precisely the harm. The danger is how easily that becomes the Embrace & Extinguish strategy. He obviously sees no such distinction himself and imagines that he's big and powerful enough to just take whatever he wants. He sounds like a modern day warlord, and not in the good way. In my book, any individual who assumes that much power, without giving back in proportion, deserves to be shut down on general principle. How is it possible to respect one of the most eminent business leaders on Earth when he shoots his dumb mouth off in public like that? At best he reveals his inability to strategize & maintain coalitions, and at worst he reveals his sociopathic hubris. Being so mighty he would do well to learn the value of at least trying to listen to the advice of his PR viziers, and wear a false-face of humility in public, so as to not trigger indefensible public outrage. Which would lead to eventual Federal investigations—anyone as big as Oracle has a graveyard of skeletons buried in the basement. I can forgive accidents, stupidity, and even short-term, limited corporate greed(implicit in The Game); but never when it's backed by the treacherous potential to cause long-term harm to much weaker open source allies. Linux, Java, Apache and other open source software projects are not mere pawns to be moved around the chess board upon which Oracle, Apple, Google and IBM engage in battle. I hope the hippie idealism of open source populism hasn't been drowned in the ocean of money, but is instead still alive & kicking—Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_Against_the_Wall_Motherfuckers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_Against_the_Wall_Motherfucke...
hc 16y ago
chill bro
nailer 16y ago
> thus he deserves to get completely steam-rolled by the open-source community, just like we did to Balmer a decade ago with Linux. Do you perhaps mean: 'Just like we did to Sun with Linux.' As Windows was just fine. Linux on the desktop never happened. Alternatively: 'Just like we're doing to Ballmer with KHTML and Firefox.'

by korch 16y ago

artsrc 16y ago

Oracle is a many headed beast. I think that PostgreSQL (RedHat database etc.) can serve most (but not all) of the applications Oracle DB serves. There is an application server business (BEA), hardware business (Sun) and applications (PeopleSoft, Siebel).

StavrosK 16y ago

I don't understand. If you substitute "take" with "use", which is basically what he says, what's the problem? Having Oracle DBs run on Linux is good for Linux, surely, no? Having whatever-he-was-talking-about run on Apache is a vote of confidence for Apache, and it's probably getting some corporate patches. Where's the harm in that?

korch 16y ago
You are absolutely right in pointing out that Linux has greatly benefited from being able to run Oracle. But I would argue that Linux no longer needs Oracle more than Oracle needs Linux. Linux has been mainstream for many years now, while Oracle has lost a lot of ground to Mysql, Postgres, etc and is greatly waning in influence. (Even though Oracle will never go away, much in the same way IBM and mainframes will never go away). IMHO Ellison's lack of distinction between "take" & "use" is precisely the harm. The danger is how easily that becomes the Embrace & Extinguish strategy. He obviously sees no such distinction himself and imagines that he's big and powerful enough to just take whatever he wants. He sounds like a modern day warlord, and not in the good way. In my book, any individual who assumes that much power, without giving back in proportion, deserves to be shut down on general principle. How is it possible to respect one of the most eminent business leaders on Earth when he shoots his dumb mouth off in public like that? At best he reveals his inability to strategize & maintain coalitions, and at worst he reveals his sociopathic hubris. Being so mighty he would do well to learn the value of at least trying to listen to the advice of his PR viziers, and wear a false-face of humility in public, so as to not trigger indefensible public outrage. Which would lead to eventual Federal investigations—anyone as big as Oracle has a graveyard of skeletons buried in the basement. I can forgive accidents, stupidity, and even short-term, limited corporate greed(implicit in The Game); but never when it's backed by the treacherous potential to cause long-term harm to much weaker open source allies. Linux, Java, Apache and other open source software projects are not mere pawns to be moved around the chess board upon which Oracle, Apple, Google and IBM engage in battle. I hope the hippie idealism of open source populism hasn't been drowned in the ocean of money, but is instead still alive & kicking—Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_Against_the_Wall_Motherfuckers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_Against_the_Wall_Motherfucke...

hc 16y ago

chill bro

nailer 16y ago

> thus he deserves to get completely steam-rolled by the open-source community, just like we did to Balmer a decade ago with Linux. Do you perhaps mean: 'Just like we did to Sun with Linux.' As Windows was just fine. Linux on the desktop never happened. Alternatively: 'Just like we're doing to Ballmer with KHTML and Firefox.'