5 ms·

With so much hate for Oracle, how long before they crash? It's not like the hate for Apple, Microsoft or Google (which have enclaves of distrust) - in my exper

by hunta2097 8y ago

With so much hate for Oracle, how long before they crash? It's not like the hate for Apple, Microsoft or Google (which have enclaves of distrust) - in my experience Oracle seems universally hated.

bayindirh 8y ago
We've bought some of their high end ZFS boxes. While I cannot comment for the hardware and experience (I temporarily left the team after we bought the HW), during the buying process I gained some valuable insight about them. It looks like, unlike Apple, Microsoft or Google they are motivated solely by the money. Not the monopoly, not the domination, not the technology, just the money. If they can earn the same amount of money, without doing anything, they will happily do that. Yes, they have very good technologies, but they are just built for the money. Every corporation is in for the money, but money is generally a byproduct of good services and technologies, however it's backwards for Oracle. Services, products, and technologies are a byproduct of money. Money is not needed for products. Products are needed for money. This is why Oracle is used also as an acronym for Larry Ellison's character and material wealth.
- manishsharan 8y ago
  While that is true, I am under the impresssion OpenJDK project is mostly Oracle developers
  - jacques_chester 8y ago
    There'll be a diaspora soon enough, as other companies beef up on their OpenJDK rosters to bolster credibility in the face of Oracle FUD.
  - pron 8y ago
    That is correct. Oracle funds ~90% of OpenJDK development, and will continue to contribute most of the security patches (just not backport them).
- auslander 8y ago
  > unlike Apple, Microsoft or Google they are motivated solely by the money Unlike Google? What other motivations Google have? MS and Apple have solid products (hardware and Office/Windows). What Google have? I'd risk to say, any business is motivated solely by money :) The differentiator is what and how are they selling. Oracle sucks in the 'how' department. Google sucks in 'what' department - phishing for people's data mostly, and selling it to businesses.
  - faceplanted 8y ago
    I think what he's implying is that they don't ever start with a product idea without a monetisation strategy or customers, like Google have done a few different times now.
    - bayindirh 8y ago
      @faceplanted, exactly that. Thanks for the clarification.
    - Barrin92 8y ago
      That might be true but I don't exactly see what's wrong with that? After all by identifying what is going to be financially successful they are very much trying to serve the demands that people have on the market. If anything not enough companies actually ask themselves if there is a market for their product, and instead spent a lot of manhours on building products around 'ideas', when at the end of the day someone actually needs to buy your stuff. That last part isn't the side-effect of a business, it's what it's about, and it generally makes both consumers and businesses better off.
      - bayindirh 8y ago
        By experience, I divide the businesses / businessmen into two main groups. First group is motivated by serving the demands and needs of the market, and they earn money as a result. Second group wants to earn money, and they earn money by trying to serve the market's demand or by bullying people into buying their products. First group earns way more money, produces way more higher quality goods, and people are happy to work with them, because don't feel ripped off or short changed. The second group makes you feel ripped off, produces inferior products and never supports you if something goes wrong. Earning money is a side-effect for the first group. Yes, they earn money, but since they provide quality goods or services, they earn money without effort. For the second group since earning money is the primary target, they don't care about the products they provide unless the money stops flowing. I didn't intend to imply that business shall be free. I tried to say that good business inevitably brings money in, and Oracle doesn't provide good business to earn money. They just want your money, and give you something in return to act as a memorial item and as an instrument to get more money from you.
- jarnix 8y ago
  "One Rich American Called Larry Ellison"
  - DannyB2 8y ago
    I heard that acronym expansion with a different A-word which ends with 'hole'.
    - acct1771 8y ago
      Tangentially topical, fuck censorship, "asshole" is what people were calling him.
- curt15 8y ago
  See also this VP's blog post https://seclists.org/isn/2015/Aug/4 https://seclists.org/isn/2015/Aug/4 which reinforces Oracle's worst stereotypes
  - hunta2097 8y ago
    Wow - that's shockingly tone-deaf. He's virtually goading people into releasing discoveries to the public first (but of course they have already discovered these bugs and the fix was ready anyway - so THERE!). Aren't we past the days when decompiling code would offer any real advantage?
    - jsight 8y ago
      In his defense, there is a real problem with people running code analysis tools and assuming the results to be correct. It can be difficult to deal with a constant barrage of incorrect "security findings". It still doesn't excuse some of the things said in that post, though, of course.
    - bayindirh 8y ago
      I think he's doing his job very, very well [0]. The vulnerability in linked post is disclosed directly to the public. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18395855 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18395855
akadruid1 8y ago
They won't crash while they are trusted by the small cohort of decision makers in the "Enterprise" software market.
- brobdingnagians 8y ago
  This is exactly correct. The guy I work for has friend who does sales at Oracle; as soon as he mentioned to his friend that he was starting a software company, the friend started telling him that Oracle was needed to make sure our data didn't get "corrupted" and started blaming random problems on not having Oracle; so the guy I work for started asking me if we needed to move to Oracle immediately and front the money for it. I was like, "hell no", we are a very small company, no need to pay a huge licensing fee just for a database that won't make a bit of difference to our customers... but he still sometimes floats the idea.
  - asien 8y ago
    > telling him that Oracle was needed to make sure our data didn't get "corrupted" and started blaming random problems on not having Oracle; It is and it has always been Oracle and Larry Ellison to dump on others tech to promote his own.[0] Now you know why enterprise love Oracle so much. [0] https://youtu.be/xrzMYL901AQ https://youtu.be/xrzMYL901AQ
    - z3t4 8y ago
      Wow, that guys is really good at hustling. Truth is very few people are technically well-grounded enough to audit the differences between two database solutions. And the solution(s) being closed source make it even harder. For the same reasons there exist literally no independent comparisons to different database solutions. So the choice will be highly fashionable, eg. based on how good you will look, rather then the qualities in the materials and handcraft.
  - EliRivers 8y ago
    Not everyone has someone as convincing as you, it seems: https://thedailywtf.com/articles/A-Software-Problem,-A-Marketing-Solution https://thedailywtf.com/articles/A-Software-Problem,-A-Marke...
mhd 8y ago
If hate could crash Oracle, the site of its corporate headquarters would’ve been a giant “crack of doom” since the early 90s. The enterprise world runs on a different strata of popularity.
sonnyblarney 8y ago
"It's not like the hate for Apple, Microsoft or Google" This is not about love or hate, it's about how much value they provide and at what cost. Yes, they spend a lot of money convincing execs that they need Oracle, but they actually do have a good product. And don't discount all the other things like support etc.. In many applications, the cost of a DB is simply not hugely material. So I don't like them, don't care for them, Ellison is one of the bigger douche bags around. But I'd still buy their product if it made sense to.
- jpatokal 8y ago
  Genuine question: is Oracle actually still superior to alternative solutions these days? I used to work with Oracle in my telco days, and RAC in particular was a nightmare to deal with. But then as now, the standard defense used to be "oh, the product is actually great, you just need to get set up right by one of the 3 Oracle DBAs on the planet who know what they're doing".

With so much hate for Oracle, how long before they crash? It's not like the hate for Apple, Microsoft or Google (which have enclaves of distrust) - in my experience Oracle seems universally hated.

bayindirh 8y ago

We've bought some of their high end ZFS boxes. While I cannot comment for the hardware and experience (I temporarily left the team after we bought the HW), during the buying process I gained some valuable insight about them. It looks like, unlike Apple, Microsoft or Google they are motivated solely by the money. Not the monopoly, not the domination, not the technology, just the money. If they can earn the same amount of money, without doing anything, they will happily do that. Yes, they have very good technologies, but they are just built for the money. Every corporation is in for the money, but money is generally a byproduct of good services and technologies, however it's backwards for Oracle. Services, products, and technologies are a byproduct of money. Money is not needed for products. Products are needed for money. This is why Oracle is used also as an acronym for Larry Ellison's character and material wealth.

manishsharan 8y ago
While that is true, I am under the impresssion OpenJDK project is mostly Oracle developers
- jacques_chester 8y ago
  There'll be a diaspora soon enough, as other companies beef up on their OpenJDK rosters to bolster credibility in the face of Oracle FUD.
- pron 8y ago
  That is correct. Oracle funds ~90% of OpenJDK development, and will continue to contribute most of the security patches (just not backport them).
auslander 8y ago
> unlike Apple, Microsoft or Google they are motivated solely by the money Unlike Google? What other motivations Google have? MS and Apple have solid products (hardware and Office/Windows). What Google have? I'd risk to say, any business is motivated solely by money :) The differentiator is what and how are they selling. Oracle sucks in the 'how' department. Google sucks in 'what' department - phishing for people's data mostly, and selling it to businesses.
- faceplanted 8y ago
  I think what he's implying is that they don't ever start with a product idea without a monetisation strategy or customers, like Google have done a few different times now.
  - bayindirh 8y ago
    @faceplanted, exactly that. Thanks for the clarification.
  - Barrin92 8y ago
    That might be true but I don't exactly see what's wrong with that? After all by identifying what is going to be financially successful they are very much trying to serve the demands that people have on the market. If anything not enough companies actually ask themselves if there is a market for their product, and instead spent a lot of manhours on building products around 'ideas', when at the end of the day someone actually needs to buy your stuff. That last part isn't the side-effect of a business, it's what it's about, and it generally makes both consumers and businesses better off.
    - bayindirh 8y ago
      By experience, I divide the businesses / businessmen into two main groups. First group is motivated by serving the demands and needs of the market, and they earn money as a result. Second group wants to earn money, and they earn money by trying to serve the market's demand or by bullying people into buying their products. First group earns way more money, produces way more higher quality goods, and people are happy to work with them, because don't feel ripped off or short changed. The second group makes you feel ripped off, produces inferior products and never supports you if something goes wrong. Earning money is a side-effect for the first group. Yes, they earn money, but since they provide quality goods or services, they earn money without effort. For the second group since earning money is the primary target, they don't care about the products they provide unless the money stops flowing. I didn't intend to imply that business shall be free. I tried to say that good business inevitably brings money in, and Oracle doesn't provide good business to earn money. They just want your money, and give you something in return to act as a memorial item and as an instrument to get more money from you.
jarnix 8y ago
"One Rich American Called Larry Ellison"
- DannyB2 8y ago
  I heard that acronym expansion with a different A-word which ends with 'hole'.
  - acct1771 8y ago
    Tangentially topical, fuck censorship, "asshole" is what people were calling him.
curt15 8y ago
See also this VP's blog post https://seclists.org/isn/2015/Aug/4 https://seclists.org/isn/2015/Aug/4 which reinforces Oracle's worst stereotypes
- hunta2097 8y ago
  Wow - that's shockingly tone-deaf. He's virtually goading people into releasing discoveries to the public first (but of course they have already discovered these bugs and the fix was ready anyway - so THERE!). Aren't we past the days when decompiling code would offer any real advantage?
  - jsight 8y ago
    In his defense, there is a real problem with people running code analysis tools and assuming the results to be correct. It can be difficult to deal with a constant barrage of incorrect "security findings". It still doesn't excuse some of the things said in that post, though, of course.
  - bayindirh 8y ago
    I think he's doing his job very, very well [0]. The vulnerability in linked post is disclosed directly to the public. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18395855 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18395855

akadruid1 8y ago

They won't crash while they are trusted by the small cohort of decision makers in the "Enterprise" software market.

brobdingnagians 8y ago
This is exactly correct. The guy I work for has friend who does sales at Oracle; as soon as he mentioned to his friend that he was starting a software company, the friend started telling him that Oracle was needed to make sure our data didn't get "corrupted" and started blaming random problems on not having Oracle; so the guy I work for started asking me if we needed to move to Oracle immediately and front the money for it. I was like, "hell no", we are a very small company, no need to pay a huge licensing fee just for a database that won't make a bit of difference to our customers... but he still sometimes floats the idea.
- asien 8y ago
  > telling him that Oracle was needed to make sure our data didn't get "corrupted" and started blaming random problems on not having Oracle; It is and it has always been Oracle and Larry Ellison to dump on others tech to promote his own.[0] Now you know why enterprise love Oracle so much. [0] https://youtu.be/xrzMYL901AQ https://youtu.be/xrzMYL901AQ
  - z3t4 8y ago
    Wow, that guys is really good at hustling. Truth is very few people are technically well-grounded enough to audit the differences between two database solutions. And the solution(s) being closed source make it even harder. For the same reasons there exist literally no independent comparisons to different database solutions. So the choice will be highly fashionable, eg. based on how good you will look, rather then the qualities in the materials and handcraft.
- EliRivers 8y ago
  Not everyone has someone as convincing as you, it seems: https://thedailywtf.com/articles/A-Software-Problem,-A-Marketing-Solution https://thedailywtf.com/articles/A-Software-Problem,-A-Marke...

mhd 8y ago

If hate could crash Oracle, the site of its corporate headquarters would’ve been a giant “crack of doom” since the early 90s. The enterprise world runs on a different strata of popularity.

sonnyblarney 8y ago

"It's not like the hate for Apple, Microsoft or Google" This is not about love or hate, it's about how much value they provide and at what cost. Yes, they spend a lot of money convincing execs that they need Oracle, but they actually do have a good product. And don't discount all the other things like support etc.. In many applications, the cost of a DB is simply not hugely material. So I don't like them, don't care for them, Ellison is one of the bigger douche bags around. But I'd still buy their product if it made sense to.

jpatokal 8y ago
Genuine question: is Oracle actually still superior to alternative solutions these days? I used to work with Oracle in my telco days, and RAC in particular was a nightmare to deal with. But then as now, the standard defense used to be "oh, the product is actually great, you just need to get set up right by one of the 3 Oracle DBAs on the planet who know what they're doing".