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Why? Since they've been getting chastised a lot on HN lately, I'm curious to hear what about Oracle you advocate.

by gphil 16y ago

TallGuyShort 16y ago
Couple of comments. I've made these remarks repeatedly in many threads, but I'll include them here again 1. I do think the Google lawsuit is pretty stupid. They should have known when they acquired Sun how many problems they would have if they expected to close stuff that had previously been so open. I think they should stick to enterprise support for otherwise free products. So I'm not entirely an Oracle fanboy. But quite honestly, what laws are they breaking? I certainly think their actions makes some people mad for good reason, but it certainly doesn't justify some of the comments I've seen - and I've rarely gotten answers to some of the questions I've asked people about why the disagree with Oracle. A few people have explained, and I see their answer as valid - but I think a lot of people are joining their bandwagon. 2. I know several people who worked for Sun, and were very unhappy about how the company was being run into the ground. They love what Oracle has changed about the culture. My impression of Jonathan Schwarz from what I've seen was that his opinion of Sun's products was too high, and his desire to be open-source was such that it harmed the people working for him. I'm a big open-source guy, but you have to make a profit somehow, and he just seemed like he didn't see the direness of his company's financial situation. 3. Everyone was afraid of what would happen to MySQL, VirtualBox, etc... if Oracle bought them. I was afraid of what would happen if Sun just flat-out went bankrupt. So far it appears that everything is still free, but Oracle offers enterprise support and is continuing development with good financial backing. Yeah, they're trying to make a buck, but aren't we all? What's wrong with Oracle doing it? They're good at business - so if I wanted enterprise support for my database - I know who I'd choose. But if I just want to test how my app works with their database - there's a free copy I can test it with. 4. I really like their products. I've had very good experience with their database and their tools - I think their engineering prowess will benefit these products more than their big-business will harm them. In contrast, I've been disappointed by some of Sun's products. They're good, to be sure, but there's always something I like better, and I just never felt really "impressed" by them.
- koenigdavidmj 16y ago
  On your second point, how do you explain why a bunch of the big names stayed put when Sun was like that, but bailed shortly after the takeover? Just a couple years ago Sun was just short of Google in terms of the big names that they had. (Google, of course, got all the Bell Labs folk.) Were all of these people looking through the Schwartz goggles?
  - TallGuyShort 16y ago
    I don't know a lot about all of the big names you're talking about, but I see a very similar "culture" in people like James Gosling. Don't get me wrong - I have a lot of respect for the guy, he's a million times smarter than me, but I can definitely see why he wouldn't have felt comfortable with Oracle's culture. You see a similar thing happen in any big change - the people at the top defined the culture, and if there's a change in culture, those people go one way or another.

Why? Since they've been getting chastised a lot on HN lately, I'm curious to hear what about Oracle you advocate.

by gphil 16y ago

Why? Since they've been getting chastised a lot on HN lately, I'm curious to hear what about Oracle you advocate.

Couple of comments. I've made these remarks repeatedly in many threads, but I'll include them here again 1. I do think the Google lawsuit is pretty stupid. They should have known when they acquired Sun how many problems they would have if they expected to close stuff that had previously been so open. I think they should stick to enterprise support for otherwise free products. So I'm not entirely an Oracle fanboy. But quite honestly, what laws are they breaking? I certainly think their actions makes some people mad for good reason, but it certainly doesn't justify some of the comments I've seen - and I've rarely gotten answers to some of the questions I've asked people about why the disagree with Oracle. A few people have explained, and I see their answer as valid - but I think a lot of people are joining their bandwagon. 2. I know several people who worked for Sun, and were very unhappy about how the company was being run into the ground. They love what Oracle has changed about the culture. My impression of Jonathan Schwarz from what I've seen was that his opinion of Sun's products was too high, and his desire to be open-source was such that it harmed the people working for him. I'm a big open-source guy, but you have to make a profit somehow, and he just seemed like he didn't see the direness of his company's financial situation. 3. Everyone was afraid of what would happen to MySQL, VirtualBox, etc... if Oracle bought them. I was afraid of what would happen if Sun just flat-out went bankrupt. So far it appears that everything is still free, but Oracle offers enterprise support and is continuing development with good financial backing. Yeah, they're trying to make a buck, but aren't we all? What's wrong with Oracle doing it? They're good at business - so if I wanted enterprise support for my database - I know who I'd choose. But if I just want to test how my app works with their database - there's a free copy I can test it with. 4. I really like their products. I've had very good experience with their database and their tools - I think their engineering prowess will benefit these products more than their big-business will harm them. In contrast, I've been disappointed by some of Sun's products. They're good, to be sure, but there's always something I like better, and I just never felt really "impressed" by them.

koenigdavidmj 16y ago
On your second point, how do you explain why a bunch of the big names stayed put when Sun was like that, but bailed shortly after the takeover? Just a couple years ago Sun was just short of Google in terms of the big names that they had. (Google, of course, got all the Bell Labs folk.) Were all of these people looking through the Schwartz goggles?
- TallGuyShort 16y ago
  I don't know a lot about all of the big names you're talking about, but I see a very similar "culture" in people like James Gosling. Don't get me wrong - I have a lot of respect for the guy, he's a million times smarter than me, but I can definitely see why he wouldn't have felt comfortable with Oracle's culture. You see a similar thing happen in any big change - the people at the top defined the culture, and if there's a change in culture, those people go one way or another.