6 ms·

Hudson (OSS CI Server) to rename itself to escape Oracle's control

120 points by brown9-2 16y ago

Pewpewarrows 16y ago
For those just curious what they'll be renaming to (as I was), it's Jenkins.
thomasfl 16y ago
Oracle, we love you.
pohl 16y ago
Oracle is dropping the ball here. They appear to only see value in the trademark, but not in the people. I predict the brand value to shift over to Jenkins fairly quickly. Jenkins is a great name, by the way.
- brown9-2 16y ago
  It seems to me like they realize that Hudson would be a good asset for them in some way and since the code was so long ago open-sourced, they feel like their only move left to play is this (dubious) trademark of the name. The other half is this is that it seems like they want to avoid any sort of bad PR over a pretty visible OSS project which was under their (inherited) hosting umbrella (java.net) moving to other hosting platforms because Oracle's platform is so unreliable or just flat-out not popular.
- j_baker 16y ago
  I was under the impression they were using the brand in an attempt to get the people to do what they wanted (use their crappy open source infrastructure).
- dkarl 16y ago
  I think Jenkins is a much better name. Even after seeing a Hudson demo and seeing the butler character I quickly forgot what "Hudson" was supposed to evoke.
js2 16y ago
the choice for a new name is Jenkins, which we think evokes the same sort of English butler feel as Hudson Sadly, for me all it evokes is Leeroy Jenkins. Surely there are better English butler names such as Wadsworth, or you know, just Butler. :)
- biot 16y ago
  As it's a continuous integration server, how about Leibniz?
  - w1ntermute 16y ago
    Easy to misspell ("Liebniz").
  - limmeau 16y ago
    Leibniz.org is already taken by the Bahlsen cookie company for their famous (in Germany) brand of dry rectangular butter cookies.
  - kevinpet 16y ago
    Little Rock?
- jamesbritt 16y ago
  Sadly, for me all it evokes is Leeroy Jenkins. Don't feel too bad. This is the first I realized that Hudson was meant to evoke an English butler feel. I always thought of Henry Hudson. (Maybe because I grew up a few blocks from the river.)
- mechanical_fish 16y ago
  Wait, are you saying that naming your CI server after Leeroy Jenkins would be a bad thing? You don't need to tell upper management, you know. Your late-night Continuous Integration battle cry can be your own little secret.
- j_baker 16y ago
  Or the ultimate Butler name: Jeeves.
iandanforth 16y ago
I am impressed and reminded of this quote: "He showed those men of will what will really was." Overly dramatic? Perhaps, but it's not easy to give up a name to retain the freedom for a project.
j2d2j2d2 16y ago
The Internet already has a Jenkins... Leeeerrroooyyyy Jennnnkiiinnnsssss
cemerick 16y ago
Sounds like the respective sides reached agreement on all of the really substantive issues, but flopped on the most trivial yet most symbolic one. Oracle could gain a fair bit of goodwill (or perhaps reclaim some of what they've lost due to this charade) by just granting the trademark to the core devs (for free use by anyone, presumably). They could still sell Oracle Hudson Enterprise Continuous Integration Server or whatever. Beyond that, I'd think their partners (e.g. Sonatype, which has its own commercial hudson-based product) would prefer to not be faced with a choice between Oracle Hudson and OSS Jenkins (where the latter would surely have the majority of heat and light).
- msy 16y ago
  If you think Oracle gives the slightest shit about good will you have not been paying attention.
  - eneveu 16y ago
    I think it will damage their business in the long term, as today's developers gradually move to business positions. Before Oracle acquired Sun, I was neutral toward them, and didn't really care. I thought they were a big enterprise vendor, with a supposedly very good (but pricey) database. If I were given the money to use their DB, I would use it. Now, I really hate what they represent. 10 years from now, as a CTO, I will try my best to consider other options, even if I have the "money" for an Oracle DB. I already love Postgres, but with Oracle's recent behavior, I will push even more toward good open source projects and away from bloated enterprise solutions. Plus, Postgres / RethinkDB / other OSS databases will be better in 10 years ;)
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
SoftwareMaven 16y ago
I am currently evaluating alternatives for a new architecture at my company. Clojure on the JVM is on my list, but I'm really nervous about Oracle. I realize the community can fork the VM (or just move down the Harmony road), but I don't want to get caught in the middle of the battle. Every time Oracle does something like this, it pushes further away from selecting it. Guess I need to brush up on my Erlang.
- cemerick 16y ago
  I've never quite followed why unrelated actions are thought to be somehow indicative of how Oracle is or is going to manage the JVM. Assuming you were going to be using their implementation anyway, extracurriculars like this Hudson drama seem entirely unrelated -- especially given the continued emphasis on OpenJDK (which has a GPLv2 + classpath license). JVM languages like Clojure, Scala, JRuby, etc. would seem to be an entirely safe choice AFAICT. I'd be interested in hearing concrete contrary theories.
  - weavejester 16y ago
    If the Hudson debacle was an isolated case, I'd agree with you. But Oracle have been alienating a lot of people in the open source community, and this incident isn't going to reassure anyone of Oracle's intentions. And whilst the OpenJDK is open source, Oracle have made it pretty clear that they are not above using trademarks and patents to enforce their control over the JVM.
    - cemerick 16y ago
      I guess my response would be, "So?". The question is whether the JVM is a reasonable, safe, and reliable platform to build upon. While Oracle's actions vis à vis various projects haven't been what many would have preferred, AFAIK they've stated their intentions for OpenJDK pretty clearly -- and the recent folding of IBM and Apple into that project is no small endorsement. As for control of their VM, yeah, I'd expect that (the Google issues are entirely separate from the JCP drama, etc, which is SOP since long before Oracle came around). FWIW, I say most of this to reassure myself more than anything else, given my investment in the JVM. If there are real substantive reasons to be concerned – essentially, indications that Oracle has likely just lied about their plans for the JVM, or something more than the vague warnings I usually see – I want to be the first to know.
dman 16y ago
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
BonoboBoner 16y ago
Rest in piece Hudson, long live Jenkins.
JeffJenkins 16y ago
I can't say I really care for the name! But I guess this is better then if they'd chosen "Jeffrey" as their Butler name
michaelneale 16y ago
Kohsuke's post: http://kohsuke.org/bye-bye-hudson-hello-jenkins/ http://kohsuke.org/bye-bye-hudson-hello-jenkins/
nowarninglabel 16y ago
Just thought I'd throw this out there that a really nice alternative is luntbuild http://luntbuild.javaforge.com/ http://luntbuild.javaforge.com/ and if you are an open-source project you can use quickbuild for free (or pay for it if you are commercial): http://www.pmease.com/ http://www.pmease.com/

120 points by brown9-2 16y ago

Pewpewarrows 16y ago

For those just curious what they'll be renaming to (as I was), it's Jenkins.

thomasfl 16y ago

Oracle, we love you.

pohl 16y ago

Oracle is dropping the ball here. They appear to only see value in the trademark, but not in the people. I predict the brand value to shift over to Jenkins fairly quickly. Jenkins is a great name, by the way.

brown9-2 16y ago
It seems to me like they realize that Hudson would be a good asset for them in some way and since the code was so long ago open-sourced, they feel like their only move left to play is this (dubious) trademark of the name. The other half is this is that it seems like they want to avoid any sort of bad PR over a pretty visible OSS project which was under their (inherited) hosting umbrella (java.net) moving to other hosting platforms because Oracle's platform is so unreliable or just flat-out not popular.
j_baker 16y ago
I was under the impression they were using the brand in an attempt to get the people to do what they wanted (use their crappy open source infrastructure).
dkarl 16y ago
I think Jenkins is a much better name. Even after seeing a Hudson demo and seeing the butler character I quickly forgot what "Hudson" was supposed to evoke.

js2 16y ago

the choice for a new name is Jenkins, which we think evokes the same sort of English butler feel as Hudson Sadly, for me all it evokes is Leeroy Jenkins. Surely there are better English butler names such as Wadsworth, or you know, just Butler. :)

biot 16y ago
As it's a continuous integration server, how about Leibniz?
- w1ntermute 16y ago
  Easy to misspell ("Liebniz").
- limmeau 16y ago
  Leibniz.org is already taken by the Bahlsen cookie company for their famous (in Germany) brand of dry rectangular butter cookies.
- kevinpet 16y ago
  Little Rock?
jamesbritt 16y ago
Sadly, for me all it evokes is Leeroy Jenkins. Don't feel too bad. This is the first I realized that Hudson was meant to evoke an English butler feel. I always thought of Henry Hudson. (Maybe because I grew up a few blocks from the river.)
mechanical_fish 16y ago
Wait, are you saying that naming your CI server after Leeroy Jenkins would be a bad thing? You don't need to tell upper management, you know. Your late-night Continuous Integration battle cry can be your own little secret.
j_baker 16y ago
Or the ultimate Butler name: Jeeves.

iandanforth 16y ago

I am impressed and reminded of this quote: "He showed those men of will what will really was." Overly dramatic? Perhaps, but it's not easy to give up a name to retain the freedom for a project.

j2d2j2d2 16y ago

The Internet already has a Jenkins... Leeeerrroooyyyy Jennnnkiiinnnsssss

cemerick 16y ago

Sounds like the respective sides reached agreement on all of the really substantive issues, but flopped on the most trivial yet most symbolic one. Oracle could gain a fair bit of goodwill (or perhaps reclaim some of what they've lost due to this charade) by just granting the trademark to the core devs (for free use by anyone, presumably). They could still sell Oracle Hudson Enterprise Continuous Integration Server or whatever. Beyond that, I'd think their partners (e.g. Sonatype, which has its own commercial hudson-based product) would prefer to not be faced with a choice between Oracle Hudson and OSS Jenkins (where the latter would surely have the majority of heat and light).

msy 16y ago
If you think Oracle gives the slightest shit about good will you have not been paying attention.
- eneveu 16y ago
  I think it will damage their business in the long term, as today's developers gradually move to business positions. Before Oracle acquired Sun, I was neutral toward them, and didn't really care. I thought they were a big enterprise vendor, with a supposedly very good (but pricey) database. If I were given the money to use their DB, I would use it. Now, I really hate what they represent. 10 years from now, as a CTO, I will try my best to consider other options, even if I have the "money" for an Oracle DB. I already love Postgres, but with Oracle's recent behavior, I will push even more toward good open source projects and away from bloated enterprise solutions. Plus, Postgres / RethinkDB / other OSS databases will be better in 10 years ;)

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

SoftwareMaven 16y ago

I am currently evaluating alternatives for a new architecture at my company. Clojure on the JVM is on my list, but I'm really nervous about Oracle. I realize the community can fork the VM (or just move down the Harmony road), but I don't want to get caught in the middle of the battle. Every time Oracle does something like this, it pushes further away from selecting it. Guess I need to brush up on my Erlang.

cemerick 16y ago
I've never quite followed why unrelated actions are thought to be somehow indicative of how Oracle is or is going to manage the JVM. Assuming you were going to be using their implementation anyway, extracurriculars like this Hudson drama seem entirely unrelated -- especially given the continued emphasis on OpenJDK (which has a GPLv2 + classpath license). JVM languages like Clojure, Scala, JRuby, etc. would seem to be an entirely safe choice AFAICT. I'd be interested in hearing concrete contrary theories.
- weavejester 16y ago
  If the Hudson debacle was an isolated case, I'd agree with you. But Oracle have been alienating a lot of people in the open source community, and this incident isn't going to reassure anyone of Oracle's intentions. And whilst the OpenJDK is open source, Oracle have made it pretty clear that they are not above using trademarks and patents to enforce their control over the JVM.
  - cemerick 16y ago
    I guess my response would be, "So?". The question is whether the JVM is a reasonable, safe, and reliable platform to build upon. While Oracle's actions vis à vis various projects haven't been what many would have preferred, AFAIK they've stated their intentions for OpenJDK pretty clearly -- and the recent folding of IBM and Apple into that project is no small endorsement. As for control of their VM, yeah, I'd expect that (the Google issues are entirely separate from the JCP drama, etc, which is SOP since long before Oracle came around). FWIW, I say most of this to reassure myself more than anything else, given my investment in the JVM. If there are real substantive reasons to be concerned – essentially, indications that Oracle has likely just lied about their plans for the JVM, or something more than the vague warnings I usually see – I want to be the first to know.

dman 16y ago

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

BonoboBoner 16y ago

Rest in piece Hudson, long live Jenkins.

JeffJenkins 16y ago

I can't say I really care for the name! But I guess this is better then if they'd chosen "Jeffrey" as their Butler name

michaelneale 16y ago

Kohsuke's post: http://kohsuke.org/bye-bye-hudson-hello-jenkins/ http://kohsuke.org/bye-bye-hudson-hello-jenkins/

nowarninglabel 16y ago

Just thought I'd throw this out there that a really nice alternative is luntbuild http://luntbuild.javaforge.com/ http://luntbuild.javaforge.com/ and if you are an open-source project you can use quickbuild for free (or pay for it if you are commercial): http://www.pmease.com/ http://www.pmease.com/