4 ms·

I will never forgive Oracle for killing the Sun.

kaba0 4y ago
Can we stop blaming every bullshit on Oracle? Every company is just a paperclip-machine optimizing for money (after a not too big size). They will all chop off your hand if you stick it inside without second thought. Kindness, or care from a company only means that pretending that emotion towards something is financially better than not caring, or eradicating that something.
pjmlp 4y ago
Oracle was the only company that even bothered to actually buy Sun assets. Everyone else let it fall down hard on the floor, after management run the company into the ground. It was Oracle that delivered into production the first UNIX with hardware memory tagging, still the best one at it today. It was Oracle that made MaximeVM into a real product with GraalVM. It was Oracle that pushed Java design from its long term stagnation. Yes there were victims along the way. Without Oracle not even the former ones would have taken place.
- rhabarba 4y ago
  Oracle bought Sun because they wanted MySQL. To me, it looks like they noticed everything else in their portfolio only after they bought it. “Oops. We accidentally bought a CPU design, a complete enterprise OS, a virtual machine, an Office suite and quite a handful of other things. Let’s just pretend we didn’t.” Or what exactly has survived the sellout?
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    Nothing would have survived, that is the point. Java would have died at version 6, never open source (process was finalized under Oracle's management). GraalVM would never existed. Solaris would have died. All Sun assets would have been taken by the debt collectors and done accordingly.
    - rhabarba 4y ago
      And now, Solaris has, in fact, died, other projects have left ‘Orrible before it was too late. It’s all over and gone because Oracle bought it and does not care. (One could debate whether keeping Java alive was a good thing.)
      - pjmlp 4y ago
        Still better than dying in 2010. Solaris licenses are still being sold, then again, Oracle hatters tend to like free beer instead of understanding how to keep lights on a running business.
  - sys_64738 4y ago
    > Oracle bought Sun because they wanted MySQL. You're way of in the weeds.
sys_64738 4y ago
They didn't. They extended the life for eight more years and still make a profit from Sun hardware sales today. If you looked at the alternatives: IBM or stay independent then those were not going to end well. Oracle gave Sun life for eight more years.
- rhabarba 4y ago
  Now, did it end well?
  - sys_64738 4y ago
    Oracle was the best think to happen to Sun in 2010. You have to understand the market dynamics at UNIX vendors at that point. Look around. There are zero UNIX server vendors any more.
    - jjtheblunt 4y ago
      Amazon and Azure and Google etc are UNIX server vendors: what they vend is just for rent rather than purchase.
      - rhabarba 4y ago
        They mostly run on Linux though, not Unix.
    - rhabarba 4y ago
      To be fair, IBM still has them. But IBM doesn’t care about AIX much anymore either.
      - sys_64738 4y ago
        Mostly they have a sustaining team, just like Oracle. Solaris is still supported but purely in a payed sustaining mode for legacy customers until 2034.

Can we stop blaming every bullshit on Oracle? Every company is just a paperclip-machine optimizing for money (after a not too big size). They will all chop off your hand if you stick it inside without second thought. Kindness, or care from a company only means that pretending that emotion towards something is financially better than not caring, or eradicating that something.

pjmlp 4y ago

Oracle was the only company that even bothered to actually buy Sun assets. Everyone else let it fall down hard on the floor, after management run the company into the ground. It was Oracle that delivered into production the first UNIX with hardware memory tagging, still the best one at it today. It was Oracle that made MaximeVM into a real product with GraalVM. It was Oracle that pushed Java design from its long term stagnation. Yes there were victims along the way. Without Oracle not even the former ones would have taken place.

rhabarba 4y ago
Oracle bought Sun because they wanted MySQL. To me, it looks like they noticed everything else in their portfolio only after they bought it. “Oops. We accidentally bought a CPU design, a complete enterprise OS, a virtual machine, an Office suite and quite a handful of other things. Let’s just pretend we didn’t.” Or what exactly has survived the sellout?
- pjmlp 4y ago
  Nothing would have survived, that is the point. Java would have died at version 6, never open source (process was finalized under Oracle's management). GraalVM would never existed. Solaris would have died. All Sun assets would have been taken by the debt collectors and done accordingly.
  - rhabarba 4y ago
    And now, Solaris has, in fact, died, other projects have left ‘Orrible before it was too late. It’s all over and gone because Oracle bought it and does not care. (One could debate whether keeping Java alive was a good thing.)
    - pjmlp 4y ago
      Still better than dying in 2010. Solaris licenses are still being sold, then again, Oracle hatters tend to like free beer instead of understanding how to keep lights on a running business.
- sys_64738 4y ago
  > Oracle bought Sun because they wanted MySQL. You're way of in the weeds.

sys_64738 4y ago

They didn't. They extended the life for eight more years and still make a profit from Sun hardware sales today. If you looked at the alternatives: IBM or stay independent then those were not going to end well. Oracle gave Sun life for eight more years.

rhabarba 4y ago
Now, did it end well?
- sys_64738 4y ago
  Oracle was the best think to happen to Sun in 2010. You have to understand the market dynamics at UNIX vendors at that point. Look around. There are zero UNIX server vendors any more.
  - jjtheblunt 4y ago
    Amazon and Azure and Google etc are UNIX server vendors: what they vend is just for rent rather than purchase.
    - rhabarba 4y ago
      They mostly run on Linux though, not Unix.
  - rhabarba 4y ago
    To be fair, IBM still has them. But IBM doesn’t care about AIX much anymore either.
    - sys_64738 4y ago
      Mostly they have a sustaining team, just like Oracle. Solaris is still supported but purely in a payed sustaining mode for legacy customers until 2034.