9 ms·

Keep Linux Open and Free–We Can’t Afford Not To

230 points by geerlingguy 3y ago

theandrewbailey 3y ago
This is one of those uncomfortable situations where you find yourself on the same side as the devil.
- robert_foss 3y ago
  I was about to say. Never before have I agreeed with Oracle.
  - electric_mayhem 3y ago
    Big tech companies have a history of supporting the community where doing so attacks their competitors’ cash cows. There’s also that Oracle linux was formed from RHEL. Maybe let’s not confuse Oracle undermining their competitor’s moat with their genuinely being on the side of the community. It’s been a while, but the necessity of MariaDB and Percona also seem to show that Oracle’s been very much on the other side of this kind of move in the past.
    - geerlingguy 3y ago
      > Finally, to IBM, here’s a big idea for you. You say that you don’t want to pay all those RHEL developers? Here’s how you can save money: just pull from us. Become a downstream distributor of Oracle Linux. We will happily take on the burden. I'd love for Red Hat to call Oracle's bluff, but it would never happen. Oracle's definitely been on the wrong side of these arguments for long enough that I wouldn't give the benefit of the doubt.
    - josephcsible 3y ago
      > Maybe let’s not confuse Oracle undermining their competitor’s moat with their genuinely being on the side of the community. Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons (Oracle) is better than doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons (IBM).
      - JohnFen 3y ago
        True, but doing the right thing for the wrong reasons doesn't mean that the company should be praised for it.
        Brian_K_White 3y ago
        This. It's more like a happy accident. If Oracle had a stated principle which was virtuous, and did something to specifically to uphold that principle when anyone else might have done something else, that would be something you thank them for. And this is not that. However there is also another idea that I think is valid, which is "reward the behavior you want to see". Whyever they did it, if it's good, you let them know that you want that and you don't burn them the one time they do something you always say you want. I still don't thank them though. There is no reasonable hope of ever influencing Oracle to become something 100% the opposite of what they are at their very core. So F them. I see no point in worrying about failing to reward the behavior you want to see in this case. You will never get the behavior you really want out of Oracle, and so all you would be doing is letting them influence you, not you influencing them.
        JohnFen 3y ago
        > However there is also another idea that I think is valid, which is "reward the behavior you want to see" Yes, I agree with this as well. It's all complicated. Oracle only cares about one thing: profits. So any meaningful way of rewarding their behavior would have to come in the form of giving them more money. Every dollar you spend is, after all, a vote telling the entity you gave the dollar to to keep on doing whatever it is they're doing. This one fairly self-serving press release isn't enough for me to give Oracle any money, though. I don't think they'd take the right lesson from it. Especially because I'm not the sort of big spender that Oracle really cares about.
      - juve1996 3y ago
        Only if they always do the right thing, which we know they won't.
- geerlingguy 3y ago
  Exactly, lol.
- version_five 3y ago
  Free software works in part because it forces us, consumers, developers, businesses, into a better optimum than an a proprietary ecosystem. And that makes it work because it aligns incentives of self interested companies with keeping it open as we're seeing here.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  Worse, I find myself applauding the devil for their championing Open Source! This is Oracle! The lawnmower[0]! The company that killed OpenSolaris! What mad world is this!? [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=33m https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=33m
  - Aloha 3y ago
    I think like, a big part of this was Solaris has near zero chance of gaining headshare among people who need Unix. Solaris has value for customers with vendor lock in, and its a declining revenue source which can be ridden out for a decade or two, and then discontinued.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
      Yeah, probably the consistent way to explain it is that Oracle thought they could get away with it for Solaris but the market of Linux distros is quite healthy and they don't have the power to pull the same thing so they push the other angle instead.
      - Aloha 3y ago
        As the poster I replied to pointed out, the lawnmower only cares about making money.
    - chasil 3y ago
      I don't think that awaits Solaris. The Rdb database for OpenVMS is still getting updates, and a new port to the VMS-x86 release that has recently emerged. https://www.oracle.com/database/technologies/related/rdb.html https://www.oracle.com/database/technologies/related/rdb.htm...
      - Aloha 3y ago
        VMS has a might higher degree of lock-in than Solaris does.
  - 3y ago
- bas 3y ago
  I felt dirty reading the blog post as a longtime ZFS (FreeBSD) user.
- izacus 3y ago
  That should be a dead giveaway that you're on the wrong side.
phendrenad2 3y ago
Commoditize your... what was it? https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/
torstenvl 3y ago
Red Hat 5.0 (Hurricane) was my first-ever open source operating system. If you'd told me, 25 years ago, that one day Red Hat would withhold source from the Linux community, and that Oracle would be the champion of contributing back, I never would have believed you. This feels a little bit like when Ahmadinejad called out Putin for being a tyrannical narcissist.
- phendrenad2 3y ago
  I would have believed it. Red Hat always felt like a faceless corporation. And Oracle is just the successor to Sun Microsystems.
  - adql 3y ago
    Sun was FAR better than Oracle
  - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
    > And Oracle is just the successor to Sun Microsystems. Oracle closed the formerly Open Source OpenSolaris, so no, I would not give them that credit.
koollman 3y ago
Yeah, right, I agree with ... err... Oracle. No, wait, something's wrong...
- timbit42 3y ago
  The problem is they are both wrong. There are more than two options.
evan1107 3y ago
Yeah this is just opportunistic PR. Oracle cares less about Open Source than even the most brain dead Red Hatter. As with all things Oracle, they are taking the angle that potentially creates a revenue opportunity for themselves. This is fine. I get it but doing it under the guise of higher open source ideals is comically transparent. Their OEL market share mostly consists of them targeting specific Red Hat accounts and severely undercutting RHEL costs (since Red Hat incurs significantly more development burden and costs) and using it as a launch pad to embed myriad other Oracle products within the customer ecosystem. Other products that conveniently aren’t grounded in their supposed open source ideals.
- geerlingguy 3y ago
  "A broken clock is right twice a day," something like that.
- chasil 3y ago
  Oracle does care about open source, to the extent that they have been the top Linux kernel contributor several times. https://blogs.oracle.com/linux/post/oracle-is-the-1-contributor-to-the-linux-kernel https://blogs.oracle.com/linux/post/oracle-is-the-1-contribu... Oracle actually does not undercut the least expensive Red Hat support offerings. Oracle Linux support is $499/year for basic, and $1,399/year for premier. Both tiers allow 24x7 access to file service requests (SRs). https://www.oracle.com/linux/support/ https://www.oracle.com/linux/support/ Red Hat has a more complicated support structure, starting with workstation-self support: $179, workstation-8x5 support: $299, server-self support: $349, server-8x5 support: $799, server-24x7 support: $1,299. https://www.redhat.com/en/store/linux-platforms https://www.redhat.com/en/store/linux-platforms It would be interesting if IBM did exactly what this Oracle blog suggests: "Finally, to IBM, here’s a big idea for you. You say that you don’t want to pay all those RHEL developers? Here’s how you can save money: just pull from us. Become a downstream distributor of Oracle Linux. We will happily take on the burden."
  - evan1107 3y ago
    Based on your provided links the apples to apples comparison for RHEL Server Standard Support ($799) would be the Oracle Basic Support ($499) Also, considering that OEL is downstream from RHEL how sustainable do we really think it would be for RHEL to downstream from OEL? How long would OEL invest and maintain in OS components that don’t directly benefit their specific offerings? Is there evidence to suggest there is any truth behind that offer? In my years of following the Linux ecosystem Oracle’s niche seems to have largely evolved around performance optimizations that solve specific problems they experience with other products or feature enhancements to facilitate new developments within their product ecosystem (which is still great for the community!) but what I have not seen is general purpose stewardship of the ecosystem of packages outside the kernel. I have no doubts they have made contributions of that nature but that has certainly not been a constant in what I have personally observed thus far. Perhaps I’m looking in the wrong places but I genuinely don’t believe Oracle would truly take on that responsibility nor do I believe that they would be anywhere near as effective as Red Hat at executing it
helsinkiandrew 3y ago
Hopefully this is a wake up call for IBM - Oracle is shaming you for not acting in the public good. Oracle!
- BeefWellington 3y ago
  They don't care. Some accountant somewhere probably did a really simple calculation and figured they'd sell more into their captive clients than they'd lose to other distributions this way and they called the shot. IBM has been run by the accountants for forever.
28304283409234 3y ago
It's GNU/Linux, Oracle. You can't even get _that_ right. ;-)
- fariszr 3y ago
  Even red hat doesn't call it Gnu/Linux.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    What do you mean even Red Hat? Why would they be more likely to worry about this terminology?
- bigbillheck 3y ago
  It's not the GNU part that's the issue here.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
    I mean, it's the GNU General Public License that is largely at play here. That's not the GNU part that most people refer to, but neither is it really the "Linux" kernel part that's central to the argument either.
- PlutoIsAPlanet 3y ago
  You mean (in order of "startup" and importance) GNU/systemd/Linux?
- 28304283409234 3y ago
  There's a wink there, people. Seriously.
INTPenis 3y ago
Wow, to continue calling Red Hat IBM is a very passive aggressive move that I expect on message boards, not from corporate blogs. Interesting. ;D
- adql 3y ago
  Their recent actions definitely feel more like IBM than Red Hat
  - pengaru 3y ago
    The moment IBM acquired Red^WBlueHat this was all inevitable, the only question was when.
- simiones 3y ago
  Aren't they just a division inside IBM now?
- phone8675309 3y ago
  The leadership of Red Hat could have avoided this issue by not selling to IBM. Oh well. Seems like a silly thing to stan for Red Hat over.
fariszr 3y ago
> From a practical standpoint, we believe Oracle Linux will remain as compatible as it has always been through release 9.2, but after that, there may be a greater chance for a compatibility issue to arise. If an incompatibility does affect a customer or ISV, Oracle will work to remediate the problem. > By the way, if you are a Linux developer who disagrees with IBM’s actions and you believe in Linux freedom the way we do, we are hiring. Well to some extent, Redhat got what it wanted, clones are starting to contribute rather than just cloning, with stream becoming the center of it all. Cloudlinux did the same thing, they are hiring and starting to diverge from just being a RHEL clone.
redroyal 3y ago
Ok maybe Oracle has a point here looking past their reputation. Did you know Sun had a Mac mini like product back in the day based on dual UltraSPARC T2+ Coolthreads SoCs? I almost bought it off eBay https://twitter.com/R_I_C_M/status/1646236005471485968 https://twitter.com/R_I_C_M/status/1646236005471485968 https://twitter.com/alanc/status/1585752213565018114 https://twitter.com/alanc/status/1585752213565018114 Wouldn’t it be nice if Oracle brought that back and made the ultimate open source dev box? Their latest SPARC processors are wild
- gunapologist99 3y ago
  They also had the very cool Cobalt RAQ's. Nowadays, such a dev-focused box (instead of a mini do-it-all server) might be structured like the Mac Mini.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > Wouldn’t it be nice if Oracle brought that back and made the ultimate open source dev box? That would be irrelevant to me. If Oracle is involved, I don't want to touch it with a 10-foot pole.
constantcrying 3y ago
Their motives are very clear. RHEL did a lot of work for them and maintaining compatability will be a lot harder without source code. I guess the promise to keep their distro open is something...
pmontra 3y ago
> Finally, to IBM, here’s a big idea for you. You say that you don’t want to pay all those RHEL developers? Here’s how you can save money: just pull from us. Become a downstream distributor of Oracle Linux. We will happily take on the burden. It's nice to see big companies trolling each other.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
sokoloff 3y ago
Oracle: Keep Linux open and free; we couldn't figure out any way not to...
nawfalak 3y ago
This does not read like a corporate blog lol. It’s so passive aggressive and has minor insults all over the place.
- Timber-6539 3y ago
  To be fair, so was Red Hat's statement which started all this.
- gunapologist99 3y ago
  That's what I like about it. It sounds like a startup calling out a bigger competitor for anti-competitive behavior. (Ironic that it's coming from Oracle, but that's also what gives it some teeth!)
nontiko 3y ago
I know these are not the same situation, but this sounds like a different Oracle than the one that owns and manages Java.
yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
> we certify Oracle software products on RHEL even though they are built and tested on Oracle Linux only, never on RHEL Okay, that's honestly really interesting, and that is quite a statement on their compatibility. I guess it saves them money on licensing and also sends a message.
zaphar 3y ago
This could be totally well intentioned and completely honest but no one would believe it anyway. Oracle has burnt so many bridges I'm not sure it could ever recover reputationally from it. It's always about more than just the technology. Reputation will play a large part in anyone's decision making.
temptemptemp111 3y ago
[dead]
red-iron-pine 3y ago
> Keep Linux Open and Free–We Can’t Afford Not To > Oracle.com Oracle is telling someone to keep it free and open? LOL.
josephcsible 3y ago
Yes, Oracle is evil overall, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day. I'm totally on their side on this issue, just like even though Amazon is evil overall, I'm totally on their side with OpenSearch.
ldehaan 3y ago
[dead]
freedomben 3y ago
> We chose to be RHEL compatible because we did not want to fragment the Linux community. ROFL, oh is that why?? :-D
zeroxfe 3y ago
The timing of this is hilarious: https://twitter.com/chatsidhartha/status/1649484240952721408 https://twitter.com/chatsidhartha/status/1649484240952721408 Oracle just sent a legal threat to "Rust for Javascript" to remove "Javascript" from their name. (Oracle owns the "Javascript" trademark.)
- aewens 3y ago
  To play the devil's advocate: IANAL, but if I recall correctly part of having a trademark is having a legal obligation to enforce it, and if I'm reading the tweet correctly this is a name of a company and typically one cannot use a trademark in their company name.
  - slimsag 3y ago
    (I am not a lawyer, I am speculating) Oracle can grant others the use of their trademark legally, right? There's no reason Oracle couldn't say this? > JavaScript is our trademark, you must either stop using it immediately OR <sign this online form here> to enter into an agreement with us that grants you the ability to use it, for as long as you please, no strings attached, no payment required.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      > Oracle can grant others the use of their trademark legally, right? There's no reason Oracle couldn't say this? Correct, with certain limitation[1]. This fact is why saying "but we have to do this or lose our trademark" is a bit disingenuous. You do have to actively defend your trademark or lose it (because a trademark is not intended to benefit the company holding it, it's intended as a consumer protection measure). But "defending your trademark" doesn't mean you have to engage in a lawsuit. [1] The limitations are around the purpose of trademark as consumer protection measure. The idea is that consumers can rely on the trademark as a guarantee that a product or service is coming from who they think it's coming from. It's possible to be so liberal in licensing the use of your trademark out that it gets diluted enough to risk losing the registration.
- 3y ago
gunapologist99 3y ago
> Finally, to IBM, here’s a big idea for you. You say that you don’t want to pay all those RHEL developers? Here’s how you can save money: just pull from us. Become a downstream distributor of Oracle Linux. We will happily take on the burden. Not only is this a brilliant troll, it's also true. Oracle could easily take this on if it's such a burden for IBM.
- BeefWellington 3y ago
  They really couldn't. If you've ever worked with OEL in any technical capacity you can kinda tell Oracle doesn't have a shred of the Linux expertise that Red Hat does. They can report to upstream (RHEL) but that's about it. It's trite and funny of them to troll IBM but it's a laughable idea. If Red Hat were to take them up on it it would be a disaster within probably weeks. The decision by Red Hat/IBM here is incredibly shortsighted and stupid.
freedude 3y ago
I don't want to like Oracle, so I won't. However, what they said minus the business/political propaganda is spot on.
IceWreck 3y ago
> Finally, to IBM, here’s a big idea for you. You say that you don’t want to pay all those RHEL developers? Here’s how you can save money: just pull from us. Become a downstream distributor of Oracle Linux. We will happily take on the burden. 100% PR. They know Red Hat will not actually do it so why not offer for PR points.
jtraub91 3y ago
HAHA. Oracle clapping back at IBM.
bluedino 3y ago
I'd really like to know the ratio of systems that are running RHEL vs the clones. 10:1? 100:1? 1000:1? The fear would be that stomping out 90 or 99 (or 99.9%) of your actual user base (even if they are non-paying) would you over.
Brian_K_White 3y ago
Do they seriously not hear themselves? Oracle, free software champions of the world. It is clearly the End Times.
weare138 3y ago
You know you screwed up when Oracle has the moral high ground.
gaze 3y ago
[flagged]
StopHammoTime 3y ago
Sometimes I have trouble explaining irony. Now I can just send this article to people lmao.
everybodyknows 3y ago
> Oracle has always made Oracle Linux binaries and source freely available to all. Hmmm, well yes, there's https://yum.oracle.com/oracle-linux-isos.html https://yum.oracle.com/oracle-linux-isos.html But no one here on HN in my memory has mentioned trying to run it on, say, a personal desktop. What's the reality of this?
- lproven 3y ago
  It's RHEL. Or rather, it's CentOS with the serial numbers filed off. Of course you can. It is a snapshot of an old version of Fedora, with a lot of extra Q&A, and an extremely restricted set of packages. E.g. you get GNOME and nothing else. But if you don't need many drivers, or you're running on old hardware that is directly supported, sure you can run it as a desktop.
tw04 3y ago
How’s that Solaris and zfs open source going for you oracle? Ahh, right. Keeping things open source only counts when someone else is doing all the heavy lifting for you.
jprd 3y ago
Oracle is not, has never been, and never will be a champion or leader in Open Source. Oracle has obligations they need to adhere to in the short term regarding F/LOSS licenses - though the end goal is _always_ extortion. Oracle owns some great tech, they have always had great engineers. Oracle has ALWAYS leveraged their technology to prop up their protection racket. I'm constantly astonished they haven't violated RICO enough to free that Hawaiian island Uncle Larry bought, even considering their In-Q-Tel roots.
mynonameaccount 3y ago
Only reason Oracle even has a Linux version is to sell their db. Why not take more of the customer's money while they are at it while stealing another's OS and renaming it as your own.
hdjjhhvvhga 3y ago
This is wonderful trolling on the part of Oracle, I bet they had a lot of fun composing this piece. I just wish they tossed in "We stand by GNU/Linux"[0] - that would be the frosting on the cake. [0] Yeah, I realize that would be difficult - both IBM and Oracle hate FSF equally.
- Lutzb 3y ago
  IBMer here, opinions are my own. You are totally free to not like IBM and I won't try to change your mind, but please read up on IBMs involvement in linux, open source, open source stewardship, apache, linux foundation SCO vs IBM, IBMs no attack pledge against Linux (2004), Linux S390, 1000s of developers getting paid to contribute to open source, istio to just name a few. The reality is not as black and white as you make it out to be.
  - hdjjhhvvhga 3y ago
    Thank you for taking the time to respond. For me there was one decisive moment that changed my perspective on IBM: when they joined the recent crusade against Stallman. You see, when Red Had started, they very much needed our (let's call it 'Linux community') help. At the beginning people made fun of RH, there were jokes running it's for the people who can't really use Linux, their initial security history was quite bad etc. It was unthinkable that at the time of Bob Young etc. they could attack RMS (and he wasn't much different then, maybe worse even in social terms), not to mention the fact that they were making money selling the software that he inspired to create or just created. Now that the power balance shifted, they felt more courageous and decided to follow the hating crowd. When you think about it a bit, it's really sad.
    - Lutzb 3y ago
      Just to make sure, you are talking about RH resignation from the FSF? https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/red-hat-statement-about-richard-stallmans-return-free-software-foundation-board https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/red-hat-statement-about-richa...

230 points by geerlingguy 3y ago

theandrewbailey 3y ago

This is one of those uncomfortable situations where you find yourself on the same side as the devil.

robert_foss 3y ago
I was about to say. Never before have I agreeed with Oracle.
- electric_mayhem 3y ago
  Big tech companies have a history of supporting the community where doing so attacks their competitors’ cash cows. There’s also that Oracle linux was formed from RHEL. Maybe let’s not confuse Oracle undermining their competitor’s moat with their genuinely being on the side of the community. It’s been a while, but the necessity of MariaDB and Percona also seem to show that Oracle’s been very much on the other side of this kind of move in the past.
  - geerlingguy 3y ago
    > Finally, to IBM, here’s a big idea for you. You say that you don’t want to pay all those RHEL developers? Here’s how you can save money: just pull from us. Become a downstream distributor of Oracle Linux. We will happily take on the burden. I'd love for Red Hat to call Oracle's bluff, but it would never happen. Oracle's definitely been on the wrong side of these arguments for long enough that I wouldn't give the benefit of the doubt.
  - josephcsible 3y ago
    > Maybe let’s not confuse Oracle undermining their competitor’s moat with their genuinely being on the side of the community. Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons (Oracle) is better than doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons (IBM).
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      True, but doing the right thing for the wrong reasons doesn't mean that the company should be praised for it.
      - Brian_K_White 3y ago
        This. It's more like a happy accident. If Oracle had a stated principle which was virtuous, and did something to specifically to uphold that principle when anyone else might have done something else, that would be something you thank them for. And this is not that. However there is also another idea that I think is valid, which is "reward the behavior you want to see". Whyever they did it, if it's good, you let them know that you want that and you don't burn them the one time they do something you always say you want. I still don't thank them though. There is no reasonable hope of ever influencing Oracle to become something 100% the opposite of what they are at their very core. So F them. I see no point in worrying about failing to reward the behavior you want to see in this case. You will never get the behavior you really want out of Oracle, and so all you would be doing is letting them influence you, not you influencing them.
        JohnFen 3y ago
        > However there is also another idea that I think is valid, which is "reward the behavior you want to see" Yes, I agree with this as well. It's all complicated. Oracle only cares about one thing: profits. So any meaningful way of rewarding their behavior would have to come in the form of giving them more money. Every dollar you spend is, after all, a vote telling the entity you gave the dollar to to keep on doing whatever it is they're doing. This one fairly self-serving press release isn't enough for me to give Oracle any money, though. I don't think they'd take the right lesson from it. Especially because I'm not the sort of big spender that Oracle really cares about.
    - juve1996 3y ago
      Only if they always do the right thing, which we know they won't.
geerlingguy 3y ago
Exactly, lol.
version_five 3y ago
Free software works in part because it forces us, consumers, developers, businesses, into a better optimum than an a proprietary ecosystem. And that makes it work because it aligns incentives of self interested companies with keeping it open as we're seeing here.
yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
Worse, I find myself applauding the devil for their championing Open Source! This is Oracle! The lawnmower[0]! The company that killed OpenSolaris! What mad world is this!? [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=33m https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=33m
- Aloha 3y ago
  I think like, a big part of this was Solaris has near zero chance of gaining headshare among people who need Unix. Solaris has value for customers with vendor lock in, and its a declining revenue source which can be ridden out for a decade or two, and then discontinued.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
    Yeah, probably the consistent way to explain it is that Oracle thought they could get away with it for Solaris but the market of Linux distros is quite healthy and they don't have the power to pull the same thing so they push the other angle instead.
    - Aloha 3y ago
      As the poster I replied to pointed out, the lawnmower only cares about making money.
  - chasil 3y ago
    I don't think that awaits Solaris. The Rdb database for OpenVMS is still getting updates, and a new port to the VMS-x86 release that has recently emerged. https://www.oracle.com/database/technologies/related/rdb.html https://www.oracle.com/database/technologies/related/rdb.htm...
    - Aloha 3y ago
      VMS has a might higher degree of lock-in than Solaris does.
- 3y ago
bas 3y ago
I felt dirty reading the blog post as a longtime ZFS (FreeBSD) user.
izacus 3y ago
That should be a dead giveaway that you're on the wrong side.

phendrenad2 3y ago

Commoditize your... what was it? https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/

torstenvl 3y ago

Red Hat 5.0 (Hurricane) was my first-ever open source operating system. If you'd told me, 25 years ago, that one day Red Hat would withhold source from the Linux community, and that Oracle would be the champion of contributing back, I never would have believed you. This feels a little bit like when Ahmadinejad called out Putin for being a tyrannical narcissist.

phendrenad2 3y ago
I would have believed it. Red Hat always felt like a faceless corporation. And Oracle is just the successor to Sun Microsystems.
- adql 3y ago
  Sun was FAR better than Oracle
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  > And Oracle is just the successor to Sun Microsystems. Oracle closed the formerly Open Source OpenSolaris, so no, I would not give them that credit.

koollman 3y ago

Yeah, right, I agree with ... err... Oracle. No, wait, something's wrong...

timbit42 3y ago
The problem is they are both wrong. There are more than two options.

evan1107 3y ago

Yeah this is just opportunistic PR. Oracle cares less about Open Source than even the most brain dead Red Hatter. As with all things Oracle, they are taking the angle that potentially creates a revenue opportunity for themselves. This is fine. I get it but doing it under the guise of higher open source ideals is comically transparent. Their OEL market share mostly consists of them targeting specific Red Hat accounts and severely undercutting RHEL costs (since Red Hat incurs significantly more development burden and costs) and using it as a launch pad to embed myriad other Oracle products within the customer ecosystem. Other products that conveniently aren’t grounded in their supposed open source ideals.

geerlingguy 3y ago
"A broken clock is right twice a day," something like that.
chasil 3y ago
Oracle does care about open source, to the extent that they have been the top Linux kernel contributor several times. https://blogs.oracle.com/linux/post/oracle-is-the-1-contributor-to-the-linux-kernel https://blogs.oracle.com/linux/post/oracle-is-the-1-contribu... Oracle actually does not undercut the least expensive Red Hat support offerings. Oracle Linux support is $499/year for basic, and $1,399/year for premier. Both tiers allow 24x7 access to file service requests (SRs). https://www.oracle.com/linux/support/ https://www.oracle.com/linux/support/ Red Hat has a more complicated support structure, starting with workstation-self support: $179, workstation-8x5 support: $299, server-self support: $349, server-8x5 support: $799, server-24x7 support: $1,299. https://www.redhat.com/en/store/linux-platforms https://www.redhat.com/en/store/linux-platforms It would be interesting if IBM did exactly what this Oracle blog suggests: "Finally, to IBM, here’s a big idea for you. You say that you don’t want to pay all those RHEL developers? Here’s how you can save money: just pull from us. Become a downstream distributor of Oracle Linux. We will happily take on the burden."
- evan1107 3y ago
  Based on your provided links the apples to apples comparison for RHEL Server Standard Support ($799) would be the Oracle Basic Support ($499) Also, considering that OEL is downstream from RHEL how sustainable do we really think it would be for RHEL to downstream from OEL? How long would OEL invest and maintain in OS components that don’t directly benefit their specific offerings? Is there evidence to suggest there is any truth behind that offer? In my years of following the Linux ecosystem Oracle’s niche seems to have largely evolved around performance optimizations that solve specific problems they experience with other products or feature enhancements to facilitate new developments within their product ecosystem (which is still great for the community!) but what I have not seen is general purpose stewardship of the ecosystem of packages outside the kernel. I have no doubts they have made contributions of that nature but that has certainly not been a constant in what I have personally observed thus far. Perhaps I’m looking in the wrong places but I genuinely don’t believe Oracle would truly take on that responsibility nor do I believe that they would be anywhere near as effective as Red Hat at executing it

helsinkiandrew 3y ago

Hopefully this is a wake up call for IBM - Oracle is shaming you for not acting in the public good. Oracle!

BeefWellington 3y ago
They don't care. Some accountant somewhere probably did a really simple calculation and figured they'd sell more into their captive clients than they'd lose to other distributions this way and they called the shot. IBM has been run by the accountants for forever.

28304283409234 3y ago

It's GNU/Linux, Oracle. You can't even get _that_ right. ;-)

fariszr 3y ago
Even red hat doesn't call it Gnu/Linux.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  What do you mean even Red Hat? Why would they be more likely to worry about this terminology?
bigbillheck 3y ago
It's not the GNU part that's the issue here.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  I mean, it's the GNU General Public License that is largely at play here. That's not the GNU part that most people refer to, but neither is it really the "Linux" kernel part that's central to the argument either.
PlutoIsAPlanet 3y ago
You mean (in order of "startup" and importance) GNU/systemd/Linux?
28304283409234 3y ago
There's a wink there, people. Seriously.

INTPenis 3y ago

Wow, to continue calling Red Hat IBM is a very passive aggressive move that I expect on message boards, not from corporate blogs. Interesting. ;D

adql 3y ago
Their recent actions definitely feel more like IBM than Red Hat
- pengaru 3y ago
  The moment IBM acquired Red^WBlueHat this was all inevitable, the only question was when.
simiones 3y ago
Aren't they just a division inside IBM now?
phone8675309 3y ago
The leadership of Red Hat could have avoided this issue by not selling to IBM. Oh well. Seems like a silly thing to stan for Red Hat over.

fariszr 3y ago

> From a practical standpoint, we believe Oracle Linux will remain as compatible as it has always been through release 9.2, but after that, there may be a greater chance for a compatibility issue to arise. If an incompatibility does affect a customer or ISV, Oracle will work to remediate the problem. > By the way, if you are a Linux developer who disagrees with IBM’s actions and you believe in Linux freedom the way we do, we are hiring. Well to some extent, Redhat got what it wanted, clones are starting to contribute rather than just cloning, with stream becoming the center of it all. Cloudlinux did the same thing, they are hiring and starting to diverge from just being a RHEL clone.

redroyal 3y ago

Ok maybe Oracle has a point here looking past their reputation. Did you know Sun had a Mac mini like product back in the day based on dual UltraSPARC T2+ Coolthreads SoCs? I almost bought it off eBay https://twitter.com/R_I_C_M/status/1646236005471485968 https://twitter.com/R_I_C_M/status/1646236005471485968 https://twitter.com/alanc/status/1585752213565018114 https://twitter.com/alanc/status/1585752213565018114 Wouldn’t it be nice if Oracle brought that back and made the ultimate open source dev box? Their latest SPARC processors are wild

gunapologist99 3y ago
They also had the very cool Cobalt RAQ's. Nowadays, such a dev-focused box (instead of a mini do-it-all server) might be structured like the Mac Mini.
JohnFen 3y ago
> Wouldn’t it be nice if Oracle brought that back and made the ultimate open source dev box? That would be irrelevant to me. If Oracle is involved, I don't want to touch it with a 10-foot pole.

constantcrying 3y ago

Their motives are very clear. RHEL did a lot of work for them and maintaining compatability will be a lot harder without source code. I guess the promise to keep their distro open is something...

pmontra 3y ago

> Finally, to IBM, here’s a big idea for you. You say that you don’t want to pay all those RHEL developers? Here’s how you can save money: just pull from us. Become a downstream distributor of Oracle Linux. We will happily take on the burden. It's nice to see big companies trolling each other.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

sokoloff 3y ago

Oracle: Keep Linux open and free; we couldn't figure out any way not to...

nawfalak 3y ago

This does not read like a corporate blog lol. It’s so passive aggressive and has minor insults all over the place.

Timber-6539 3y ago
To be fair, so was Red Hat's statement which started all this.
gunapologist99 3y ago
That's what I like about it. It sounds like a startup calling out a bigger competitor for anti-competitive behavior. (Ironic that it's coming from Oracle, but that's also what gives it some teeth!)

nontiko 3y ago

I know these are not the same situation, but this sounds like a different Oracle than the one that owns and manages Java.

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago

> we certify Oracle software products on RHEL even though they are built and tested on Oracle Linux only, never on RHEL Okay, that's honestly really interesting, and that is quite a statement on their compatibility. I guess it saves them money on licensing and also sends a message.

zaphar 3y ago

This could be totally well intentioned and completely honest but no one would believe it anyway. Oracle has burnt so many bridges I'm not sure it could ever recover reputationally from it. It's always about more than just the technology. Reputation will play a large part in anyone's decision making.

temptemptemp111 3y ago

[dead]

red-iron-pine 3y ago

> Keep Linux Open and Free–We Can’t Afford Not To > Oracle.com Oracle is telling someone to keep it free and open? LOL.

josephcsible 3y ago

Yes, Oracle is evil overall, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day. I'm totally on their side on this issue, just like even though Amazon is evil overall, I'm totally on their side with OpenSearch.

ldehaan 3y ago

[dead]

freedomben 3y ago

> We chose to be RHEL compatible because we did not want to fragment the Linux community. ROFL, oh is that why?? :-D

zeroxfe 3y ago

The timing of this is hilarious: https://twitter.com/chatsidhartha/status/1649484240952721408 https://twitter.com/chatsidhartha/status/1649484240952721408 Oracle just sent a legal threat to "Rust for Javascript" to remove "Javascript" from their name. (Oracle owns the "Javascript" trademark.)

aewens 3y ago
To play the devil's advocate: IANAL, but if I recall correctly part of having a trademark is having a legal obligation to enforce it, and if I'm reading the tweet correctly this is a name of a company and typically one cannot use a trademark in their company name.
- slimsag 3y ago
  (I am not a lawyer, I am speculating) Oracle can grant others the use of their trademark legally, right? There's no reason Oracle couldn't say this? > JavaScript is our trademark, you must either stop using it immediately OR <sign this online form here> to enter into an agreement with us that grants you the ability to use it, for as long as you please, no strings attached, no payment required.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > Oracle can grant others the use of their trademark legally, right? There's no reason Oracle couldn't say this? Correct, with certain limitation[1]. This fact is why saying "but we have to do this or lose our trademark" is a bit disingenuous. You do have to actively defend your trademark or lose it (because a trademark is not intended to benefit the company holding it, it's intended as a consumer protection measure). But "defending your trademark" doesn't mean you have to engage in a lawsuit. [1] The limitations are around the purpose of trademark as consumer protection measure. The idea is that consumers can rely on the trademark as a guarantee that a product or service is coming from who they think it's coming from. It's possible to be so liberal in licensing the use of your trademark out that it gets diluted enough to risk losing the registration.
3y ago

gunapologist99 3y ago

> Finally, to IBM, here’s a big idea for you. You say that you don’t want to pay all those RHEL developers? Here’s how you can save money: just pull from us. Become a downstream distributor of Oracle Linux. We will happily take on the burden. Not only is this a brilliant troll, it's also true. Oracle could easily take this on if it's such a burden for IBM.

BeefWellington 3y ago
They really couldn't. If you've ever worked with OEL in any technical capacity you can kinda tell Oracle doesn't have a shred of the Linux expertise that Red Hat does. They can report to upstream (RHEL) but that's about it. It's trite and funny of them to troll IBM but it's a laughable idea. If Red Hat were to take them up on it it would be a disaster within probably weeks. The decision by Red Hat/IBM here is incredibly shortsighted and stupid.

freedude 3y ago

I don't want to like Oracle, so I won't. However, what they said minus the business/political propaganda is spot on.

IceWreck 3y ago

> Finally, to IBM, here’s a big idea for you. You say that you don’t want to pay all those RHEL developers? Here’s how you can save money: just pull from us. Become a downstream distributor of Oracle Linux. We will happily take on the burden. 100% PR. They know Red Hat will not actually do it so why not offer for PR points.

jtraub91 3y ago

HAHA. Oracle clapping back at IBM.

bluedino 3y ago

I'd really like to know the ratio of systems that are running RHEL vs the clones. 10:1? 100:1? 1000:1? The fear would be that stomping out 90 or 99 (or 99.9%) of your actual user base (even if they are non-paying) would you over.

Brian_K_White 3y ago

Do they seriously not hear themselves? Oracle, free software champions of the world. It is clearly the End Times.

weare138 3y ago

You know you screwed up when Oracle has the moral high ground.

gaze 3y ago

[flagged]

StopHammoTime 3y ago

Sometimes I have trouble explaining irony. Now I can just send this article to people lmao.

everybodyknows 3y ago

> Oracle has always made Oracle Linux binaries and source freely available to all. Hmmm, well yes, there's https://yum.oracle.com/oracle-linux-isos.html https://yum.oracle.com/oracle-linux-isos.html But no one here on HN in my memory has mentioned trying to run it on, say, a personal desktop. What's the reality of this?

lproven 3y ago
It's RHEL. Or rather, it's CentOS with the serial numbers filed off. Of course you can. It is a snapshot of an old version of Fedora, with a lot of extra Q&A, and an extremely restricted set of packages. E.g. you get GNOME and nothing else. But if you don't need many drivers, or you're running on old hardware that is directly supported, sure you can run it as a desktop.

tw04 3y ago

How’s that Solaris and zfs open source going for you oracle? Ahh, right. Keeping things open source only counts when someone else is doing all the heavy lifting for you.

jprd 3y ago

Oracle is not, has never been, and never will be a champion or leader in Open Source. Oracle has obligations they need to adhere to in the short term regarding F/LOSS licenses - though the end goal is _always_ extortion. Oracle owns some great tech, they have always had great engineers. Oracle has ALWAYS leveraged their technology to prop up their protection racket. I'm constantly astonished they haven't violated RICO enough to free that Hawaiian island Uncle Larry bought, even considering their In-Q-Tel roots.

mynonameaccount 3y ago

Only reason Oracle even has a Linux version is to sell their db. Why not take more of the customer's money while they are at it while stealing another's OS and renaming it as your own.

hdjjhhvvhga 3y ago

This is wonderful trolling on the part of Oracle, I bet they had a lot of fun composing this piece. I just wish they tossed in "We stand by GNU/Linux"[0] - that would be the frosting on the cake. [0] Yeah, I realize that would be difficult - both IBM and Oracle hate FSF equally.

Lutzb 3y ago
IBMer here, opinions are my own. You are totally free to not like IBM and I won't try to change your mind, but please read up on IBMs involvement in linux, open source, open source stewardship, apache, linux foundation SCO vs IBM, IBMs no attack pledge against Linux (2004), Linux S390, 1000s of developers getting paid to contribute to open source, istio to just name a few. The reality is not as black and white as you make it out to be.
- hdjjhhvvhga 3y ago
  Thank you for taking the time to respond. For me there was one decisive moment that changed my perspective on IBM: when they joined the recent crusade against Stallman. You see, when Red Had started, they very much needed our (let's call it 'Linux community') help. At the beginning people made fun of RH, there were jokes running it's for the people who can't really use Linux, their initial security history was quite bad etc. It was unthinkable that at the time of Bob Young etc. they could attack RMS (and he wasn't much different then, maybe worse even in social terms), not to mention the fact that they were making money selling the software that he inspired to create or just created. Now that the power balance shifted, they felt more courageous and decided to follow the hating crowd. When you think about it a bit, it's really sad.
  - Lutzb 3y ago
    Just to make sure, you are talking about RH resignation from the FSF? https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/red-hat-statement-about-richard-stallmans-return-free-software-foundation-board https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/red-hat-statement-about-richa...