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Oracle spreading FUD about CentOS

173 points by bashtoni 14y ago

buster 14y ago
Good article. I think the key sentence is "...if you want the security updates first, the only way to get them is by paying Red Hat for support, not Oracle." You can also add "if you want additional support, the best way is to pay the much more experienced creator RedHat, not Oracle."
- wdaher 14y ago
  For what it's worth, the thesis of the 'switch' page that the post references is "You're running CentOS, and aren't paying anyone for support, why should you consider Oracle Linux?" If you're looking for content on "Why run Oracle Linux rather than RHEL?", I think we have a zillion documents I can point you at (oracle.com/linux being a good starting point).
  - buster 14y ago
    To be honest i can only find marketing blabla and a very poorly written pdf. The only thing that stands out is ksplice (which in itself is a prime example for Oracle being "evil"!) and a 75% performance boost claim without proof (i read those claims often on the internet and most of the times they are vastly exagerated).
    - ericd 14y ago
      How is ksplice a prime example of Oracle being evil? I've heard nothing but good things, and it was an acquisition.
      - TallGuyShort 14y ago
        They're probably referring to this, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ksplice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ksplice. I've read the creator of Ksplice explaining that the dropping of Red Hat support wasn't as abrupt as it sounds here: Ksplice is an open source extension of the Linux kernel ... It was developed by Ksplice, Inc. until 21 July 2011, when Oracle acquired Ksplice and started offering support for Oracle Linux. Support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux was dropped and turned into a free 30-day trial for RHEL customers as an incentive to migrate to Oracle Linux Premier Support.
      - gaius 14y ago
        Welcome to HN. A photo uploader for hipsters is worth a billion dollars, but real engineering should be given away for free, 'cos those guys don't need to eat, right?
        buster 14y ago
        The "real" engineering was done by MIT students. Before Oracle bought ksplice. You probably didn't notice but the whole thing about linux and this "open source" everyone is talking about, is about contributing back and community. Not about buying and shutting down stuff. Guess what Oracle is known for and what RedHat is known for. Both make money.
        gaius 14y ago
        Haha yeah, call me when your landlord lets you off the rent, because a website he uses runs Linux on the server. Community, right?
        buster 14y ago
        You still have a long way to go to learn proper trolling on the internet, my friend
        gaius 14y ago
        You seem to be saying that the Ksplice guys don't deserve to get paid for their hard work, because "community, maaann". Which is an odd sentiment for a site based around startup companies, but ho hum. If they had been acquired by Google would that be any better?
        chris_wot 14y ago
        Non sequitur my friend. Just because someone contributes to Linux projects, doesn't mean they are a. Not making money for their services, while contributing back to the community he uses to gain his income, or b. he has a job (related or otherwise) that provides him with an independent income.
- neurotech1 14y ago
  Security updates are available in patch form pretty quickly, and can be compiled pretty quickly if needed. Has everyone in the tech media forgotten that people can actually compile RHEL/CentOS from Source RPMs?
rdtsc 14y ago
They are already disliked in the open source community. This is not helping their case. I am not sure what they are going for. This sets them up again as a giant corporation attack the little guy. Geeks and nerds usually hate when little open source projects get attacked. Why didn't they just offer paid support for CentOS? Why not dedicate full time engineers and donate? Someone at Oracle needs to be fired over this.
- runjake 14y ago
  Ask the guy who apparently wrote that Oracle page: http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=wdaher http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=wdaher
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- SeripisChad 14y ago
  Last time(2008) I dealt with Oracle support in regards to linux, they did provide support for CentOS, but funneled customers to oracle linux. IMO they have a good model for helping ensure oracle linux doesn't become a fork of redhat, by creating emergency patches on their side, then sending code/reasoning to redhat to get included CentOS/RHEL. They are helping the quality of redhat's product as long as they get good margins on support contracts.
- maratd 14y ago
  > Why didn't they just offer paid support for CentOS? Why not dedicate full time engineers and donate? Ah! I think you nailed it. A key part of what makes open source work is corporations putting guys on projects, donating code, and being part of the ecosystem. Oracle doesn't want to be a part of the ecosystem. They want to be the ecosystem. They don't contribute to projects. They either purchase them outright if they can or start their own. Technically, that's still open source. It's just seriously anti-social open source.
fsckin 14y ago
If Red Hat is so upset about Oracle Linux, bad enough to obfuscate code for patches, why don't they just offer RHEL for free with paid support? Seems like a missed opportunity for RH.
- veyron 14y ago
  RHEL sales are a profit center for RH, especially given that its targeted for enterprise deployments. The cost of the OS isn't the most significant factor in deploying.
tapsboy 14y ago
Oracle is funny. http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2011/10/oracle-nosql-database/ http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2011/10/oracle-nosql-da...
- robert_nsu 14y ago
  I still have a copy of that paper they pulled that "debunks" nosql. I don't think I'm ever getting rid of it.
  - bitwize 14y ago
    They couldn't stick to that position for long. NoSQL is web scale.
zcvosdfdgj 14y ago
so oracle says during 2011, centos was slow with updates. Centos responds: no we weren't.. look at this chart of 2012 CentOS was terrible with updates during 2011.. and there's no guarantee that it won't happen again (after all, it isn't paid support). 2011 is the reason why I deployed several RHEL webservers instead of centos recently.
- justin66 14y ago
  Redhat really is the only good risk if you need RHEL and timely updates on a production system. CentOS is a great idea but after last year, I don't trust them any more than Oracle. Different kinds of mistrust, but still.
  - zcvosdfdgj 14y ago
    I completely agree. Forget about Oracle's treatment of the OSS community.. At the end of the day, Oracle AND centos are 3rd parties, and will always be playing catchup to RH's patch releases. So for important or internet-facing servers, if you want to use something RHEL-based.. RH is really the only option.
- AjithAntony 14y ago
  Scientific Linux https://www.scientificlinux.org/documentation/faq/errata https://www.scientificlinux.org/documentation/faq/errata Q. After RedHat releases a security errata, how long until it shows up in Scientific Linux's errata? A. Within a couple days. Q. That seems like a long time for errata, why so long? A. RedHat is not perfect, and sometimes their errata completely break programs. Q. What happens when the people recompiling the errata go on vacation? A. Because these security errata are part of Fermilab's security procedures, the entire Scientific Linux development team is not allowed to go on vacation at the same time. So there will always be at least one main developer able to do recompiles.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    I really don't understand why more people don't use Scientific Linux instead of CentOS. Mostly just name recognition I wager.
deleted 14y ago
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kqr2 14y ago
The guy who made the graph which is "spreading FUD about CentOS" responds in the comment section: http://www.bashton.com/blog/2012/oracle-spreading-fud-about-centos/#comment-591268331 http://www.bashton.com/blog/2012/oracle-spreading-fud-about-...
keithpeter 14y ago
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4260716 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4260716 Significant explorations of the issues already started.
kstenerud 14y ago
The main problem is that Oracle's open source track record speaks for itself. Now they suddenly want to play "nice", and so they do it by forking a well respected, volunteer driven distro rather than simply contributing to it and helping streamline the security update process. And then they top it all off with a negative ad campaign. I'm sorry, but you're still not getting it, Oracle.
- nl 14y ago
  Did Oracle fork CentOS? I thought they just copied RHEL, exactly how CentOS & Scientific Linux did.
sciurus 14y ago
Pointing the the CR repository when arguing that CentOS has timely security updates seems a little disingenuous; it's opt-in and poorly publicized. http://wiki.centos.org/AdditionalResources/Repositories/CR/ http://wiki.centos.org/AdditionalResources/Repositories/CR/
drivingmenuts 14y ago
How long before Oracle realizes they're giving something away for free and then tries to monetize their Linux software?
justin66 14y ago
One ironic thing is that, at present, apparently the only way to run Oracle Linux without registering an account on oracle.com (and agreeing to an awful lot of legalese) is to install CentOS first and then use Oracle's little upgrade script. Unless that somehow requires registration later on.
- wdaher 14y ago
  https://wikis.oracle.com/display/oraclelinux/Downloading+Oracle+Linux https://wikis.oracle.com/display/oraclelinux/Downloading+Ora...
  - justin66 14y ago
    Interesting, thank you. I wonder why you can't get there from linux.oracle.com (or why the mirrors don't all mirror the same stuff). It'll be interesting to see what the state of Oracle Linux and those wiki pages is a year from now.
sidcool 14y ago
"It can only be viewed as the hubris we have come to expect from Oracle" Exact my feelings
larrys 14y ago
Guess what? I found this helpful and I'm glad it was posted regardless of whether people think it's FUD or not. And I'm going to consider running the script and switching. Because of this statement: "Contrast that with the CentOS/RHEL story. If you find yourself needing to buy support, have fun reinstalling your system with RHEL before anyone will talk to you." Thoughts anyone? I'm seeing the support cost for a single machine is $499 for a year. http://www.oracle.com/us/media/calculator/linuxtco/index.html http://www.oracle.com/us/media/calculator/linuxtco/index.htm... (Surprising there is no link on the spiel to support..)
- sciurus 14y ago
  For comparison, here is Red Hat's pricing: http://www.redhat.com/resourcelibrary/articles/articles-red-hat-enterprise-linux-purchasing-guide http://www.redhat.com/resourcelibrary/articles/articles-red-...
rbanffy 14y ago
I believe the best approach for Red Hat now is to re-license as much of its software as possible under GPLv3 and enjoy watching Oracle trying to handle the explicit patent grants...
stcredzero 14y ago
A very mobile unfriendly site. Zoom is disabled for the iPhone. This renders landscape mode useless for this site.
splicer 14y ago
Well, at least the FUD is an attempt to get people to switch from Linux to Linux, rather than Linux to Windows. Remember the "Get The Facts" campaign?
nnq 14y ago
Why doesn't anybody EVEN TRY to make a comparison with Debian Stable or Ubuntu Server LTS in any of the discussions around this topic I've seen so far?! Maybe my company wants to switch from CentOS and will go with Ubuntu or Debian. Shouldn't Oracle guys try and convince me to go their way instead? (This "over-targeted" approach from the Oracle marketing guys seems more like an anti-CentOS campaign than a pro OL one in this context... and they seem to compare with RHEL only on price - 0 vs something - because they know they are otherwise out of their league). It's not like these alternatives are not in the same league now, with the latest 2 Ubuntu Server LTS seen as rock solid by most and good commercial support available...
- lmm 14y ago
  Debian/Ubuntu are not competing in the same space. The only reason you would've been running CentOS in the first place would be if you needed redhat compatibility, most likely so you could run a commercial application that was only supported on redhat, most likely an application from oracle themselves.
  - nnq 14y ago
    I know what you mean (though lots of people run CentOS/RHEL simply because they got used to it and Debian/Ubuntu Server was not perceived as stable enough some time ago so they first started deployment), but there's no reason for a company with Oracle's resources not to try and make a true general purpose server Linux distro... otherwise they'll just wake up to a future when their customers will ask them for debian binaries and support for them and they will have to provide this in order to keep their customer base growing, and when they'll go this way, their whole Linux business will roll faster and faster on the downward slope... I never understood why big corporations have such short sighted strategies. I understand that focusing on short them profit would make sense for a startup, but a company like Oracle should really be aiming for long term growth (after they clean their "evil" image, if they ever manage to do this)...
    - lmm 14y ago
      There's no benefit to Oracle in providing a general purpose server linux to compete with Debian, because there's no profit in it. They're providing this linux primarily so they can sell a vertically integrated stack with their applications on the top, and secondarily to get some revenue from the kind of companies that insist on big name support for anything they use. Debian does not compete in that market, and they're unlikely to have customers demand debian binaries because the kind of companies that run debian don't run oracle applications.

173 points by bashtoni 14y ago

Good article. I think the key sentence is "...if you want the security updates first, the only way to get them is by paying Red Hat for support, not Oracle." You can also add "if you want additional support, the best way is to pay the much more experienced creator RedHat, not Oracle."

wdaher 14y ago
For what it's worth, the thesis of the 'switch' page that the post references is "You're running CentOS, and aren't paying anyone for support, why should you consider Oracle Linux?" If you're looking for content on "Why run Oracle Linux rather than RHEL?", I think we have a zillion documents I can point you at (oracle.com/linux being a good starting point).
- buster 14y ago
  To be honest i can only find marketing blabla and a very poorly written pdf. The only thing that stands out is ksplice (which in itself is a prime example for Oracle being "evil"!) and a 75% performance boost claim without proof (i read those claims often on the internet and most of the times they are vastly exagerated).
  - ericd 14y ago
    How is ksplice a prime example of Oracle being evil? I've heard nothing but good things, and it was an acquisition.
    - TallGuyShort 14y ago
      They're probably referring to this, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ksplice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ksplice. I've read the creator of Ksplice explaining that the dropping of Red Hat support wasn't as abrupt as it sounds here: Ksplice is an open source extension of the Linux kernel ... It was developed by Ksplice, Inc. until 21 July 2011, when Oracle acquired Ksplice and started offering support for Oracle Linux. Support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux was dropped and turned into a free 30-day trial for RHEL customers as an incentive to migrate to Oracle Linux Premier Support.
    - gaius 14y ago
      Welcome to HN. A photo uploader for hipsters is worth a billion dollars, but real engineering should be given away for free, 'cos those guys don't need to eat, right?
      - buster 14y ago
        The "real" engineering was done by MIT students. Before Oracle bought ksplice. You probably didn't notice but the whole thing about linux and this "open source" everyone is talking about, is about contributing back and community. Not about buying and shutting down stuff. Guess what Oracle is known for and what RedHat is known for. Both make money.
        gaius 14y ago
        Haha yeah, call me when your landlord lets you off the rent, because a website he uses runs Linux on the server. Community, right?
        buster 14y ago
        You still have a long way to go to learn proper trolling on the internet, my friend
        gaius 14y ago
        You seem to be saying that the Ksplice guys don't deserve to get paid for their hard work, because "community, maaann". Which is an odd sentiment for a site based around startup companies, but ho hum. If they had been acquired by Google would that be any better?
        chris_wot 14y ago
        Non sequitur my friend. Just because someone contributes to Linux projects, doesn't mean they are a. Not making money for their services, while contributing back to the community he uses to gain his income, or b. he has a job (related or otherwise) that provides him with an independent income.
neurotech1 14y ago
Security updates are available in patch form pretty quickly, and can be compiled pretty quickly if needed. Has everyone in the tech media forgotten that people can actually compile RHEL/CentOS from Source RPMs?

rdtsc 14y ago

They are already disliked in the open source community. This is not helping their case. I am not sure what they are going for. This sets them up again as a giant corporation attack the little guy. Geeks and nerds usually hate when little open source projects get attacked. Why didn't they just offer paid support for CentOS? Why not dedicate full time engineers and donate? Someone at Oracle needs to be fired over this.

runjake 14y ago
Ask the guy who apparently wrote that Oracle page: http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=wdaher http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=wdaher
- deleted 14y ago
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SeripisChad 14y ago
Last time(2008) I dealt with Oracle support in regards to linux, they did provide support for CentOS, but funneled customers to oracle linux. IMO they have a good model for helping ensure oracle linux doesn't become a fork of redhat, by creating emergency patches on their side, then sending code/reasoning to redhat to get included CentOS/RHEL. They are helping the quality of redhat's product as long as they get good margins on support contracts.
maratd 14y ago
> Why didn't they just offer paid support for CentOS? Why not dedicate full time engineers and donate? Ah! I think you nailed it. A key part of what makes open source work is corporations putting guys on projects, donating code, and being part of the ecosystem. Oracle doesn't want to be a part of the ecosystem. They want to be the ecosystem. They don't contribute to projects. They either purchase them outright if they can or start their own. Technically, that's still open source. It's just seriously anti-social open source.

fsckin 14y ago

If Red Hat is so upset about Oracle Linux, bad enough to obfuscate code for patches, why don't they just offer RHEL for free with paid support? Seems like a missed opportunity for RH.

veyron 14y ago
RHEL sales are a profit center for RH, especially given that its targeted for enterprise deployments. The cost of the OS isn't the most significant factor in deploying.

tapsboy 14y ago

Oracle is funny. http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2011/10/oracle-nosql-database/ http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2011/10/oracle-nosql-da...

robert_nsu 14y ago
I still have a copy of that paper they pulled that "debunks" nosql. I don't think I'm ever getting rid of it.
- bitwize 14y ago
  They couldn't stick to that position for long. NoSQL is web scale.

zcvosdfdgj 14y ago

so oracle says during 2011, centos was slow with updates. Centos responds: no we weren't.. look at this chart of 2012 CentOS was terrible with updates during 2011.. and there's no guarantee that it won't happen again (after all, it isn't paid support). 2011 is the reason why I deployed several RHEL webservers instead of centos recently.

justin66 14y ago
Redhat really is the only good risk if you need RHEL and timely updates on a production system. CentOS is a great idea but after last year, I don't trust them any more than Oracle. Different kinds of mistrust, but still.
- zcvosdfdgj 14y ago
  I completely agree. Forget about Oracle's treatment of the OSS community.. At the end of the day, Oracle AND centos are 3rd parties, and will always be playing catchup to RH's patch releases. So for important or internet-facing servers, if you want to use something RHEL-based.. RH is really the only option.
AjithAntony 14y ago
Scientific Linux https://www.scientificlinux.org/documentation/faq/errata https://www.scientificlinux.org/documentation/faq/errata Q. After RedHat releases a security errata, how long until it shows up in Scientific Linux's errata? A. Within a couple days. Q. That seems like a long time for errata, why so long? A. RedHat is not perfect, and sometimes their errata completely break programs. Q. What happens when the people recompiling the errata go on vacation? A. Because these security errata are part of Fermilab's security procedures, the entire Scientific Linux development team is not allowed to go on vacation at the same time. So there will always be at least one main developer able to do recompiles.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  I really don't understand why more people don't use Scientific Linux instead of CentOS. Mostly just name recognition I wager.

deleted 14y ago

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kqr2 14y ago

The guy who made the graph which is "spreading FUD about CentOS" responds in the comment section: http://www.bashton.com/blog/2012/oracle-spreading-fud-about-centos/#comment-591268331 http://www.bashton.com/blog/2012/oracle-spreading-fud-about-...

keithpeter 14y ago

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4260716 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4260716 Significant explorations of the issues already started.

kstenerud 14y ago

The main problem is that Oracle's open source track record speaks for itself. Now they suddenly want to play "nice", and so they do it by forking a well respected, volunteer driven distro rather than simply contributing to it and helping streamline the security update process. And then they top it all off with a negative ad campaign. I'm sorry, but you're still not getting it, Oracle.

nl 14y ago
Did Oracle fork CentOS? I thought they just copied RHEL, exactly how CentOS & Scientific Linux did.

sciurus 14y ago

Pointing the the CR repository when arguing that CentOS has timely security updates seems a little disingenuous; it's opt-in and poorly publicized. http://wiki.centos.org/AdditionalResources/Repositories/CR/ http://wiki.centos.org/AdditionalResources/Repositories/CR/

drivingmenuts 14y ago

How long before Oracle realizes they're giving something away for free and then tries to monetize their Linux software?

justin66 14y ago

One ironic thing is that, at present, apparently the only way to run Oracle Linux without registering an account on oracle.com (and agreeing to an awful lot of legalese) is to install CentOS first and then use Oracle's little upgrade script. Unless that somehow requires registration later on.

wdaher 14y ago
https://wikis.oracle.com/display/oraclelinux/Downloading+Oracle+Linux https://wikis.oracle.com/display/oraclelinux/Downloading+Ora...
- justin66 14y ago
  Interesting, thank you. I wonder why you can't get there from linux.oracle.com (or why the mirrors don't all mirror the same stuff). It'll be interesting to see what the state of Oracle Linux and those wiki pages is a year from now.

sidcool 14y ago

"It can only be viewed as the hubris we have come to expect from Oracle" Exact my feelings

larrys 14y ago

Guess what? I found this helpful and I'm glad it was posted regardless of whether people think it's FUD or not. And I'm going to consider running the script and switching. Because of this statement: "Contrast that with the CentOS/RHEL story. If you find yourself needing to buy support, have fun reinstalling your system with RHEL before anyone will talk to you." Thoughts anyone? I'm seeing the support cost for a single machine is $499 for a year. http://www.oracle.com/us/media/calculator/linuxtco/index.html http://www.oracle.com/us/media/calculator/linuxtco/index.htm... (Surprising there is no link on the spiel to support..)

sciurus 14y ago
For comparison, here is Red Hat's pricing: http://www.redhat.com/resourcelibrary/articles/articles-red-hat-enterprise-linux-purchasing-guide http://www.redhat.com/resourcelibrary/articles/articles-red-...

rbanffy 14y ago

I believe the best approach for Red Hat now is to re-license as much of its software as possible under GPLv3 and enjoy watching Oracle trying to handle the explicit patent grants...

stcredzero 14y ago

A very mobile unfriendly site. Zoom is disabled for the iPhone. This renders landscape mode useless for this site.

splicer 14y ago

Well, at least the FUD is an attempt to get people to switch from Linux to Linux, rather than Linux to Windows. Remember the "Get The Facts" campaign?

nnq 14y ago

Why doesn't anybody EVEN TRY to make a comparison with Debian Stable or Ubuntu Server LTS in any of the discussions around this topic I've seen so far?! Maybe my company wants to switch from CentOS and will go with Ubuntu or Debian. Shouldn't Oracle guys try and convince me to go their way instead? (This "over-targeted" approach from the Oracle marketing guys seems more like an anti-CentOS campaign than a pro OL one in this context... and they seem to compare with RHEL only on price - 0 vs something - because they know they are otherwise out of their league). It's not like these alternatives are not in the same league now, with the latest 2 Ubuntu Server LTS seen as rock solid by most and good commercial support available...

lmm 14y ago
Debian/Ubuntu are not competing in the same space. The only reason you would've been running CentOS in the first place would be if you needed redhat compatibility, most likely so you could run a commercial application that was only supported on redhat, most likely an application from oracle themselves.
- nnq 14y ago
  I know what you mean (though lots of people run CentOS/RHEL simply because they got used to it and Debian/Ubuntu Server was not perceived as stable enough some time ago so they first started deployment), but there's no reason for a company with Oracle's resources not to try and make a true general purpose server Linux distro... otherwise they'll just wake up to a future when their customers will ask them for debian binaries and support for them and they will have to provide this in order to keep their customer base growing, and when they'll go this way, their whole Linux business will roll faster and faster on the downward slope... I never understood why big corporations have such short sighted strategies. I understand that focusing on short them profit would make sense for a startup, but a company like Oracle should really be aiming for long term growth (after they clean their "evil" image, if they ever manage to do this)...
  - lmm 14y ago
    There's no benefit to Oracle in providing a general purpose server linux to compete with Debian, because there's no profit in it. They're providing this linux primarily so they can sell a vertically integrated stack with their applications on the top, and secondarily to get some revenue from the kind of companies that insist on big name support for anything they use. Debian does not compete in that market, and they're unlikely to have customers demand debian binaries because the kind of companies that run debian don't run oracle applications.