19 ms·

Oracle kills third-party JD Edwards reference website

189 points by shrikant 13y ago

blueskin_ 13y ago
ORACLE: One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison.
- brudgers 13y ago
  Clever. Since it is highly unlikely that Larry Ellison was in any way involved in these decisions within Oracle, however, it adds nothing to our understanding or interpretation of these events. Instead of broadening the context it replaces it with raw ad hominem.
  - eloisant 13y ago
    Even if he's not involved in this particular decision, he certainly sets the tone with which Oracle treats with third party (users, developers, competitors, etc...)
    - brudgers 13y ago
      By that logic, he also is responsible for making software that people want and for those people wanting it because using it is profitable. Oracle is hardly the only company in Silicon Valley, much less the world, known for ruthlessly pursuing intellectual property claims [it's hardly the only company in the valley with a reputation for requiring developers to dance to its tune, either]. It's not that I am greatly concerned that Larry Ellison's feelings will be hurt. What I care about is that the post is a template for the sort of comments which debase HN's discussions. It's mean for the sake of internet points, and nobody is better informed or inspired to deeper insight for having read it. The meanness and shallowness of such posts only invites more meanness and shallowness. There are lots of other places on the internet where that provides the majority of entertainment value. It's not why people come to HN.
      - pessimizer 13y ago
        >Oracle is hardly the only company in Silicon Valley, much less the world, known for ruthlessly pursuing intellectual property claims [it's hardly the only company in the valley with a reputation for requiring developers to dance to its tune, either]. Does a company have to be the only exemplar of a bad behavior for it to be pointed out? That's a very hard standard to meet that would suppress any discussion of corporate decisions.
        brudgers 13y ago
        The fact that the original comment shies from a hard standard to meet for the sake emotional appeal, is exactly my point.
      - blueskin_ 13y ago
        You're right, HN should be 100% serious business with no humour allowed </s>
  - nemo 13y ago
    Not an ad hominem.
DiabloD3 13y ago
This is extremely bad PR for Oracle. A company should strive to help their customers.
- binarymax 13y ago
  Because this is Oracle we are talking about, I am not sure if you are being sarcastic. But just in case you are not, my experience with Oracle is quite the opposite of what you describe. Oracle is sold on the golf course, and they exist purely for profit. Most Oracle consultants I know (quite a few) who actually develop software using the tools, gladly admit they work with Oracle because they can charge high fees. In fact, if I asked them their opinion on this specific incident they might actually approve - given the end result is that their knowledge is safe from newcomers. All this is anecdotal of course - but this is a good talk that gives a pretty nice perspective on the whole thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&feature=player_detailpage#t=2136s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&feature=player_de...
  - bananas 13y ago
    I think you just described most corporations. Despite the PR otherwise, they're all rotten to the core like this. However in this specific case, if Mozilla issued a takedown to w3schools, would we be up in arms about it? Vendors are generally pretty tight with documentation when it's a cut-throat sector.
    - ZoFreX 13y ago
      > if Mozilla issued a takedown to w3schools, would we be up in arms about it? Yes, yes we would.
      - rbanffy 13y ago
        w3schools? No. I wouldn't.
        etfb 13y ago
anton_gogolev 13y ago
For those uninitiated, what is JD Edwards exactly so that jderef.com was so valuable?
- darbelo 13y ago
  From their site: Oracle's JD Edwards EnterpriseOne is an integrated applications suite of comprehensive enterprise resource planning software that combines business value, standards-based technology, and deep industry experience into a business solution with a low total cost of ownership. Essentially, an ERP and set of buzzword-bingo cards in the same box.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > Essentially, an ERP and set of buzzword-bingo cards in the same box. Isn't that redundant? ERPs always come with buzzword-bingo sets, its like a defining feature of the product class.
  - spikels 13y ago
    Wow! That's hilarious. I must take a really skilled person to write something like that.
  - anton_gogolev 13y ago
    Yeah, this is the reason I asked in the first place. I could not, for the life of me, decipher this 100% buzzword-compliant description.
    - anigbrowl 13y ago
      an integrated applications suite = bunch of software interfaces for... of comprehensive enterprise resource planning software = your business purchasing and maintenance problems that combines business value = giving you the most bang for your buck, standards-based technology = not sure about this one... can be tweaked by your IT department OR helps you select products/services that meet regulatory standards so that you won't get sued for cutting corners deep industry experience = nobody got fired for picking something everyone uses into a business solution = we will unpack and assemble it for you, but you should really buy the Gold Support Package or budget a lot more for your IT department, because it isn't compatible with anything else with a low total cost of ownership = we make most of our money on the Gold Support Package, but will let you fool yourself into thinking that you won't need it.
Sarkie 13y ago
Well this is going to make integrating with JDE even harder than it is now. Good work Oracle.
- r00fus 13y ago
  Oracle's M.O. is to pushing their newer product lines and preventing customers from keeping their investments (i.e., Fusion and surprisingly, still Peoplesoft). While this is a business-as-usual dick move, it's also completely expected - see their legal actions against the TomorrowNow[1] organization purchased by SAP, and their now-infamous legal attacks against Google for independently implementing a JVM byte code interpreter. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TomorrowNow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TomorrowNow
  - greatsuccess 13y ago
    I think Im just going to go to women now, because they help women now.
Shivetya 13y ago
Oracle wants to push Peoplesoft. I think the bought JDE mostly to have a ready source of new customers. There are two product lines in JDE, World and OneWorld. World is based on minis (IBM i) and OneWorld is more PC/Server oriented (good for smaller customers). Peoplesoft is mostly AIX/Oracle and very people intensive and better yet, consultant friendly and a great revenue stream. So, yeah, shutting down a site which promotes software not a the top of their list makes sense.
- turnip1979 13y ago
  Tangential question: how do I learn about ERP software? I went to a strong CS school but this wasn't covered. I don't think I even know anyone who knows this stuff. - regular HN reader.
  - cafard 13y ago
    You could have a look at http://www.erp5.com/ http://www.erp5.com/ .
  - arethuza 13y ago
    It's hardly surprising that ERP systems aren't covered in a CS course - they are primarily about business processes and concepts. Having said that, ERPs systems are arguably mainly accounting systems with a lot (and I really do mean a lot) of additional functionality bolted on, so learning the basics of accounting wouldn't do any harm. I count at least 4 different kinds of organizations that work with ERPs: - The vendors who write them (Oracle, SAP, Microsoft and loads of others) - Vendors who write packages that integrate with ERP systems (again loads of these - e. for reporting/data warehousing, document management, bar-code handling) - People who work for professional services companies that help customer implement ERP systems - often implementing custom code in the platform for the ERP system (often in programming languages and environments that are specific to that ERP product!) - Customer organizations For a developer, I would aim for one of the first two although the professional services side of things can be pretty lucrative.
    - chris_wot 13y ago
bakhy 13y ago
well, OK. I guess I should cease and desist from complimenting the Oracle DB. it is a great product, though it did always seem that they deliberately obfuscate documentation and make friendly tools and resources unavailable just to feed their army of dependent consultants. BTW, I suppose Postgres is a perfectly adequate replacement?
- ams6110 13y ago
  Postgres would be an adequate replacement for Oracle in many cases, or the enhanced EnterpriseDB which is not free but is less expensive. At the very high end, if you need what Oracle is capable of, not much else can replace it.
- dagw 13y ago
  BTW, I suppose Postgres is a perfectly adequate replacement? If you're starting from zero, don't have any too obscure or extreme requirements and don't have to integrate with third party tools that don't support Postgres, then absolutely. However if you already have a large Oracle based codebase and/or have to talk to third party apps that don't support Postgres then your migration costs can quickly swamp your license costs.
jrockway 13y ago
Looks like Oracle is on track to displace Microsoft as the most-hated-by-programmers company ever.
- josefresco 13y ago
  Do programmers hate Microsoft? I always thought/perceived that MS treated their developer community well.
  - johnlbevan2 13y ago
    Yeah, I love MS. I hate their licensing (too complex), and think they've not had a spotless track record, but compared to Oracle and Apple they're definitely in the good guys camp.
  - mel919 13y ago
    MS-hating opinions come from the old times of IE6 and practices like FUD, EEE. A lot has changed since then but this hate still shows up sometimes. There's an interesting article about this by Scott Hanselman titled "Microsoft Killed My Pappy": http://www.hanselman.com/blog/MicrosoftKilledMyPappy.aspx http://www.hanselman.com/blog/MicrosoftKilledMyPappy.aspx
    - PavlovsCat 13y ago
      I found some of the reactions on hn and slashdot way more insightful than the blog post itself, which to me is half euphemism, half strawman, and 100% condescending. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7281283 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7281283 http://yro.slashdot.org/story/14/02/23/1628259/microsoft-killed-my-pappy http://yro.slashdot.org/story/14/02/23/1628259/microsoft-kil...
    - the_ancient 13y ago
      There are 2 types of programmers... Programmer that 100% embrace MS using the .NET Stack, Visual Studio, and outlaying the Tens of Thousands of Dollars need to support that development model And programmers that want to use Open Source/Open Standards... The Open Source/open Standards programmers hate MS because they MS views Open Source has a threat and the enemy (although they are starting to be less hostile over the last couple years)
duongkai 13y ago
It's the habit of Oracle. It isn't strange
chazandchaz 13y ago
There is no reason any site should shut down like this, if it is in fact a very valuable resource. The owner could/should just move the site to a tor hidden service. At very least offer up a dump of the data so someone else could run with it.
peapicker 13y ago
Highly likely this is another case of the legal dept acting without even talking to the dev organization internal to Oracle.
parasubvert 13y ago
Looks to me like an overzealous lawyer at Oracle. There are plenty of 3rd party reference sites for the Oracle database that don't get shut down, why target a JDE reference? Unless they really-really think their docs are superior? (Oracle's docs for Middleware or Database usually are world-class, though I am not familiar if this is true for JDE).
drivingmenuts 13y ago
I get annoyed when people let bad actors off the hood by obscuring their names with asterisks. We know who the overall "bad guy" is in this scenario, but right up until the whole asterisk thing, we had a person whom we could point to and request or demand an explanation from. Then, it would be on them to pass the buck, call the police, whatever.
greatsuccess 13y ago
ERP is the "revenge of the mainframe", and should be ignored until we can replace this. The vendors dont want you to know how it works unless you jump onto their slave boat. Useless knowledge, somewhat functioning products which in 10 years will no longer exist.
googamooga 13y ago
Make world better place - abandon Oracle!

189 points by shrikant 13y ago

blueskin_ 13y ago

ORACLE: One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison.

brudgers 13y ago
Clever. Since it is highly unlikely that Larry Ellison was in any way involved in these decisions within Oracle, however, it adds nothing to our understanding or interpretation of these events. Instead of broadening the context it replaces it with raw ad hominem.
- eloisant 13y ago
  Even if he's not involved in this particular decision, he certainly sets the tone with which Oracle treats with third party (users, developers, competitors, etc...)
  - brudgers 13y ago
    By that logic, he also is responsible for making software that people want and for those people wanting it because using it is profitable. Oracle is hardly the only company in Silicon Valley, much less the world, known for ruthlessly pursuing intellectual property claims [it's hardly the only company in the valley with a reputation for requiring developers to dance to its tune, either]. It's not that I am greatly concerned that Larry Ellison's feelings will be hurt. What I care about is that the post is a template for the sort of comments which debase HN's discussions. It's mean for the sake of internet points, and nobody is better informed or inspired to deeper insight for having read it. The meanness and shallowness of such posts only invites more meanness and shallowness. There are lots of other places on the internet where that provides the majority of entertainment value. It's not why people come to HN.
    - pessimizer 13y ago
      >Oracle is hardly the only company in Silicon Valley, much less the world, known for ruthlessly pursuing intellectual property claims [it's hardly the only company in the valley with a reputation for requiring developers to dance to its tune, either]. Does a company have to be the only exemplar of a bad behavior for it to be pointed out? That's a very hard standard to meet that would suppress any discussion of corporate decisions.
      - brudgers 13y ago
        The fact that the original comment shies from a hard standard to meet for the sake emotional appeal, is exactly my point.
    - blueskin_ 13y ago
      You're right, HN should be 100% serious business with no humour allowed </s>
- nemo 13y ago
  Not an ad hominem.

DiabloD3 13y ago

This is extremely bad PR for Oracle. A company should strive to help their customers.

binarymax 13y ago
Because this is Oracle we are talking about, I am not sure if you are being sarcastic. But just in case you are not, my experience with Oracle is quite the opposite of what you describe. Oracle is sold on the golf course, and they exist purely for profit. Most Oracle consultants I know (quite a few) who actually develop software using the tools, gladly admit they work with Oracle because they can charge high fees. In fact, if I asked them their opinion on this specific incident they might actually approve - given the end result is that their knowledge is safe from newcomers. All this is anecdotal of course - but this is a good talk that gives a pretty nice perspective on the whole thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&feature=player_detailpage#t=2136s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&feature=player_de...
- bananas 13y ago
  I think you just described most corporations. Despite the PR otherwise, they're all rotten to the core like this. However in this specific case, if Mozilla issued a takedown to w3schools, would we be up in arms about it? Vendors are generally pretty tight with documentation when it's a cut-throat sector.
  - ZoFreX 13y ago
    > if Mozilla issued a takedown to w3schools, would we be up in arms about it? Yes, yes we would.
    - rbanffy 13y ago
      w3schools? No. I wouldn't.
      - etfb 13y ago

anton_gogolev 13y ago

For those uninitiated, what is JD Edwards exactly so that jderef.com was so valuable?

darbelo 13y ago
From their site: Oracle's JD Edwards EnterpriseOne is an integrated applications suite of comprehensive enterprise resource planning software that combines business value, standards-based technology, and deep industry experience into a business solution with a low total cost of ownership. Essentially, an ERP and set of buzzword-bingo cards in the same box.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > Essentially, an ERP and set of buzzword-bingo cards in the same box. Isn't that redundant? ERPs always come with buzzword-bingo sets, its like a defining feature of the product class.
- spikels 13y ago
  Wow! That's hilarious. I must take a really skilled person to write something like that.
- anton_gogolev 13y ago
  Yeah, this is the reason I asked in the first place. I could not, for the life of me, decipher this 100% buzzword-compliant description.
  - anigbrowl 13y ago
    an integrated applications suite = bunch of software interfaces for... of comprehensive enterprise resource planning software = your business purchasing and maintenance problems that combines business value = giving you the most bang for your buck, standards-based technology = not sure about this one... can be tweaked by your IT department OR helps you select products/services that meet regulatory standards so that you won't get sued for cutting corners deep industry experience = nobody got fired for picking something everyone uses into a business solution = we will unpack and assemble it for you, but you should really buy the Gold Support Package or budget a lot more for your IT department, because it isn't compatible with anything else with a low total cost of ownership = we make most of our money on the Gold Support Package, but will let you fool yourself into thinking that you won't need it.

Sarkie 13y ago

Well this is going to make integrating with JDE even harder than it is now. Good work Oracle.

r00fus 13y ago
Oracle's M.O. is to pushing their newer product lines and preventing customers from keeping their investments (i.e., Fusion and surprisingly, still Peoplesoft). While this is a business-as-usual dick move, it's also completely expected - see their legal actions against the TomorrowNow[1] organization purchased by SAP, and their now-infamous legal attacks against Google for independently implementing a JVM byte code interpreter. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TomorrowNow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TomorrowNow
- greatsuccess 13y ago
  I think Im just going to go to women now, because they help women now.

Shivetya 13y ago

Oracle wants to push Peoplesoft. I think the bought JDE mostly to have a ready source of new customers. There are two product lines in JDE, World and OneWorld. World is based on minis (IBM i) and OneWorld is more PC/Server oriented (good for smaller customers). Peoplesoft is mostly AIX/Oracle and very people intensive and better yet, consultant friendly and a great revenue stream. So, yeah, shutting down a site which promotes software not a the top of their list makes sense.

turnip1979 13y ago
Tangential question: how do I learn about ERP software? I went to a strong CS school but this wasn't covered. I don't think I even know anyone who knows this stuff. - regular HN reader.
- cafard 13y ago
  You could have a look at http://www.erp5.com/ http://www.erp5.com/ .
- arethuza 13y ago
  It's hardly surprising that ERP systems aren't covered in a CS course - they are primarily about business processes and concepts. Having said that, ERPs systems are arguably mainly accounting systems with a lot (and I really do mean a lot) of additional functionality bolted on, so learning the basics of accounting wouldn't do any harm. I count at least 4 different kinds of organizations that work with ERPs: - The vendors who write them (Oracle, SAP, Microsoft and loads of others) - Vendors who write packages that integrate with ERP systems (again loads of these - e. for reporting/data warehousing, document management, bar-code handling) - People who work for professional services companies that help customer implement ERP systems - often implementing custom code in the platform for the ERP system (often in programming languages and environments that are specific to that ERP product!) - Customer organizations For a developer, I would aim for one of the first two although the professional services side of things can be pretty lucrative.
  - chris_wot 13y ago

bakhy 13y ago

well, OK. I guess I should cease and desist from complimenting the Oracle DB. it is a great product, though it did always seem that they deliberately obfuscate documentation and make friendly tools and resources unavailable just to feed their army of dependent consultants. BTW, I suppose Postgres is a perfectly adequate replacement?

ams6110 13y ago
Postgres would be an adequate replacement for Oracle in many cases, or the enhanced EnterpriseDB which is not free but is less expensive. At the very high end, if you need what Oracle is capable of, not much else can replace it.
dagw 13y ago
BTW, I suppose Postgres is a perfectly adequate replacement? If you're starting from zero, don't have any too obscure or extreme requirements and don't have to integrate with third party tools that don't support Postgres, then absolutely. However if you already have a large Oracle based codebase and/or have to talk to third party apps that don't support Postgres then your migration costs can quickly swamp your license costs.

jrockway 13y ago

Looks like Oracle is on track to displace Microsoft as the most-hated-by-programmers company ever.

josefresco 13y ago
Do programmers hate Microsoft? I always thought/perceived that MS treated their developer community well.
- johnlbevan2 13y ago
  Yeah, I love MS. I hate their licensing (too complex), and think they've not had a spotless track record, but compared to Oracle and Apple they're definitely in the good guys camp.
- mel919 13y ago
  MS-hating opinions come from the old times of IE6 and practices like FUD, EEE. A lot has changed since then but this hate still shows up sometimes. There's an interesting article about this by Scott Hanselman titled "Microsoft Killed My Pappy": http://www.hanselman.com/blog/MicrosoftKilledMyPappy.aspx http://www.hanselman.com/blog/MicrosoftKilledMyPappy.aspx
  - PavlovsCat 13y ago
    I found some of the reactions on hn and slashdot way more insightful than the blog post itself, which to me is half euphemism, half strawman, and 100% condescending. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7281283 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7281283 http://yro.slashdot.org/story/14/02/23/1628259/microsoft-killed-my-pappy http://yro.slashdot.org/story/14/02/23/1628259/microsoft-kil...
  - the_ancient 13y ago
    There are 2 types of programmers... Programmer that 100% embrace MS using the .NET Stack, Visual Studio, and outlaying the Tens of Thousands of Dollars need to support that development model And programmers that want to use Open Source/Open Standards... The Open Source/open Standards programmers hate MS because they MS views Open Source has a threat and the enemy (although they are starting to be less hostile over the last couple years)

duongkai 13y ago

It's the habit of Oracle. It isn't strange

chazandchaz 13y ago

There is no reason any site should shut down like this, if it is in fact a very valuable resource. The owner could/should just move the site to a tor hidden service. At very least offer up a dump of the data so someone else could run with it.

peapicker 13y ago

Highly likely this is another case of the legal dept acting without even talking to the dev organization internal to Oracle.

parasubvert 13y ago

Looks to me like an overzealous lawyer at Oracle. There are plenty of 3rd party reference sites for the Oracle database that don't get shut down, why target a JDE reference? Unless they really-really think their docs are superior? (Oracle's docs for Middleware or Database usually are world-class, though I am not familiar if this is true for JDE).

drivingmenuts 13y ago

I get annoyed when people let bad actors off the hood by obscuring their names with asterisks. We know who the overall "bad guy" is in this scenario, but right up until the whole asterisk thing, we had a person whom we could point to and request or demand an explanation from. Then, it would be on them to pass the buck, call the police, whatever.

greatsuccess 13y ago

ERP is the "revenge of the mainframe", and should be ignored until we can replace this. The vendors dont want you to know how it works unless you jump onto their slave boat. Useless knowledge, somewhat functioning products which in 10 years will no longer exist.

googamooga 13y ago

Make world better place - abandon Oracle!