Oracle Stole It Fair And Square
At its OpenWorld conference in San Francisco, Oracle yesterday announced that it is stealing Red Hat Linux, fair and square. OK, I stole that phrase from former California Senator Hayakawa, who in a 1977 debate on the Panama Canal treaty said, "Why, it's ours, we stole it fair and square." But back to Oracle. Oracle is now offering full support for Red Hat Linux and will provide its own version of Linux based on Red Hat's. It will simply take Red Hat's source code (it's open source, you see) and base its future Linux version on it. It will owe Red Hat not a cent for this (it's open source, you see).
Larry Ellison promises that Oracle's support costs will be half of Red Hat's. He also pledged to fix bugs and back-fill fixes for Oracle Linux customers who are tardy in updating to future releases. To complete the rule of three bullet points per slide, Ellison said that Oracle will indemnify customers against intellectual property claims related to Oracle's Linux (it's open source, you see).
This move should come as no surprise. In an April interview with the Financial Times, Ellison said he intended to have a "full stack" of enterprise software, which just might include Linux, since a full stack requires an operating system. Ellison has also said in public on a number of occasions that if the open source community is intent on developing software for free, Oracle ought to take advantage of it. Long time Ellison watchers may be fooled into thinking he is jawboning when he says things like that, but that was the 20th century Larry Ellison who loved to say provocative things that were never seriously followed up. The 21st century version says what he means, means what he says, and then does it (see Oracle's Unsubtle Strategy). Those who fail to pay heed when Larry Ellison speaks will suffer the consequences.
Copyright © 2006 Philip Bookman
Technorati: Oracle Linux Red Hat software strategy
Larry Ellison promises that Oracle's support costs will be half of Red Hat's. He also pledged to fix bugs and back-fill fixes for Oracle Linux customers who are tardy in updating to future releases. To complete the rule of three bullet points per slide, Ellison said that Oracle will indemnify customers against intellectual property claims related to Oracle's Linux (it's open source, you see).
This move should come as no surprise. In an April interview with the Financial Times, Ellison said he intended to have a "full stack" of enterprise software, which just might include Linux, since a full stack requires an operating system. Ellison has also said in public on a number of occasions that if the open source community is intent on developing software for free, Oracle ought to take advantage of it. Long time Ellison watchers may be fooled into thinking he is jawboning when he says things like that, but that was the 20th century Larry Ellison who loved to say provocative things that were never seriously followed up. The 21st century version says what he means, means what he says, and then does it (see Oracle's Unsubtle Strategy). Those who fail to pay heed when Larry Ellison speaks will suffer the consequences.
Copyright © 2006 Philip Bookman
Technorati: Oracle Linux Red Hat software strategy
Labels: software strategy
posted by Phil Bookman at 9:56 AM
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