Oracle takes aim at CentOS [LWN.net]

Oracle takes aim at CentOS

Posted Jul 19, 2012 12:07 UTC (Thu) by ras (subscriber, #33059)
In reply to: Oracle takes aim at CentOS by jamesmorris
Parent article: Oracle takes aim at CentOS

This is the second post I've seen by an Oracle employee who doesn't "get it". The other on was on another forum. He was asked essentially the same question: "why not Oracle Linux? Especially now that errata are free to download?".

Look, I thought it was obvious, but ... open source isn't about money, and in particular isn't about "free" as it was used above. It's about trust. It is about everybody trusting to contribute to a shared commons.

You can not pull stunts like Oracle did with Open Office, or the events that ended up with the Apache Foundation resigning from the JCP Executive Committee, or Oracle suing Google over software patents, or even Oracle insisting API's are copyrighted and keep that trust thing. After all we have an understanding that no one involved in open source sues each over patents (hint: it's written into the GPLv3 and the EPL), and the commercial GPL ecosystem are built on the fact that you can't copyright API's, just the code you link to.

We know what built our movement. It wasn't money. It's not even about money. We are happy with the likes of RedHat, Ubuntu and Crossover charging us to for their products. It's about trust. And if Oracle wants to sell us open source products then that's fine, but first they have to earn our trust. Right now they seem hell bent on destroying it. Unlike Oracle we all know that once trust is lost, so is the community that is built upon it.

(Log in to post comments)

Oracle takes aim at CentOS

Posted Jul 19, 2012 13:40 UTC (Thu) by gmaxwell (subscriber, #30048) [Link]

Even if it is all about money— Attempting to submarine popular technology infrastructure as Oracle has done has endangered the livelyhoods of all IT professionals.

If they ultimately prevailed on the copyrightability of basic APIs there would be a lot less room for competition both in the software market and in the jobs-at-companies-integrating-sofware markets.

If oracle was interested in promoting their software and services they should have started by not engaging in litigation that left them in a deep hole in the eyes of many.

Oracle takes aim at CentOS

Posted Jul 19, 2012 19:40 UTC (Thu) by sailorxyz (subscriber, #52650) [Link]

Absolutely, I cannot agree more. Since Oracle started it's current behavior I have been totally turned off. I used to use VirtualBox, now I prefer to pay for VmWare. I used to use MySql, now I use Postgre, and I've stopped using NetBeans as well.

Oracle has totally destroyed trust and I very much doubt that it will regain it anytime soon.

Oracle takes aim at CentOS

Posted Jul 20, 2012 19:19 UTC (Fri) by alan (subscriber, #4018) [Link]

FWIW, while VirtualBox and MySQL are owned and branded as Oracle products, the relationship with the end user has not really changed.

Oracle takes aim at CentOS

Posted Jul 20, 2012 20:54 UTC (Fri) by sailorxyz (subscriber, #52650) [Link]

That's the point, they are branded as Oracle products and so are tainted by association. And whats to stop Oracle doing with them whatever it may wish should it get the urge?

Oracle takes aim at CentOS

Posted Jul 21, 2012 13:53 UTC (Sat) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

The fact that they're free software and can be trivially forked? (As has, you know, *already been done* with Hudson.)

Oracle takes aim at CentOS

Posted Jul 21, 2012 10:52 UTC (Sat) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link]

Things are changing fora the worst, though slowly. In order to use their bug tracker, you now have to sign up to the Oracle integrated web single sign on thingy, which insists on invading your privacy in order to find out the name of your employer, your job title, etc. It is a small but irritating deterrent to filing bugs against VirtualBox.