Gould: Oracle to Red Hat: It's Not Your Father's Linux Market Anymore [LWN.net]

Gould: Oracle to Red Hat: It's Not Your Father's Linux Market Anymore

Posted Oct 19, 2010 23:02 UTC (Tue) by bojan (subscriber, #14302)
In reply to: Gould: Oracle to Red Hat: It's Not Your Father's Linux Market Anymore by ITAnalyst
Parent article: Gould: Oracle to Red Hat: It's Not Your Father's Linux Market Anymore

> RHEL is a body of code that has been carefully and strategically crafted to be different than and, at least in intent, technically superior to other Linux distributions. The fact that the code and the patches are all GPLd makes absolutely no difference to this proprietary intent. And that is not a bad thing. It is on the contrary both a very good thing, and absolutely indispensable to Red Hats ability to survive and thrive as an extremely successful commercial software venture.

When you write stuff like this, you just show that you understand little. Red Hat's strength lies in a simple fact: they were willing to risk properly supporting a Linux distribution and they are very good at it.

How can RHEL be "carefully and strategically crafted" when it's essentially a branch of Fedora? The mind boggles...

From your summary:

> Like Googles Android, it suggests that Linux is beginning to fragment in the same way that Unix did.

Er, sorry, I had a look at kernel.org (I didn't actually - just a rhetorical point) and haven't seen anything changed. Care to share something we don't know?

> While Red Hat may tolerate CentOS and other cloners (provided that they strip out Red Hat trademarks), it does not approve of customers who want to use genuine RHEL without paying for it.

You for real? You can use RHEL without paying on as many machines you like. You can copy it to death. Red Hat won't do anything about it.

What you cannot have is a free RHN account to get updates. That is what you pay for: maintenance and support.

What Oracle did with the kernel recently is something they need to run Oracle DB on top of it better. Good luck to them with that (not sarcastically - I promise).

Most Red Hat customers, however, pay Red Hat for the whole thing to stay essentially the same. Yeah, I know - it may sound stupid to you. But it's not. Red Hat guarantee binary compatibility within the same version of RHEL and security patches for the life of the product. No idea whether you have some software development experience, but it takes quite a bit of effort to backport stuff like this. At the same time, they enable new hardware with this "old" stuff, so if you are a big company, with lots of investment in the software you use, you get to keep it for longer. That's Red Hat's value proposition - maintenance and support of something that otherwise moves too fast.

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Gould: Oracle to Red Hat: It's Not Your Father's Linux Market Anymore

Posted Oct 19, 2010 23:44 UTC (Tue) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (7 responses)

> How can RHEL be "carefully and strategically crafted" when it's essentially a branch of Fedora?

So a branch cannot be carefully crafted? (and let's not even mention how much money Redhat is pouring into Fedora).

> > Like Googles Android, it suggests that Linux is beginning to fragment in the same way that Unix did.

> Er, sorry, I had a look at kernel.org,...

Breaking news: a lot of people use "Linux" as a shortcut for "GNU/Linux".

> > it does not approve of customers who want to use genuine RHEL without paying for it.

> You for real? You can use RHEL without paying on as many machines you like.

Did you actually read the article or are you just trying to extract sentences from their context to change their meaning?

Are you more generally aware that journalists write papers using a less formal style than man pages?

Gould: Oracle to Red Hat: It's Not Your Father's Linux Market Anymore

Posted Oct 20, 2010 0:22 UTC (Wed) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] (6 responses)

> So a branch cannot be carefully crafted? (and let's not even mention how much money Redhat is pouring into Fedora).

Jeff wrote:

> "carefully and strategically crafted to be different"

I am a small time Fedora contributor. I can see the process in action. I see no evidence that the above is true in any way, shape or form. Also, I work with RHEL daily. I see no evidence the above is in any way sole source of Red Hat's success.

> Breaking news: a lot of people use "Linux" as a shortcut for "GNU/Linux".

And so what? Jeff presented zero evidence that either the kernel or distributions are fragmenting Linux (any shortcut) in any meaningful way.

The only way forward in open source is for different people to propose different solutions to various problems. That is what selections of patches to various distros and kernels are. Eventually, after years of experience with them, they converge. And they only do so because they are open source. Otherwise, they would stay locked away behind proprietary doors.

> Did you actually read the article or are you just trying to extract sentences from their context to change their meaning?

Yes, I read the article. And no, I'm not changing the meaning of anything.

> Are you more generally aware that journalists write papers using a less formal style than man pages?

Yes, I'm aware that Jeff has no idea what he's talking about. He should get a job as a sysadmin maintaining RHEL machines for a while. Then he may understand the value of it.

Gould: Oracle to Red Hat: It's Not Your Father's Linux Market Anymore

Posted Oct 20, 2010 9:35 UTC (Wed) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (5 responses)

> And so what? Jeff presented zero evidence that either the kernel or distributions are fragmenting Linux (any shortcut) in any meaningful way.

Come on, anyone having administered a variety of Linux distributions knows that the toolsets are different. Wait, you even acknowledge that yourself:

> The only way forward in open source is for different people to propose different solutions to various problems.

> Eventually, after years of experience with them, they converge.

For some tools yes, for others not.

> And they only do so because they are open source. Otherwise, they would stay locked away behind proprietary doors.

The original article clearly agreed that "GPL-proprietary" (sorry...) is clearly better for end users and that the fragmentation is not as bad as in the old Unix days.

> Yes, I'm aware that Jeff has no idea what he's talking about.

I think he as a very clear idea of what he's talking about. He might be wrong but he does not look ignorant. Unfortunately he has to use exaggeration and provocation otherwise no one would notice him. Just like anyone else in the same kind of job has to. The effort to completely ignore the journalistic style and see the opinion is not so big, some posters here did it.

Gould: Oracle to Red Hat: It's Not Your Father's Linux Market Anymore

Posted Oct 20, 2010 10:13 UTC (Wed) by hppnq (guest, #14462) [Link]

I think the point that gets forgotten in the flamefests about what "proprietary" means, exactly, is that companies are not exclusively producers, and individual hobbyists (for lack of a better term) are not exclusively consumers, in the Free Software universe.

Of course, this is a crucial difference.

Other than that, the analysis was IMHO actually quite right in its assessment of typical corporate involvement of both Linux producers and consumers.

Gould: Oracle to Red Hat: It's Not Your Father's Linux Market Anymore

Posted Oct 20, 2010 21:45 UTC (Wed) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] (3 responses)

> For some tools yes, for others not.

Please consider once again the summary:

> Like Googles Android, it suggests that Linux is beginning to fragment in the same way that Unix did.

Beginning to fragment like Unix? The admin tools difference has been there from the start and will be there for a some time (that's the different solutions folks propose to solve similar problems all the time). Almost all of these tools are open source and many times they cross distro lines (e.g. NetworkManager: RH to others, alternatives: Debian to others), So, how exactly is it beginning to fragment like proprietary Unix? Almost nothing was flowing over the lines there. This is just complete fabrication in order to be sensationalist.

> The effort to completely ignore the journalistic style and see the opinion is not so big, some posters here did it.

The issue is that he's calling things proprietary when they are not, misinterpreting what the true value of Red Hat is and concluding that because Oracle applied a few patches on top of a new kernel, Linux (any shortcut) is now fragmenting like proprietary Unix. Facts do not support this. I don't care about his style.

Gould: Oracle to Red Hat: It's Not Your Father's Linux Market Anymore

Posted Oct 21, 2010 8:17 UTC (Thu) by hppnq (guest, #14462) [Link] (2 responses)

I think you are missing the article's main points: 1) "enterprise Linux" is perceived and treated by customers as if it were proprietary software and 2) it is entirely possibe to "add value" to a piece of Free Software that effectively locks in customers. Oracle knows exactly how this works, and how little principles about freedom matter in the absence of endless time and resources.

Throwing out a kernel patch does not make "enterprise Linux", so we will have to see what the future brings. So far, there is really nothing new about all this, or the way it is presented.

Gould: Oracle to Red Hat: It's Not Your Father's Linux Market Anymore

Posted Oct 21, 2010 9:06 UTC (Thu) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]

> 1) "enterprise Linux" is perceived and treated by customers as if it were proprietary software and

> 2) it is entirely possibe to "add value" to a piece of Free Software that effectively locks in customers.

Yeah, I get what Jeff is _trying_ to argue. He's saying that there is essentially no big difference between proprietary Oracle/Windows and RHEL. His words:

> But this doesnt change the fact that these distros embody competitive differentiation strategies that are no different in kind from those embodied in traditional closed source software such as Oracles 11g database or Microsoft Windows.

Of course, I disagree with this, because it is fundamentally not true. Differentiation strategies of Oracle/Microsoft are vastly different to that of Red Hat. As was noted before, nobody can just take Oracle's 11g database and build support business around it. Nobody can patch it or improve it. It's not open source. Ditto Windows. So, Oracle/Microsoft clearly differentiate from others as the only possible source for that DB/OS. Red Hat does not. Not even RHEL (case in point: Oracle).

However, open source in itself doesn't guarantee anything to a business except some free raw materials. Running a successful business is no easy thing. What Jeff sees as proprietary model is just a business doing it's job right, so competitors are few and far between. And Jeff's fantasies that open source fanboys think that open source somehow cannot mean strong and ruthless business is just that - fantasies.

I have no idea what Jeff would have Red Hat do. Have them certify a non-existent "common" Linux distro against some software? Have them provide training for that same non-existent "common" distro? I mean, seriously. Red Hat's brand is proprietary, yes. Well, thanks Jeff, we didn't notice this before.

In terms of competition, if Canonical were serious about what they do, they could threaten Red Hat significantly. So could Novell. The first lot are less about you bread-and-butter computer room stuff. The second lot are kind of a hybrid between open source and proprietary software and seem to be struggling financially.

And now comes Oracle. As you say:

> Oracle knows exactly how this works, and how little principles about freedom matter in the absence of endless time and resources.

Well, it's not really about what they think about freedom. If they want to support an open source distro, they have to be embedded in the community. If they are not, their distro will be just like OpenSolaris - open source on paper and in the corridors of the company. A lot of Red Hat guys are the real, "old" open source hackers. If Oracle wants to do it right, they have to either snatch some of those or groom their own.

That, IMHO, will be the real make-or-break of Oracle enterprise Linux. And it's not because of some moral superiority they'd get by paying open source folks. No. It's because they would then live and breathe that stuff, just like Red Hat folks do.

Gould: Oracle to Red Hat: It's Not Your Father's Linux Market Anymore

Posted Oct 21, 2010 17:56 UTC (Thu) by sorpigal (subscriber, #36106) [Link]

"1) "enterprise Linux" is perceived and treated by customers as if it were proprietary software"

If that's what the author wanted to say he should have said it in so many words. Said that way no one is interested since this isn't news (or even insightful). It's still flamebait because being treated as proprietary by some customers does not make RHEL proprietary.

"2) it is entirely possibe to "add value" to a piece of Free Software that effectively locks in customers"

Until the GPL'd patch is merged in to your competitor's distribution. If Oracle patches are not merged into RHEL or even mainline then they're optimizations that most people don't want. You could say that Oracle will keep making changes to the kernel that will always be rejected from mainline for one reason or another and that improve the performance of their DB, but if customers start leaving Red Hat because of this you can bet that RH will produce an Oraclized kernel in short order.

Vendor lock in only happens with GPL'd software when there isn't enough market for a competitor.