Oracle to offer Red Hat Linux support

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Scary thought actually.: The only reason Oracle isn't as hated as Microsoft is that Oracle only dominated one area of IT. IBM, Oracle and Microsoft all use the same business model and the customer comes out last in that business model. I will say that Oracle is far more concerned about quality than IBM or Microsoft. Oracle's database products are light years ahead of anybody else. They have power that makes SQL server (which is really very outdated technology with a jazzy but inefficient front end) look like a pipsqueak. MySQL is by far more reliable than any of the above but lacks many features, including some essential for big corporations. So Oracle rules the DB market. Users of other DB products spend as much time dealing with lacks in their product as they do developing their end product. Having worked extensively with all the major DB products I find it mind boggling that anybody uses SQL Server or Sybase for large systems. If you read the fine print SQL Server costs as much as Oracle. Most companies do not properly liscence SQL Server. Microsoft when it's low on cash loves to audit such companies and fine them insane amounts.

If we extend this to the OS market we get a mess. Windows already is a mess. The lack of backwards compatability is making Windows not only a poor choice but one fewer and fewer companies can afford to make. The high hardware demands combined with constant security issues and constantly changing interface that delivers little to no extra value is bad enough. The inability to effecitivly work with older versions is the clincher. You want to do xyz? oh no you can't do that because you do not have x version installed. If you install x version for those who need it then you are incompatable with those with an older version.

The worst though is Microsoft has almost single handedly killed off custom programming in the US. The cycle of constant rewrites that are necessary only to port apps from no longer supported compilers and versions of Windows has created a spiral of esculating costs with declining functionality. Finally companies give up and use off the shelf garbage which forces them to adapt to the software but at least gives them continuity and doesn't cost an arm and a leg every five years to completely re-write all of their code.

IBM has made SUSE the future for IBM OS's. Ancient AIX still survives but mostly as a shell around SUSE virtual machines. SUSE itself has all the glitz and whiz bang features of Windows. If you can get it installed it has the power and durability of Linux. Getting it installed is another matter. Even Windows is not as picky about hardware and software. If you have to do any major work on SUSE it's a serious pain. Updates are painfully slow, patches dangerously late. The closed model SUSE uses for development is as anti-Linux in philosophy as you can get.

RedHat has been a symbol of excellence in how to build an OS and a disaster as a company. RedHat is responsible for a huge number of Linux's advancements and remains the leader in OS development. Microsoft spends 5 to 10 years figuring out how to copy features of OSS software like Redhat's innovations then often gets them wrong like the firewall debacle with Vista and the kludged clustering attempts by Microsoft. Beowulf brought clustering to the world. RedHat brought it to the common sys admin. Did so years before Microsoft even knew how to spell the word. I'm going to love it when Microsoft finally tries to copy LVM. It will be hilarious.

RedHat however could not stand their success. They dumped the driving force, that is Redhat Linux. Fedora is a great product, I use it on all my home machines and on the majority of my clients machines. I have even gotten my 70 year old Dad using Fedora now. I used to try to buy a copy of RedHat Linux every year to help pay for all that work RedHat put into Linux development. My customers who are normally small companies which cannot afford Enterprise RedHat were happy to buy a copy of RedHat Linux. Today I use Fedora. The RedHat support is grossly over priced. The OS too slow to adopt in many areas. Even in big companies might as well use Fedora. The TCO is just not there with RedHat. Why pay all that money for support when any decent Linux admin can do the same and you want a decent Linux admin anyway. It's just redundant costs.

Oracle for it's part has been an avid Linux advocate. Converting the whole companies desktops to Linux was a wise and a bold move. I loved it when Oracle challenged IBM to do the same. The greed of Oracle is legendary however. If Microsoft went under and oracle Linux had the market share that Windows has today I feel we'd only changed the name on the greed, though we would enjoy a much higher quality monopoly, a monopoly is a monopoly. This greed has left deep scars in the IT community. It is something Oracle will have to address to survive. Greedy companies are starting to get payback. That all the major search engines use Linux is itself a testimony to how Microsoft has killed itself with it's greed and poor business practices. The quality is just not there and people are not going to donate work to Microsoft to fix it. Oracle faces the same challenge. No software company can exist as an island in tommorows market. OSS has become an essential part of software. As such the common programmer has starting regaining control over the software world. The inability to attract open source support for a company will be fatal in the years to come. Microsoft has made it's bed as an enemy to OSS software and as a friend to giant greedy corporations such as it's close support of RIA and Hollywood. The record companies over the next five years will evolve or die. Hollywood has about a decade to adapt or it too will die. Both industries are doing everything they can to alienate their customer base. To drive away the very people they will need to survive in years to come. Microsoft with it's close partnership will feel the backlash and the tug of these dieing giants as they go under. The resentment people will feel will translate directly into lost markets for Microsoft. Oracle to avoid the same trap has to abandon it's greedy ways. Ellis has to quit trying to be Gates and set a new friendly course. If he does not Oracle not only will not replace Microsoft but may not even outlive Microsoft.; Posted by: draciron@... Posted on: 03/23/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use