On Fri, 2010-03-26 at 14:53 -0300, Giovanni Tirloni wrote: > On Fri, Mar 26, 2010 at 2:20 PM, Ken Gunderson <kgund...@teamcool.net> > wrote: > > On Fri, 2010-03-26 at 04:14 -0700, Richard L. Hamilton wrote: > > > There is more information here: > > > > > > http://www.cio.com/article/588163/Oracle_Enacts_all_Or > > > _Nothing_Hardware_Support_Policy?taxonomyId=3234 > > > > Presuming it to be accurate, there are a couple of > considerations > > that approach misses: > > > > * some of today's home/educational/small business have > influence > > over tomorrow's enterprise IT budgets. Indeed, some people > are > > concurrently in both roles, and those are probably among the > more > > knowledgeable. > > > No doubt. And they often turn up via contacts that are least > expected. > Bridges once burned.... > > It's Google's "Don't be evil" turned upsite down. I agree it will hurt > them more than they expect. > > > > * while there's no profit in committing oneself to support > unpaying users, > > they're still good for one (other) thing (assuming they have > a way to provide it): > > feedback/bug reports. Every time some nobody finds and > reports a bug > > before a paying customer does, you don't look like an idiot > in front of the > > folks that pay the bills. > > > Smart companies do not define "profitable" _solely_ in terms > of dollars. > Not everything can be quantified, e.g. the value of the > goodwill you > create. Or don't. Sun was on the path to building credible > goodwill in > the Open Source world these past few years. Oracle, in less > than two > months has destroyed it. > > The real impetus behind this is pure arrogance. Nobody w/o a > few > million in their pocket matters to Larry. But then he's also > building > up one heck of a karmic debt and sooner or later the universe > will > collect. Not that that provides much consolation for the > abused. > > Although I'm more than unsatisfied with Oracle's actions (or lack of) > I'll play the devil's advocate here. > > He just spent a huge amount of his shareholders' dollars buying a > company that had great technology but wasn't doing well in the market > ($$$). He has to show immediate results to them and that's why I think > Oracle is focusing its statements on the high-end side of the market > and making changes like the one done to Solaris 10 licensing/support > that probably will yield quick returns. > > Oracle's is not a newcommer to the open source world but it's not a > Red Hat either. > > Being an outsider I've no idea about this but... does Oracle think > Solaris is competing against AIX & HP-UX or is it Linux/BSD ? That > will probably play some role in how much support they will provide to > OpenSolaris.
I suspect primarily the former. Especially IBM, as they have _very_ deep roots with large, large enterprises. Oracle, via Larry's own admission, is an IBM wannabe. HP shot themselves in the foot big time under the piss poor leadership of Fiorina, culminating in the Board giving her the ultimatum of resigning or being fired outright. Her successor gets it and has been on path of restoration. Still, after several years many of those former customers have deep memories of how badly formerly top notch enterprise grade service deteriorated to the point of significant negative impact upon their ability to do business. Hence, they'll be content to sit where they're at w/o compelling reason to switch. Transitioning an enterprise to a new platform provider is a pita, and not undertaken lightly. Like I said, the benefits would need to be compelling. > Personally I'm an open source advocate so any software business model > that is closed will have to try hard to convince me that it's better > than all the community can provide in testing, bug reporting, free > marketing, free support, etc. Having familiarity with Linux, *BSD, and HP-UX over the years, and Open/Solaris more recently, my take is that Open/Solaris IS technologically superior. I have no experience with AIX so cannot comment. Switching focus to "testing, bug reporting, free marketing, free support, etc." then the FOSS side has commercial side beat hands down - not even a horse race there. > But if Oracle is exclusively focusing on taking market share from AIX > and HP-UX, perhaps Larry can look at it as a "I have more developers > working on Solaris then you" and disregard the outside contributions > completely. That would seem to be about the gist of it.... -- Ken Gunderson <kgund...@teamcool.net> _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
