Oracle may launch own Linux version

[Lovechild]

Please Oracle.. buy Novell so I don't have to listen to their community busting bullshit anymore.

[Compunuts]

The thing about Oracle is that it scales really really well. When you start getting tables with 50+ million entries, other databases tend to start slowing down and crapping out. Oracle handles those kinds of situations just like it handles normal situations. It's an absolute necessity for any kind of enterprise data service. Every major corporation I know uses Oracle for production servers.

I used to work for this company and they were starting out with Oracle when I first joined. They grown to about 350K employees worldwide before diving down in dot com burst.

Anyway, I think what you said is correct. Oracle is an excellent database for mid to enterprise level companies. They have an army of consultants as well as business services that a few companies can match. My Enterprise DB remains AS400 from IBM but that thing is a monster. But once you get set up and all, it's a very robust DB though.

Back to Oracle. Even Sybase or Informatica can't really compete with Oracle. Oracle is just plain better.

When you install MySQL, it's as simple as a double-click (or clicking "OK" in the case of a linux system with graphical package manager).

The last time I installed MySQL as a few days ago when I test installed ecommerce system for my local pottery shop. All I did was apt-get install mysql mysql-navigator . Then fireup mysql navigator and rightclick on databases, give it a name and I'm in business (aside from getting web server to work) with database backend.

Oracle has its large background in other Unixes such as HPUX/Solaris/AIX but mainly also do Windows NT stuff. So Linux probably is new to them. That probably why the client install of Oracle was a pain.

Honestly though, it would be a good thing if they buy a Linux company. That would give a valid reputation of Linux as being backed by large established companies. It would be almost the same as when Novell bought SuSE. It could only do many good to the Linux world.

Whether Oracle will be good is another matter to be seen. They have enterprise level experiences. Heck, they own pretty much the whole business side of computing world except IBM. They own PeopleSoft, Profitlogic, SleepyCat, Retek as well as Siebel.

The least we can get from this deal if it goes though is that Linux was noticable enough to have global software powerhouses to notice (except may be M$). If they want to threw away a billion buck to it, that's Larry's problem. Linux will never fallen. Others will rise and take up the case with fallen ones much like Ubuntu came in strong in the face of Debian spawn distros flatter such as StormLinux. Fedora is still leading the way with RPM crowd as well.

If you know something about Larry Allison, you wouldn't surprised his moves. He will NOT do anything that won't make him more money. He is purely business without any emotions. I'm sure thousands of other analysis will take the same kind of reaction as well and probably hail other Linux software makers such as Red Hat.

[Compunuts]

Please Oracle.. buy Novell so I don't have to listen to their community busting bullshit anymore.

Then listen to Larry's half-*** rediculous claims about Linux? At least Novell people never had the kind of reach Larry Allison have so their claims can't be heard by too many people. When Larry bought Novell and then made claims that he had somehow made Linux a legitimate OS, I want to hear what you have to say about it. Only time will tell.

[Ashcrow]

I personally do not like Oracle's Database. It's clunky, figity and has to have a dba or two to baby sit it. It's "1982 technology, today!" The applications on top of Oracle DB really suck -- or have annoying unfixed bugs -- depending on how you look at it. Seeing a web app that can't figure out date ranges spanning two months is an issue. It is true, the Oracle DB can handle a heck of a lot of data per table, but when you have massive data in tables you probably need to check your table structures, normalize and purge dead data. Even with that, PostgreSQL does large data sets well and doesn't have to have dbas ... and doesn't have the large price tag.

I think buisness folk like Oracle since Oracle is a large company and they can hire contractors with certifications and feel like they are not taking a risk.

My guess is that if they did make their own Linux distribution it would be about the same quality as their other non-DB products ... sub par.

[Lovechild]

Then listen to Larry's half-*** rediculous claims about Linux? At least Novell people never had the kind of reach Larry Allison have so their claims can't be heard by too many people. When Larry bought Novell and then made claims that he had somehow made Linux a legitimate OS, I want to hear what you have to say about it. Only time will tell.

It will fail, but at least then given the amount of Oracle stock we would never run out of toilet paper again.

I simply can't see how Oracle could do any worse than Novell did - but at least it would mean an in flux of money before they fail for the same reason why every other such attempts to buy the community.

Look at what Novell is doing lately, they play FOSS but the selling item for their desktop is the integration of close technologies and FOSS technologies that work only using closed technologies (Xgl won't run properly with any of the free drivers).

I simply think whoever does this kind of "promoting" for GNU+Linux fails to understand what makes the FOSS model succesful, they want to use it as a platform to promote their own stuff without playing by the rules. It's promoting a business model that is unsustainable longterm.

What would be expected if Oracle got into the community by purchase, would they OSI license their database or would they turn their distribution into just another way of deploying that technology?