Oracle Boss Says OSS Needs Big Business 157
Rob writes "Oracle Corp's CEO, Larry Ellison, has maintained that open source projects are only
successful when major technology corporations get involved and doubted that open source
will have a major impact on the software areas in which the company operates. Speaking at
Oracle OpenWorld Tokyo Ellison also confirmed that the company had inquired about
acquiring open source database vendor MySQL AB and denied that Oracle's
recent open source acquisitions were designed to harm its rival."
"Mission critical" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"Mission critical" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"Mission critical" (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, the very idea that Open Source "needs" big companies like Oracle is absurd by definition. Open Source needs programmers. Period. By extension, those programmers of course need to be paid in coin of one nature or another, and of course have to feed themselves. But this doesn't necessarily imply an Oracle or IBM jumping on the bandwagon. If linux were to shrivel away as a server operating system, and be kept alive by hobbyists, the genes are still there, in source form.
However, what Ellison's saying has some truth within the context of his perspective. In that perspective, 30- person companies are little better than ants. Open Source "needs" big companies to accrete the features and services that huge companies demand. You can debate dictionary definitions, but in usage, "enterprise" is understood as "big enterprise" by people who use the term. "Mission Critical" means critical to flow of substantial revenues. The rougly 5-10 million dollar annual revenue of the kind of company you're talking about doesn't qualify as "substantial" in these terms: it's not much larger than a typical CEO annual bonus; some CEOs get more.
Re:"Mission critical" (Score:3, Insightful)
The best products represent a collaboration between programmers, designers, artists, usability experts, documentors, and experts in the target market. Open Source needs a lot more than programmers to acheive that.
i.e. Open Source needs talented people of all walks. Period.
Re:"Mission critical" (Score:2)
Re:"Mission critical" (Score:2)
So it's not "The Best Product". Most open source starts as programmers doing something for themselves. They are the producer and customer of the software.
It's funny how non-programmers say that open source is/isn't successful by examining it's marketing. Marketing is irrelevant, as is usage. Pe
Re:"Mission critical" (Score:3, Insightful)
True, but in this day in age it's also important to keep in mind where the next GM-sized companies are likely to come from. Startups are a lot more likely to use FOSS tools like linux, mysql, etc. to get their ideas off the ground than they are to spend many thousands of dollars up front on licenses from Oracle,
Re:"Mission critical" (Score:2)
What's the statistic, 60% of the GDP comes from small businesses? The strength of the American economy is in small companies with less than 20 employees. Oracle can't make much money off these guys though because they don't *need* the massive scalablility (or pricetag) of Oracle. Small companies just aren't Oracl
Small is relative (Score:2)
For manufacturing, generally the number of employees are used. "Small" in manufacturing is in no case less than 500 emp
Re:"Mission critical" (Score:3, Interesting)
Ellison is a hammer looking for nails. As for the above quoted statement, here are some facts:
From www.sba.gov [sba.gov] (some headings clipped for brevity; link point to PDF file with full text):
Re:"Mission critical" (Score:2)
Re:"Mission critical" (Score:2)
Re:"Mission critical" (Score:2)
Yes. The suppliers are important. GM is almost too complex to talk about as a single entity. It is over a barrel with pensions and health benefits, so it'd rather outsource where possible. I haven't watched them closely, but it seems to shed companies on a fairly regular basis, turning components of
Re:"Mission critical" (Score:2)
Many smaller companies and online traders consider OSS like Apache, PHP, MySQL and so on to be 'mission critical' in every sense of the word.
Of course, Larry E. probably can't get his mind down to that level: "Oh! You mean the little people?"
Re:"Mission critical" (Score:2)
Re:"Mission critical" (Score:3, Interesting)
Even if it did mean behemoths, it's still wrong. The .org TLD runs on PostgreSQL [slashdot.org], for example. Incidentally, it used to run on Oracle, and they switched to PostgreSQL - perhaps that explains why the FUD about open-source databases is flowing thick and fast from Oracle.
Re:"Mission critical" (Score:2)
basically, no.
the term is so horribly over-used and misused that it's impossible to draw anything resembling a reliable definition from usage, but take a look at the comparative impact of systems or components. i used to work for a financial services company that provided systems and services to stock trading companies. at the time, this company cleared over half of all trades on the NASDAQ, and small portion of NYSE t
You're confusing scale with definition (Score:2)
Mission critical just means "something which is critical to the success of the mission." For a business, that can mean e-mail, billing and invoicing, banking services, procurement/logistics, telephony, or any one of hundreds of types of applications without which the organization simply cannot function. These vary from organization to organization - a mom and pop florist whose web site goes down for a couple of days is unlikely to suffer any l
Re:"Mission critical" (Score:3, Funny)
Re:"Mission critical" (Score:2)
Re:"Mission critical" (Score:2)
Small to medium businesses employ far more people across the US than all the $MEGA-CORPs combined (statistics can be found at the US Small Business Administration).
Combined, the small businesses have a far greater impact than "just a few losi
Re:"Mission critical" (Score:2)
1) Small business doesn't matter for "mission critical" applications. I think you are wrong here...
2) There are "liabilities" (whatever that means) that OSS can't address like $MEGA-CORP. Again, I think you are wrong...
Now if I got those wrong then feel free to expand on your answers. Maybe I am dense on the point you are trying to make.
B.
Re:"Mission critical" (Score:2)
Re:"Mission critical" (Score:2)
The guy claims to work for the federal Govt. and he posts on SLashdot he doesn't use Oracle. Well then it must be true, the federal govt. does not use oracle
In other news, (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In other news, (Score:1)
I hope they consider Joe Pesci "big business."
Re:Translation... (Score:2)
"I am Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, Inc. I get paid a huge salary that is many times that of the average employee here, have major perks that most people will only dream of, and I am completely full of myself. I'd have a mirror here in my office so that I could admire my one true love, I haven't been able to find one big enough."
He's obviously forgotten where/how Linux originated.
Re:In other news, (Score:2)
Gaim? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gaim? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Gaim? (Score:2)
Re:Gaim? (Score:2)
Re:Gaim? (Score:2)
Err, if MSN, AIM and others didn't exist, don't you think Gaim would sort of lose its purpose?
Besides, you're totally missing my point here. What I'm trying to say is (and what Larry Ellison also seems to be trying to say is), there's no such thing as a free lunch. Even Open Source projects cost something. And while it is possible to support smaller projects (like Gaim or Debian) by means of donations only, it's hardly poss
Re:Gaim? (Score:2)
You think IBM made big kernel contributions when it mattered?
The Linux kernel started from individuals it probably would never have happened the way it did without AT&T, but I don't think there was any big corporate contributions till it became big on merit. Sure people started companies from Linux, and free software, I think that was probably as common as big corporate sponsorship.
I don't want to knock IBMs contributions, but I think they came quite late to the table, okay the
Re:Gaim? (Score:5, Funny)
(Joke! I'm joking!)
Re:Gaim? (Score:2)
ducks
Re:Gaim? (Score:2)
Re:Gaim? (Score:3, Insightful)
A better example could be Apache and the Apache Foundation (but they get a lot of money from people), and the absolute best example I can think of are Seamonkey and Firefox from Mozilla. None of these products are dir
Nice link title (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Nice link title (Score:2)
Re:Bazza...? (Score:2)
Maybe I'm missing it, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Show me the big buisness involvement with qmail. sendmail? how about bind? Does ISC count as a "major technology corporation" now?
I suppose you could also require a definition of successful. Buisness definition of success is money. My definition of success is how many people use it. IRC. Big buisness has generally steered right clear of it. Probably about a million people using it. Is IRC successful? Cause thats one of my open source projects.
What about RFC791. That could be seen as "open source". BSD's socket layer? Definitely open source. Definitely successful, Microsoft used it. I wouldnt say any big buisness made it successful. I would say it was successful beforehand, and big buisness used that success to further its own goals.
Re:Maybe I'm missing it, but... (Score:3, Funny)
Sheeeesh, my open source project is Internet then, bigger than yours!
Ellison Indiscipline (Score:2)
I repeat myself when under stress, I repeat myself when under stress, I repeat myself when under stress, I repeat myself when under stress, I repeat...
Listen to what Larry says. (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously however - story summary is "Big business says others need big business." Not really surprising is it.
Lastly, he doesn't even get cause & effect right: Should read: Larry - stick to what you're good at - Amusing Bill Gates quotes [thinkexist.com]
nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Larry's pushing an agenda here. Linux and Apache were both tremendously successful long before the big corporations got involved. They got involved _because_ the Open Source products were successful.
If MySql hadn't established a market niche that's now threatening Oracle, would Larry have looked at buying it? How did he make it successful?
What about standard staples of Java development such as Ant, JUnit, even things like Struts? Sure, most corporations use them. But they're successful because they're written well, they add great value, they're available, and they were all of those things without IBM or Oracle or Microsoft buying them, promoting them, offering to support them, etc.
I think Larry's wrong. Surprisingly often people do just sit at home and write world-class software, and sometimes that does become successful. Open Source definitely doesn't need corporate sponsorship; the two can go together very nicely.
Absolutes... (Score:2)
If MySql hadn't established a market niche that's now threatening Oracle, would Larry have looked at buying it? How did he make it successful?
Let's keep things in perspective here, MySql is a nice product but in terms of features, stability etc. it is a toy compared to Oracle Database. People rant on end
No clue on relevance of revenues or who made Linu (Score:2)
Also, IBM [ibm.com.], Oracle and Intel [intel.com.] did not make Linux [linux.com.]. Richard Stallman [stallman.org.] created GNU [gnu.org.], Linus used GNU and complemented it with Linux, and now IBM, Oracle and Intel h
Re:No clue on relevance of revenues or who made Li (Score:1)
Re:No clue on relevance of revenues or who made Li (Score:3, Informative)
Personally, when I see $15G, I think 15 Grand, but that doesn't make sense in this context.
Re:No clue on relevance of revenues or who made Li (Score:2)
Touché.
Re:No clue on relevance of revenues or who made Li (Score:2)
Postgres has changed interface languages before. Switching to a Tutorial D style syntax could happen if there was sufficient demand for it.
Re:No clue on relevance of revenues or who made Li (Score:2)
Some years ago I floated the idea, but there wasn't much interest in it if memory serves me. But the hackers' talk at the time flew over my head, so I might be mistaken.
Do remember that, when PostGres became PostgreSQL, it had to shed QUEL, because SQL isn't relational. It might be easier to start from scratch (Rel?), or from the last version of PostGres. Please n
Re:No clue on relevance of revenues or who made Li (Score:2)
That is why I said free as in open. I don't mean free of cost, but open designs such as OpenCores'; free as in freedom.
Oracle was slowler than MySql for me (Score:2)
Re:Oracle was slowler than MySql for me (Score:2)
If we're talking about mission critical applications, whether you're a 30 person company or GE, you have to have data reliability. Can
Re:Oracle was slowler than MySql for me (Score:2)
If a system takes a power hit, your data could get lost in several places.
Computer RAM: This can especially occur if you are going throug a file system and get stuck in the file system cache.
Hardware RAID Cache: This can be in the FC/SCSI/SAS/SATA controller although from my experience the big systems put the RAID in with the storage. See the big beasts from EMC, NetApp, etc.
Disk Cache: Each hard disk has its own write cache
So on a massive power failure, you need UPS accross the
Re:Oracle was slowler than MySql for me (Score:2)
I don't recall saying that anything was "so bad". And I doubt that oracle's recommended configuration includes the disk side cache turned on.
If Oracle is running on linux or solaris on the same hardware, there isn't really much difference in integrity.
If it's in the same configuration (i.e. cache on vs cache off), you're right. My point was that by default Linux turns it on. By default Solaris turns it off. By default, Solaris
Re:Oracle was slowler than MySql for me (Score:2)
Re:Oracle was slowler than MySql for me (Score:2)
I read this in an article referring to someone's discovery that Windows sits idle for several seconds during shutdown, to make sure these drives have written their data before the power is lost.
Re:Oracle was slowler than MySql for me (Score:2)
From my point of view, a system should not require extensive tuning to run well in typical environments. I can't stand the idea
Re:Oracle was slowler than MySql for me (Score:2)
Re:Oracle was slowler than MySql for me (Score:2)
Me too. I don't want to manage a factory!
I like programming software and this issue comes up a lot in that world. Lots of tuning parameters are great. I believe they should be able to self set to some reasonable defaults based on system setup and potentially current conditions.
Oh, I have setup manufacturing tests for a consumer electronics product and for a military product and they have worked out pretty well.
-Ack
Ignorant comments (Score:4, Informative)
"We have many more developers on Linux than Red Hat," he added, pointing out that the Redwood Shores, California-based company Oracle Cluster File System to enable Linux to scale across enterprise clusters
Man, those are some ignorant ass comments. Oracle is a much bigger company than red hat. It's more interesting to see the percentage of their developers focused on open source. I can pretty much guarantee it's red hat. Red hat needs open source to survive. It's the basis of their whole business model.
Second of all, those three companies did NOT make Linux. IBM has been a very good general purpose contributor, and to a lesser extent Intel. However, Oracle is NOT in that bunch. Oracle's contributions are minor compared to the other two and can be mostly traced back to enhancements that directly benefit their commercial products. Not saying their contributions aren't appreciated, but they are by no means the same league as Intel and IBM. And really, he just spouted out a couple of his butt buddies. There are a lot of small companies that make a particular product based on linux (such as backup solutions) that make extremely important contributions. The only surviving iSCSI implementation on Linux came from a small company making a linux based backup solution. Intel in fact contributed iSCSI code that is now largely depreciated. Open source does need a commercial counterpart, however it's not the 500 pound gorillas that make open source unique. It's the small companies that need it to survive. I can't say the same or Oracle.
Re:Ignorant comments (Score:2)
Open Source Success (Score:2, Insightful)
I think that pleny of people would consider these somewhat successful projects mission critical.
I also don't recall any big companies helping them but I can think of one trying to kill them...
Gotta love Larry Ellison (Score:2)
Larry, we need on on Slashdot. You'd love it. Jump on in -- the water's fine.
"There's this idea that because it's open source people who work in Radio Shack develop the software for free, it's just not true."
Although I didn't know that he didn't like Radio Shack. I like Radio Shack. Hmm. Maybe it just wouldn't work out.
Re:Gotta love Larry Ellison (Score:2)
who leads who? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's funny. It seems to me that major technology corporations usually get involved in open source projects only after they become successful.
Re:who leads who? (Score:2)
In other news (Score:4, Insightful)
Capitalism: the replacement of elected government by government by unelected multinational corporations in the name of freedom.
Quantitiy not quality (Score:1)
Forking and Replacement Code (Score:2)
This could be trouble (Score:2)
OT: pseudo-socialist rant (Score:4, Insightful)
Generally, the dislike of big business is not due to "pseudo-socialism," but for the other factors you mention: the abuse that accompanies "success." We hate oil because they gouge the customer, hire thugs to shoot up villages in Africa, and abuse their position as gatekeepers to the world's energy.
We hate Wal*Mart because their full-time workers don't make enough at their full-time job to live off, even if they shop at Wal*Mart. We hate Microsoft because they used their dominant market position to shut out competitors in the late 80s, early 90s, and are generally the Budwieser of software. We hate big pharmaceuticals because they research impotence cures, and not things like AIDS cures (they leave that to the universities, but they'll be the first to patent any real results).
In every case, the company is using their superior position (usually government-protected monopoly; or in the case of Microsoft, a "natural" monopoly the abuse of which the government ignores) to destroy perceived competition, rather than competing on their merits. They do anything to maximize profit; and that generally means screwing the citizens of the world (often not even their customers).
The easiest definition of "evil" is fucking over someone for your own gain. Big companies often do that as a first recourse, rather than a last resort. Enron's manipulation of the energy market cost California billions of dollars. Enron is a shining example of corporate success, if only they didn't get caught. Hell, even getting caught hardly did anything. The people most responsible are still walking free, enjoying their riches.
As long as corporations can fuck over people for their own good, there is no free market. It's not like a candy store; we can't just open up next door and compete with Exxon. The market is regulated more by big business than by big government, to the point where government is in the pocket of big business.
I can think of no giant international business that didn't get where it is by intentionally fucking over lots and lots of people. I'm sure there are some. I certainly don't despise all big business; just the ones I know are evil.
Thanks for letting me rant.
Re:OT: pseudo-socialist rant (Score:2)
Then why does this search turn up almost 7000 news results?
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&hs=sMD&q=enron+t rial&btnG=Search+News [google.com]
The Enron trial is proceeding, several former directors and officers are either in prison or have paid fines. The top two are getting their day in court, and just like
A Test For Ellisons Claim (Score:2)
Big business can stop sponsoring and writing open source code, and then we'll see if it goes away before they do.
It won't. Big business needs OSS to reduce costs far more than OSS needs them.
This little speech is all part of a coordinated corporate assault on MySQL, with the intended audience being PHBs, not IT staff.
Re:A Test For Ellisons Claim (Score:3, Insightful)
Development would slow for Linux and any other open source project is it was not allowed to be used in big business.
I see it more as a combination of the two. Large corporations deal with folks like IBM and Oracle. When their consultants go in, if they are able to push OSS then OSS will be touted as more and more of a success story while IBM and Oracle sit back and re
It doesn't always help... (Score:2)
It's true. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's true. (Score:2)
See, we're begging a question, here. Who says Linux *wanted* to conquer the world? I use Linux and love it; many others do, too. I never demanded that everybody else love it, too. Our only objection is when we're actively undermined by Big Business.
Five years ago when the 9-to-5ers never heard of Linux was a good time. We had less spotlight on us, less distractions. Now everybody talks about Linux like it, itself, was a "Big Business". Expect, wh
Re:It's true. (Score:2)
Note To Larry Ellison: (Score:2, Funny)
Since every Oracle product/patch I have used has required intensive research of user forums (because your customer support site Metalink sucks balls) to get it to work properly, what exactly is the difference between your product and and open-source product other than the fact that you make your customers pay ridiculous sums for the privilege of debugging your software?
P.S. You're an asshole Larry.
Signed,
An Oracle Customer
Re:Note To Larry Ellison: (Score:4, Funny)
OSS Needs Big Business? (Score:2)
Previously you might say OSS needed big business because a significant part of the business market would not use OSS without that support, but they are slowly comong to realise that they can use OSS perfectly well without it.
Oracle are merely aligning themselves a bit more with OSS now in preparati
vim (Score:2)
Just sayin'.
Of course if big business would get involved and internationalize it a bit, and by that I mean replace the 50,000 places that all go something like
if(char == '.' || char == '!' || char == '?') {sentenceEnd = true;}
Well meaning, somewhat true, mostly bu11$h!t (Score:3, Interesting)
From the perspective of Open Source, Larry's like that "successful" uncle at your family picnic. He brings lots of toys to play with, the kids love him, is largely generous to a fault during his visit. But ask him how he made his riches, and he's liable to try to suck you into his pyramid scheme, and that's the last thing you want to hear at your family gathering.
Most of you would think it would be just fine if he stopped showing up at the family shindigs, but deep down, you'd all miss him, even if only a little bit.
Oracle wouldn't engage Open Source if there wasn't something for Oracle to gain from it. Let me tell you, Oracle App Server would be far more an abomination than it is today had they not built the latest version around Apache, for example. Their "grid" marketspeak is built firmly on the proliferation of free OS on cheap hardware, so they've already tied their future to (and bet it on) the success of Linux, and they're damned if they're wrong.
Ultimately, I think Larry and Oracle have taken on a relatively healthy, pragmatic relationship with Open Source. There's plenty of banter about how Oracle's assisted Red Hat, helped Zend get off the ground, and all that, but it's sometimes difficult to actually quantify what they have infused back into the OSS realm. I wish I'd see more Oracle-backed projects on SourceForge, for example.
In the same breath, I'm just a bit disturbed about their shenanigans with MySQL. WTF? I tend to believe they're trying to leverage the MySQL *technology* into their software offerings, and at the same time make themselves the clear target for migration when companies grow, rather than obliterate the MySQL product itself. Obliterating MySQL would amount to biting the hand that feeds Oracle - the backlash would be fierce and paralysing. Instead, I could easily see a Oracle-branded read-only data warehouse *cache* bolted onto its App Server product that's "Powered By InnoDB". Get it?
Larry should just shut up and find a better way for the Rasums Lerdorfs and Bob Youngs of the world to get heard. We get it, Larry - you're successful. Now shut up and eat a hot dog.
You missed the point... Mr. Ellis (Score:2)
The current success of Open Source is just a natural product of a Free Market reacting to an existing Monopoly. Companies needed a way to compete. OSS gave them one way to do just that. O
It all depends on what "successful" means. (Score:2)
Big business can help... (Score:2)
Quality of software is 100% dependent on the quality of the development team, with the following caveats:
1) Management: good developers + bad management = fouled software
2) Finances: good developers - necessary resources = fouled software
3) Business sense: good developers - "in touch with reality" = good developers out of touch with reality
4) Personnell issues: good developers + huge egos that get in the way = bad developers
Here is where big business can have an effect
1)
Ellison - Devil Incarnate (Score:3, Insightful)
He doesn't like OSS for one simple reason. It's not his. He doesn't own it, control it, or make money from it (although arguably his products sometimes rely on it).
I'd let my children go to for a fun day at the park with Bill. I wouldn't let them in the same room as Larry.
Sorry -now I've got that off my chest, feel free to resume the conversation.
Re:Ellison - Devil Incarnate (Score:3, Insightful)
He may be pure evil, but he's honest passionate
Larry Ellison - Iraqi Information Minister (Score:3, Funny)
Of course Larry would spill this rhetoric (Score:2)
This couldn't possibly have to do with them trying to buy up MySQL and Zend, along with their acquisition of JBoss, Sleepycat (who own the two transactional engines behind MySQL: BDB and InnoBase), and others that skip my mind at the moment. No, can't be that...
Sure Larry would say this, because he wants to justify his purchased by drumming up some inertia behind their acquisitions.
OSS needs big business? (Score:3, Insightful)
OSS needs big business to be successful? Oh, then I guess that Linux thing can't have become a huge success, then. And Apache, that can't have been successful as a Web server. And Sendmail couldn't be a very successful MTA. What? All of those are successful? How odd. :)
I think the "open-source needs big business" is wishful thinking on the part of big business. They depend heavily on open-source software for critical things, and to admit that it could be successful without them would invalidate too many of the assumptions their world's based on.
Read/Write Source (Score:2)
Chicken or Egg? (Score:2)
I may be willing to grant that, if you squint, big businesses have been significantly involved in every major enterprise-impacting OSS project. Even projects like Hibernate, Tomcat, and JBoss, w
So who sponsers... (Score:2)
And not to leave out the smaller apps, 7-Zip? GAIM? vi? emacs? bash?
Maybe I'm wrong on some of these... Maybe some of these projects do have some
"big business" backing that I am unaware of, but those all came to mind and I
don't remember ever seeing an ad or reading an article that said "Apache will
really take off now that $favorite_big_business is involved.
agreed, success can only happen with big bussiness (Score:2)
And projects like Gimp, perl, and the other no-name projects had better learn this fast or they will die, without anyone ever hearing of them.
They should take a lesson from projects like mozilla which only became popular after AOL purchased Netscape.
Projects
correlation vs causation (Score:2)
Not to be confused with the assertion that major technology corporations only get involved with FOSS projects that are already successful. They wouldn't want to suggest to anyone that they were late to the MySQL party they just got stiffed on, now would they?
The headline says "OSS needs big business". Whenever I see the word "need", it requires clarification: for w