Am 25.01.2011 um 08:59 schrieb Andrew M.A. Cater: > On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 07:49:30AM +0100, Jonathan Aquilina wrote: >> Clustering isn't the only one that oracle is doing something with >> turns out they are also doing something with OpenOffice.org. Its >> been forked to LibreOffice. >> >> Would really love to know what they are up to. >> > > There's a distinction to be drawn here. Oracle appear to be divesting > themselves of chunks of code > they no longer wish to maintain for certain small projects. Likewise, certain > Sun hardware is no > longer of any interest to them (and the licensing terms for hardware support > and Solaris have changed > subtly - you now _need_ hardware support from Oracle to be able to download > patches and security fixes > that were previously more freely available.)
I thought the hardware business was the key point to buy Sun - to sell a database including the serving hardware. What's left otherwise? But you are right: they focus already on Intel machines only. -- Reuti > SGE doesn't fit their picture - a Sun OEM has stepped up to carry on > development, all's well. > > In other areas, there have been forks, for good or ill. > > OpenSolaris was (fairly unceremoniously) canned and the "open source", non > Oracle employee developer community, > such as remained, were effectively told they were not welcome. Various > interested parties and distributions like > Nexenta have combined to form Illumos. They've taken the last available code > dumps available to them and are carrying on. > > Hudson - a build architecture tool - is a subtly different case. Oracle > suddenly declared that they were trademarking > the name in Europe and the US and that they, effectively, now owned the > community. The non-Oracle developers, who had > put in much of the work, were left in a difficult position. Oracle could > exert undesirable pressure by use of / withholding > the name. Following significant negotiations with Oracle which broke down, > the original lead developer and others have > suggested a full rename instantaneously. Hudson should become Jenkins - > Oracle are left with a worthless trademark, no > developer community and business will carry on as usual outside Oracle and > Oracle infrastructure. > > OpenOffice had already effectively been forked a couple of times - once by > IBM, once by Novell and others - because Sun > weren't accepting patches. As Oracle took over attempts were made to > re-integrate forked code. The outside developer > community has been waiting many years for a proper Community Council. When > Oracle appeared difficult/impossible to work > with, various vendors and others effectively seceded: forking the code, > declaring UDI and a rename of the code and > establishing The Document Foundation to maintain it, continue supporting ODF > and so on. Seemingly, the entire German > translation and localisation team moved across en masse, for example: it is > _EXTREMELY_ unclear whether Oracle possesses > the will or expertise in house to continue with OpenOffice at the moment. > [The commercial product - still StarOffice - > appears to have died a lonely, unloved and unmourned death]. > > Hence LibreOffice: much of the patched code that never got back to sun, a > vibrant community. > A massively stripped and pruned codebase in a consistent version control > system, stripping > out much code retained by people keeping it around because they didn't trust > the VCSes as > they changed. [Michael Meeks pointed out in a blog post how many duplicated > copies of icons > LO had removed, for example]. > > In other news: it is possibly unsafe to use Java - it may become > significa\ntly more expensive to do so. Virtualisation > with VirtualBox is feasible today - but it looks as if it will effectively > become a fully closed source product. > > I'm not sure that Oracle realised what goodwill they have thrown away or > whether they know what they're up to. > The move beyond a single database product and ancillaries has proved > interesting. > > I personally am now significantly distrustful of Oracle as a company. I would > actively suggest to anyone prepared > to listen that they consider not doing business with Oracle and that they > should stop buying or using any of Oracle's products. > Likewise, for them to consider not recommending Oracle or their products to > personal or business associates and not to be seen > as otherwise supporting Oracle's activities in any way. > > In the hope that this helps clarify what seems to be happening, > > All the best, > > Andy > > > _______________________________________________ > Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org sponsored by Penguin Computing > To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit > http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org sponsored by Penguin Computing To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
