Oracle's aquisition of Sun Microsystems. What do you think?

[barisurum]

As many of you know Oracle bought Sun and I wonder what will be the future of open source applications like openoffice, virtualbox and java. These are used by many people in their day-to-day work and as development tools. What do you think about this or if you know something please tell us.

[NightwishFan]

Generally all the open source components will survive. As for the not so open ones, who can say??

[infestor]

according to oracle's faq:


What is Oracle’s plan for OpenOffice?

Oracle has a history of developing complete, integrated, and open products,

making integration quicker and less costly for our customers. Based on the

open ODF standard, OpenOffice is expected to create a compelling desktop

integration bridge for our enterprise customers and offers consumers another

choice on the desktop. After the transaction closes, Oracle plans to continue

developing and supporting OpenOffice as open source. As before, some of

the larger customers will ask for extra assurances, support, and enterprise

tools. For these customers we expect to offer a typical commercial license

option.


..not sure if oracle is sincere.

[toupeiro]

At first, I was optimistic. Now that more dust has settled, I think it was a mistake. Oracle has shown little to no evidence that they know how to handle a portfolio like Sun's. The decisions they've already made are bad, and the acquisition is still pretty fresh. I can't speak for many good things that have come from it thus far.

[Exodist]

I am not sure how to react to this yet. Time will tell.

[kpholmes]

could be worse, at least microsoft didnt buy sun

[samjh]

The decisions they've already made are bad, and the acquisition is still pretty fresh. I can't speak for many good things that have come from it thus far.

Just curious: what decisions have they made about Sun's open source projects, which of those decisions are bad, and why are they bad?

[Exodist]

Just curious: what decisions have they made about Sun's open source projects, which of those decisions are bad, and why are they bad?
I 2nd this..
No pun intended but I am curious in regards to the software I use and enjoy.

[Mighty_Joe]

Oracle has a huge investment in Java. Look how tightly integrated Java is with Oracle Database. You can write triggers and views in Java. You can store and retrieve Java objects directly. Installing Oracle installs a JVM.
Oracle has their own Enterprise Java server (OAS) and they recently purchased the industry leader, BEA, and their Enterprise Java server, Weblogic.
With that heavy investment and the knowledge that the more people who use Java, the more are likely to choose a database with tight Java integration, I think Oracle will do everything in their power to insure a rich Java ecosystem.
My employer uses the Java-Weblogic-Oracle technology stack. I received a phone call yesterday from an Oracle representative who wanted to set up a conference call with an Oracle Java consultant to make sure our organization is confident in the recent acquisition. I'm cautiously optimistic that Oracle will take good care of Java

[infestor]

i just want oracle to discontinue netbeans :) horrific performance.

[RiceMonster]

i just want oracle to discontinue netbeans :) horrific performance.

Why? If you don't like it, don't use it. Why shut out everyone else just because you don't like it?

[Exodist]

Oracle has a huge investment in Java. ....Java


Thanks for the input MJ. But its not just Java many are concerned about.
Sun VirtualBox and OpenOffice are two big things for Linux. Even if Oracle does continue to support Java, SVB and OOo. The question is how much effort will they extend to support them on GNU/Linux as Sun did?

- Exo

[RiceMonster]

Oracle already supports Linux pretty well with their original technologies, and they're the main people behind btrfs, so I wouldn't worry about it, personally.

[LinuxFanBoi]

I would not worry. Being that your concerns are the survival of open source projects, the good thing is, the source code can be picked up by another group and the project can carry on.

[toupeiro]

EDIT: I misquoted the individual, but to the person who asked me to elaborate.

Sun owns more than just Open Source projects. I don't like the way they're planning to tier MySQL, I don't like the position their putting solaris in behind unbreakable linux from a development standpoint. I don't like the lack of support behind SPARC development, which time and time again in enterprise environments have shown their value, hence why they've been used in more published oracle benchmarks than any other CPU. I don't like the lack of support and direction for ZFS, something out and available today, versus BTRFS which from my point of view is two to three notches above vaporware right now. Its Dense-Fog ware. Its there enough to be cloudy and confusing as to when its going to be available, and if its going to be any better and/or more stable than ZFS. From a support standpoint, Sun has always had world class support. After the reorg, I've had an incident already where the FE sun put me in contact with was on the other side of the state from me (in CA, thats several hours away.) In all the years I've worked with Sun, thats never happened before.


Suns portfolio is huge, and there are portions of it which are FOSS and there are other portions of it which are proprietary. Personally, I think Oracle has done a **** poor job thus far with that portfolio. I hope things change, but they're not off to a good start, and they think they're doing great, which is the worst part of it all...

[Exodist]

Oracle already supports Linux pretty well with their original technologies, and they're the main people behind btrfs, so I wouldn't worry about it, personally.
Very true. Oracle has been around for ages on top of that, making them a stable company to boot.

[Exodist]

, Sun has always had world class support. After the reorg, I've had an incident already where the FE sun put me in contact with was on the other side of the state from me (in CA, thats several hours away.) In all the years I've worked with Sun, thats never happened before.

Last time I talked to a M$ tech support I was put in contact with someone on the other side of the world in India. So I think on the other side of the state is not so bad.. :D

[dca]

You're going to find this has more to do with hardware than anything else.

As far as Ellison is concerned, this completes the stack. Now they can go head to head with IBM.

Look at it this way, even though IBM has been great to FOSS, it's a self-serving purpose. They have 1500+ developers working on AIX and they recommend it to all purchasers of SystemP & other platforms (mainframes, big iron, etc). When enterprises say 'You want me to pay what?', they can throw RHEL on it for less... Same thing will happen with Oracle. They'll use Solaris for big iron and Oracle's Unbreakable Rip-Off Linux for everything else...

[toupeiro]

Last time I talked to a M$ tech support I was put in contact with someone on the other side of the world in India. So I think on the other side of the state is not so bad.. :D

Lol! Point taken. :)

But the purpose of an FE is 4 hour, or better, drop-shipment of parts and any on-site assistance that may be needed. This was definitely more than 4 hours away. Companies pay a lot of money for that from your HP's, Dells, Sun's, etc etc, mistakes there could cost their customers a lot of money, and in turn, cost sun a lot of money.

[Mighty_Joe]

Thanks for the input MJ. But its not just Java many are concerned about.
Sun VirtualBox and OpenOffice are two big things for Linux. Even if Oracle does continue to support Java, SVB and OOo. The question is how much effort will they extend to support them on GNU/Linux as Sun did?
- Exo

Larry Ellison has been known to go to great lengths to stick a thumb in Bill Gates' eye and VirtualBox and OO would definitely appeal to him.
Oracle has their own Linux distro: "Unbreakable Linux" (http://www.oracle.com/us/technologies/linux/index.htm), and scooped up Sleepycat's Berkeley DB so they know how to leverage open source. Again, I'm cautiously optimistic.
If anything, first on the chopping block would probably be Glassfish or NetBeans, both of which have numerous open source competitors.

[z0mbie]

How come no one's mentioned MySQL yet, it's the most widely used FOSS database (LAMP)? According to Monty (http://monty-says.blogspot.com/2009/12/help-saving-mysql.html), MySQL's future doesn't look so bright. It's obvious why, MySQL threatens Oracle's main cash cow...

I hope Oracle keeps OpenOffice alive, I know personally a lot of people in and out of the GNU/Linux community that depend on it. It would be bad for them to resort to pirating Microsoft Office.

[RiceMonster]

MySQL's future doesn't look so bright. It's obvious why, MySQL threatens Oracle's main cash cow...

Ehhh, not really. MySQL is used mostly for smaller, website databases, whereas Oracle is more used for giant mission critical databases. In fact, Oracle already distributes MySQL with their Enterprise Linux.

[alexfish]

As many of you know Oracle bought Sun and I wonder what will be the future of open source applications like openoffice, virtualbox and java. These are used by many people in their day-to-day work and as development tools. What do you think about this or if you know something please tell us.

Wait and see Plenty Other Products On the Market//////////////////////////////////////////////////////// and Free

[z0mbie]

Ehhh, not really. MySQL is used mostly for smaller, website databases, whereas Oracle is more used for giant mission critical databases. In fact, Oracle already distributes MySQL with their Enterprise Linux.

There are many companies that switching to MySQL from Oracle. Maybe not in large scale, but all the new companies that pop including startups have shown success with MySQL. For example Google, YouTube, of course Oracle is losing customers, it's a given free vs paid solutions... Even Microsoft is trying to stray Oracles customers away with their alternatives.