- cross-posted to:
- foss@beehaw.org
- sysadmin@lemmy.ml
- linux@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- foss@beehaw.org
- sysadmin@lemmy.ml
- linux@lemmy.ml
Oracle responds to Red Hat
Even ORACLE is calling out Red Hat.
Who’s next, Apple?
Currently testing Debian in a VM, I have lots of files so I need to set everything straight before I switch.
I suppose Apple uses Linux in some of their servers, so maybe. But their desktop product is Darwin so I don’t think that’s getting any votes
Their desktop product is a stolen BSD.
Indeed, but with that kind of licensing there’s nothing stopping them. We already found limitations of GPL with RedHat, I think all of these licenses need an overhaul
Note that they still share code for much of Darwin, even where the license does not require it: https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions
True, but from what I hear, the dumps don’t really help much. Better than nothing, I suppose
If they wanted their code to be sharealike, the developers could have chosen a different license. Apple is contributing more than is required so don’t complain?
The point is Apple doesn’t actually want to help the community - they might be hoping that someone goes through their dumps and finds a vulnerability and reports it to them. Free community sourced labour.
If they really wanted to help, MacOS should have been GPLv3. But we know that’s not how Apple functions.
Not because Oracle likes open source, but because they like to profit from RedHat’s hard work.
Learn to never trust a corporation, no matter how “good” they are. Corporations exist for profit only, that is the only reason why they exist and function.
If they are so keen on GPL, why dont they re license ZFS from its current GPL clashing license that stops it from getting Integrated into Linux kernel source code…
This is hilarious considering one of the main reasons IBM is clamping down on RHEL is because they are literally taking RHEL, changed the stickers to “Oracle” and calls it a day to sell their own propietary shit. Of course they are against RedHat closing down RHEL, they need it to compile Oracle Linux.
I don’t like what RedHat is doing (or IBM, however you want to see it) but cheering for Oracle on this particular issue is just wrong
What I don’t understand is: who is using oracle linux? Never heard of a single person or company using it?
One must be really far from linux to choose oracle linux among hundreds of available distros
My company was starting to use OEL extensively over the past few months.
It would be corporate clients that are already all on Oracle for their careers. I’ve met guys that have built their entire career on Oracle and if you suggest any other software they’ll try to politically assassinate you. Some people just care about money not the work they do.
Oracle doing what they’re doing is literally explicitly and intentionally permitted under the licensing of the Linux kernel.
It’s not abusing anything. It’s the purpose of the license.
If we’re going about what’s technically permitted, then RedHat is also permitted to change licence, close it down and stop any new versions from being open or free. All their development goes into the upstream so I don’t even know what Oracle is trying to say here. Except “we want open access to RHEL, not just upstream sources like CentOS”.
No they aren’t. Not unless they remove all the GPL code from their software.
It’s the entire purpose of the GPL. You can never own derivative code.
Finally, to IBM, here’s a big idea for you. You say that you don’t want to pay all those RHEL developers? Here’s how you can save money: just pull from us. Become a downstream distributor of Oracle Linux. We will happily take on the burden.
By the way, if you are a Linux developer who disagrees with IBM’s actions and you believe in Linux freedom the way we do, we are hiring.
🤨
Sure, corporations gonna corporate, capitalism sucks…
But I felt this article was written in a sincere spirit to keep Linux open and multiparty. There are obviously many more reasons for such a sentiment than just the natural urge to undress and smoke up (I know, puzzles me too). However in these times of often direct aggression to anything I know and love I welcomed it a sight for sour eyes.
We live in a weird reality lol
From a practical standpoint, we believe Oracle Linux will remain as compatible as it has always been through release 9.2, but after that, there may be a greater chance for a compatibility issue to arise. If an incompatibility does affect a customer or ISV, Oracle will work to remediate the problem.
This is the part of the post I find most interesting. Looks like Oracle won’t be engaging in whatever workarounds Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux are using to continue operating as downstream distros of RHEL. Instead, if I’m reading this correctly it means Oracle Linux will essentially be forking from RHEL past 9.2. There were essentially three options before Oracle when Red Hat made their license change:
- Pay Red Hat for RHEL licenses. Lol as if, Larry Ellison didn’t become a billionaire by spending money he didn’t need to.
- Use whatever workarounds to remain a downstream distro and pay Red Hat nothing, while using their army of lawyers to fend off any ensuing lawsuits from Red Hat / IBM. It’s not like they couldn’t afford to fight the case after all.
- Fork from Red Hat.
That they’ve chosen the third options is kind of fascinating to me, and to understand why you’d probably need to understand how enterprise database support works. The Oracle databases I see day to day are massive, and they drive practically all of a company’s core operations. Unanticipated downtime is fucking expensive, so these companies are willing to pay a lot for top-tier support (not like I think Oracle Support is actually good, mind you, but that’s a whole other topic). The DBAs running these databases don’t want to deal with any headaches whatsoever, so they’re only going to install Oracle on approved operating systems. They can’t afford to have Oracle say “nope, sorry, unsupported platform” during an outage.
For a couple decades now, the supported Linux platforms for Oracle Database have been RHEL, SLES and Oracle Linux. Obviously Oracle Linux will remain on that list, and I doubt SLES is going anywhere either (it tends to be popular in Europe), but does RHEL drop off the list in future? Does Oracle think they can actually convert RHEL installs to Oracle Linux installs at customer sites? Or does RHEL stay on the list but become the red-headed step-child? Either way, this feels like an attempt by Oracle to erode the value of Red Hat’s platform. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out.