Posts by Bill Bickle

RHEL 9.5 debuts alongside AlmaLinux, Rocky, and Oracle updates

"RHELatives" - seem more like a bunch of dirtball relatives

I am still baffled how people think it is ethical business behavior to "exactly copy RHEL source code" and try to sell it to others, while stating "it is RHEL compatible" as the major selling feature.

I feel like things like AWS Linux or Rasberry Pi OS are examples of Linux versions that people create from upstream Linux source codes and then focus on solving a specific topic, and promote and support that version - this feels like fair game to me.

But to just wait for RH to do the work to gather, compile, and test all the code, and then brag that it only took 1,2, 3, 4, or 5 days to release their own version of the same thing, seems lower than low. I can only imagine how the people doing volunteer work for Rocky Linux must feel funk, when they see engineers and technical people that work for CIQ, the linked commercial entity, get paid to do similar things. I am guessing they feel like chumps.

And on top of Rocky and CIQ, and Suse trying to somehow stay vital by being involved, you have Oracle - and anything that has Oracle as part of the operation (this ELA thing) you know has some rotten fish smell about it.

CIQ takes Rocky Linux corporate with $25K price tag

good comments on the topic on Reddit

https://www.reddit.com/r/RockyLinux/comments/1fzydxz/ciq_takes_rocky_linux_corporate_with_25k_price_tag/?share_id=E9_dfKOzWiMxW3Nu6Acr5&utm_content=1&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1

Re: RH support levels

I am not sure how Rocky or CIQ can actually stand behind indemnification in a meaningful way as a VC backed (and I assume unprofitable, or low-profit) software company. How would they be able to fix any possibly infringing code and what kind of money could they pay to help resolve any damages ?? Feels like a marketing sham thing.

Also skeptical about any claims to offer the ability to patch and updates people's Rocky Linux and somehow keep it all compatible with Red Hat's version. I don't think that story holds water either. I would be leery of buying into the Rocky world, unless you are comfortable moving to a non-compatible Red Hat track over time.

Just saying

Still seems a bit funky to me...

I feel like as I play back the last 12+months, I have seen the Rocky and CIQ people talk about "saving people from the evil RH who wants to charge money for an Enterprise Linux version, and yet also wanting to charge money for Enterprise Linux support", while also talking about teaming up with Oracle and Suse (who want to make money on software, and in the case of Suse, on Linux software).

So it is a bit puzzling to me how to view both Rocky and CIQ and how to recommend people to use, or not use, Rocky Linux.

It seems like a hard business model to try and sell to those people that don't want to pay for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (mainly the CentOS users of the last 15+ years) as the target market. Since they have already stated by actions that they prefer not to pay for Linux.

Based on this I am skeptical of the business viability of the Rocky/CIQ entities, as things don't quite add up in my view.

Let's take a look at Oracle's love and hate relationship with open source software

The only open source they actively work on is one where they are a copycat/clone...

The only open source product that they actively work on and yell about is one that rips of Red Hat's brand name and brand equity.

Classic Oracle behavior - call Red Hat a bad citizen. Come on, get a life. If you want to do your own Linux, do it like AWS does and stop with Red Hat as your Daddy that you try to say is an abusive father.

Oracle releases experimental next-gen kernel build

Three stooges ?

Is this part of Oracle teaming up with Suse and the Rocky/CIQ companies to try and take Enterprise Linux away from Red Hat ? I am pretty sure the top folks at Oracle don't like having to say their Linux is "Red Hat compztible" (who's your Daddy kinda thing), and are maybe hoping the whole world would dislike and not trust Red Hat and start looking for a better alternative - honestly don't see how Oracle wins that contest, but it is a free country here !

Long-term supported distros' kernel policies are all wrong

Can CIQ declare CIQ Linux as the best path and move forward ?

I feel like CIQ needs to do what Red Hat, Suse, and Canonical do, which is "build from base Linux kernel and then create their own version of value and capability" and then go market and sell it and buidl an ecosystem around it. Versus coming up with ways to take potshots at Red Hat. Red Hat has the most successful commercial open source model in the history of computing and CIQ is a venture capital backed for-profit company. I wish it would just go compete on creating a better Linux if they think they have good ideas on a better path forward. Maybe that is what this story will lead to, which is them standing on their own as a unique company with value add.

Kind of sick of this crud

Re: I've noticed odd happenings where Redhat Fedora and FOSS databases collide

I feel like this dialogue, about mismatching versions working together validates the concept that Red Hat, Suse and other Enterprise type Linux variants espouse. Which is that if you don't slow down and stabilize an operating system and provide enough runway for ISV's to test and support it, and you keep "advancing" it, then lots of things will break.

Oracle database deal in Azure comes with a health warning from licensing experts

End in tears ?

While hopeful that these two behemoths who get a very large % of IT spend could come up with something of value for end customers, I have an odd feeling it will "end in tears" as they say.

Hopefully not.

What comes after open source? Bruce Perens is working on it

Re: It ain't going to work

I appreciate you are trying to improve open source in general. But you seem to bash the commercial companies involved in open source. I would ask - why is Red Hat's version of Linux so widely used ? and why is Debian not more widely used ? and what would these changes do to that dynamic?

Re: It ain't going to work

Agree - delusional thinking without factoring in the reality of what has been learned in the last 30 years of open source.

I still say if people are whining about Red Hat, they should use Debian, and if they want to try for new licenses that both give everyone free things and pay the developers, they should prove it on Debian first, and if it makes sense it can be expanded to other projects/products. Trying to solve all of the open source situations with one sweeping move, is, well, delusional, which is how this article reads in my view.

Consistent, somewhat delusional theme - we want it free, but we want people to also be paid

Feels like this guy is speaking out of both sides of his mouth as I read this:

- Please make everything free for everyone, and

- Please pay people who write the code

this combination is nearly impossible to pull off in reality.

---

Quotes from the article here:

...He imagines a simple yearly compliance process that gets companies all the rights they need to use Post-Open software. And they'd fund developers who would be encouraged to write software that's usable by the common person, as opposed to technical experts...

...The way to avoid that, he argues, is to pay developers, so they have support to take the time to make user-friendly applications...

-----

And then he rails on companies that employ people for writing open source software - Red Hat being his prime example,

My advice is to take Debian and use it everywhere you can, if that is the closest to his ideal solution - and expand and play with licenses and models there, if he can pull off his magic oxymoronic quest to have everything free and lots of people also getting paid.

In my view if a company like Red Hat can create value that companies pay for, and can pay engineers to write open source code, that is fed back into the Linux kernel, for Debian and others to use, why is there such a beef with that.

I am also trying to see what productive things Bruce Perens has done in his career to warrant a soapbox.

AWS exec: 'Our understanding of open source has started to change'

This sounds like someone who does want to have any commercial companies involved in open source development, or have any developer who writes open source code to get paid for doing so. Last I checked Red Hat employs 20,000+ people including 5,000+ engineers that all get paid to write open source code - not sure what delusional planet you live on that somehow all this useful software and people to stand behind it when there are security issues and reliability issues is somehow free $ for all to use...

Re: Amazon and Oracle

Good post. I think these are the main dynamics we have around commercialization of open source:

1) Linux may be a fairly freak, one-off type of a thing. Such a horizontally useful, platform level product, that has a large number of contributors and a hierarchy and structure set up by Linus T, which works, and feeds a bunch of commercial companies interests - The linux distrinutions, handsets and tablet makers, network gear makers, chip makers, server vendors, cloud providers, etc.. You can mayeb say Kubernetes fits into this box also as there is similar dynamics, except you have Google vs. an individual trying to keep orchestration of the advancements going.

2) Other products like databases, data products, and data gathering tools where a commercial company, usually VC backed, is started to make money from that product (e.g. MongoDB, Confluent, Cloudera, Elastic, Couchbase, HashiCorp..) and they end up creating a modified version of the more open source products like Linux. They had not been able to figure out how to make money with a more pure model, and when they get popular, then cloud providers, or other industry vendors try to co-opt their offering. Hashicorp just made some changes due to these dynamics.

I think we will see a trend of more open source software companies following path 2) and possibly less open source software commercial companies in general. With the AI boom, not clear how much value being "open source" is vs. "being valuable and useful ASAP" in this gold rush period...

Rocky Linux backer CIQ rejects lawsuit's claims it was founded on stolen IP

Where there is smoke there may be fire ?

Granted this is an accusation at this point, but Kurtzer reminds me of Larry Ellison arrogance and shadiness, in watching him on video interviews or discussions,

And now he is working with Oracle. This guy, CIQ, Rocky are starting to sound shady as all heck, masked in "open source mother theresa" goodness. Not buying it.

Oracle, SUSE and others caught up in RHEL drama hit back with OpenELA

Shady vibes?

Anyone else get shady vibes from CtrlIQ CEO and Rocky leader, Greg ?

I sure do. Not just a willingness to team up with Oracle, but in general.

Feels like CIQ CEO

Will be right at home working with Oracle. Seems like he is at their same arrogance and shiftiness level. I think his background shows some shady dealings. Likely at some point people will speak out about it.

3 for profit companies…

…chasing users who don’t want to pay for Linux software. Wondering how well that is going to play out. Only Oracle does not need to make money on Linux but I feel there is only a small % of the world that would trust Oracle enough to use their free Linux.

I can see the discussion now for Suse and CIQ “glad you downloaded our fully free freedom EL Linux version. Are you interested in paying us some money?” User possible responses “1. Haha, please go away, 2. I thought it was all free and in the open source spirit - come on guys, 3. Sure, will give you a $1 a server”…

Anyway. Godspeed to this crew in their quest !

Red Hat's open source rot took root when IBM walked in

The facts show that they provide source code available in 3 ways, including two free ways. People keep sound byting that they stopped providing source code or returning things to the community.

t says in their blog and in several articles that document the reality of what happened, that the source is now available as part of CentOS Stream or if you get a free Developer Subscription or buy a Subscription. You can look at the source all day long, and with two options where there is no payment required (CentOS Stream or a Developer Subscription).

Yes they stopped one of the options of how source code was made available, but they did not "shutdown" access as many people seem to be selectively sound byting.

Curious where you see that Red Hat is not "making the source code available" anymore ?

It says in their blog and in several articles that document the reality of what happened, that the source is now available as part of CentOS Stream or if you get a free Developer Subscription or buy a Subscription. You can look at the source all day long, and with two options where there is no payment required (CentOS Stream or a Developer Subscription).

Yes they stopped one of the options of how source code was made available, but they did not stop making the source code available as many people seem to be selectively sound byting.

says here for production use. Where did you see that it says it is not ?

"No-cost RHEL for small production workloads and customer development teams"

https://access.redhat.com/discussions/5719451

Re: Great liberators ??

Where did you read they shutdown access to the source code ?

It says in their blog and in several articles that document the reality of what happened, that the source is now available as part of CentOS Stream or if you get a free Developer Subscription or buy a Subscription. You can look at the source all day long, and with two options where there is no payment required (CentOS Stream or a Developer Subscription).

Yes they stopped one of the options of how source code was made available, but they did not "shutdown" access as many people seem to be selectively sound byting.

Great liberators ??

Not sure how so many people are so one-sided on the topic and paint RHEL clone builders as some great liberators

Competition in the open source Linux market is healthy - you have Red Hat, Suse, Canonical, Amazon, and recently Microsoft, with their own range of Linux offerings.

All of these companies share open source Linux code to build their offerings, and hire and pay lots of people to work on the engineering, test. documentation and ecosystem building of their products. This allows open source Linux offerings to be more widely used and to help the technology advance.

The Linux model enables Joe Blow Linux or Rocky or Alma, to start their own Linux version and do the same as the others above have done. But Rocky and Alma have chosen to just clone someone else's version, where that company invests in making the offering, and Linux overall, better. There is little to no value in what they do, and I think it is shady. But for some reason people paint them as some sort of hero's. Not getting it. Many Red Hat paying customers are likely angry when they see peer companies in their industry, not paying Red Hat for RHEL, but getting the majority of the value of RHEL for free.

Articles like this seem to take that same one sided view, and hark back to days of Bob Young at Red Hat, when Red Hat was losing money and had less than 1,000 employees as some sort of panacea...Don't get it.

Rocky Linux claims to have found 'path forward' from CentOS source purge

Re: If RH can't do this...

If Suse had enough market share that anyone cared about, you would see companies trying to clone it. That has not seemed to happen.,

SUSE announces 'tech and support' product Liberty Linux

Aside from some confusing marketing...

...where it is sometimes positioned as a management tool for multiple Linux variants, and in other places it is said to be a fully compatible replacement for RHEL -

I doubt many paying Linux customers would trust Suse to do this for supporting applications running on RHEL.

Also, Suse, if they clarify that they are making a RHEL clone, would have to try and get ISV and IHV ecosystem of vendors to support their Liberty version, in addition to their paid Suse version. Most of these hardware and software companies have a limited support matrix they are willing to do, even if Suse says "it is the same as RHEL".

It feels to me like Suse was pushed by Google and MS Azure to do something like this to battle AWS Linux and replace CentOS. But if the financial people do the math on selling a fully free software product - 1 million units X $0 is still $0.

Grab some popcorn and watch the show.

Alma and Rocky Linux release 8.5 builds, Rocky catches up with secure boot

Re: Long term success ?

Just feeling that for places where they can shift or change the OS with limited impact it is ok to experiment on things like Alma and Rocky, but when you have an entire application stack and security policy, based around the OS, and you want to run it on-premise, and in clouds, and you want to ensure various hardware and software are compatible - CentOS had become pretty safe on all those checkmarks. It was only a challenge if one needed support or up to the minute security patches.

I am leery that anything can replace that, and am thinking CentOS was a "once in my lifetime phenomena" combination of things - brewed in the early years of commercial open source and intertwined with Red Hat being a rare company that can "sell free software" successfully.

Will all be part of the fascinating history of open source software...

Re: Long term success ?

I am mainly questioning what to recommend for business customers that have been using CentOS, so that they don't face a similar migration decision in 1-2 years. And I can't see how Rocky or Alma stay solid and viable over time, due to the volunteer requirements to keep things solid, and at no cost. In addition ISV's have to decide if they want to support one, or both of them, in addition to RHEL, CentOS for awhile longer, Ubuntu, and maybe Suse. Which most ISV's don't want to keep adding test and certification and support platforms to their matrix from. my discussions with them.

Color me skeptical still, and trying to figure out what to do. Most of the customers I advise are on CentOS 7, so they have some more time to play things out. The few on CentOS 8 I have suggested migrate to RHEL for now, since I could not confidently recommend an alternative at this early stage of things.

It is all fascinating and interesting though....

Long term success ?

Still feel leery that one or both of these will not survive more than 1-2 years, or at least will not survive in the community/free model they espouse currently. After checking out the Rocky Linux AMA on Reddit, and hearing about challenges that the CentOS community ran into over the years with keeping enough skilled volunteers doing work to survive, I can't help but see similar fates ahead here. Remember that CentOS was propped up since 2014 after becoming part of Red Hat, where Red Hat paid those engineers market competitive salary's and benefits to do CentOS work.

My questions are:

1. If the CentOS original developer community was overwhelmed with the amount of work, while not getting paid, and working other jobs to support themselves to have time for CentOS work, how will that be different if Rocky and Alma are trying to build a community of volunteer developers to build, maintain and respond ?

2. As time goes on, do you think there would be a split of community members supporting Rocky Linux for free on their own time, and others supporting Rocky Linux but getting paid for it via Greg Kurtzer's other for-profit other company or other company's possibly ? And similarly with Alma Linux having unpaid volunteers, and those at parent Cloud Linux getting paid to do similar work ?

I am thinking that the ones doing it for free will begin to feel a bit chump-ish. And then the community support or people creating the builds for no pay could die away, and what we would be left with is a maybe-cheaper version of RHEL from both companies, and the logic of "we have to pay people to do timely support and updates" ?

I kinda don't get it, since CentOS did not work out as a viable long term plan, and as my grandma used to say "there ain't no free lunch", and people hoping that "all will be free and high quality forever" seem out of touch to me.

The killing of CentOS Linux: 'The CentOS board doesn't get to decide what Red Hat engineering teams do'

Re: Not the first time...

I would think if you are gaining experience in debugging and testing Linux you could apply for a job at Red Hat or another Linux vendor and be an appealing, experienced candidate, and get paid. Often times one of the big values of open source is for an IT end customer to be able to point out the area of the code where there is a problem to Red Hat or another commercial open source vendor, to help shorten the time to resolution.

The bottom line that I see is that Red Hat's creation of RHEL has created tons of commerce business for consultants, engineers, software and hardware companies, and cloud providers. While also enabling low cost hardware (over the UNIX days) that can run the most demanding workloads. The companies efforts are driving opportunities for many people. And it seems to me they got sick of people taking their work and not paying. I don't blame them.

Re: Not the first time...

I would say that Red Hat shifting from RH Linux, which updated about every 6 months, to RHEL, which created a stable version for ISV's and large scale users to confidently deploy on, is one of the most successful things in commercial open source history. If this had not happened, and Red Hat never became profitable, it would have gone the way of TurboLinux, Caldera, and other Linux vendors from back in that day that went out of business. Whatever people Red Hat lost in that move, it made up for by gaining adoption of the worlds largest business and technical users.

If that history lesson is one to learn from I suspect this one will create benefits for Red Hat and all of open source. For people that just want free RHEL, and feel that Red Hat does not deserve money for their offering and the services that come with it, to help pay the 1000's of engineers that advance, they are now out of luck and can take their non-business to another place. If I were Red Hat I would not really care about that profile of user. Just sayin!

HPE has only gone full Kubernetes, pops open new Container Platform

Huh - flashback

I am flashing back to HP Cloud and HP Helion OpenStack and HP Helion Eucalyptus, and HP HelionStackato/Cloud Foundry, and even HP Bluestone middleware years before. Where HP tries to supply the broad market with a software offering that the market will not buy in any kind of volume.

Similar to operating systems, virtualization software and even databases, these types of software layers are not ones where HP, or Cisco, or any hardware-centric company can be successful.

I suspect this will live for 1-2 years and then they will need to migrate the 3-5 customers that bought into it, to a more widely adopted industry version of this kubernetes container type stuff - like VMWare, Red Hat, or one of the cloud guys.

Just sayin

HP's $1bn 'Linux for the cloud' dream: Will Helion float?

macro points on market participants in OpenStack and red hat

Some things I think people should consider.

In my view, when looking at a new segment (e.g. IaaS, PaaS, Hadoop/BigData, No/NewSQL Data), both existing large companies and smaller for-profit companies need to carefully study and look for the best places and best chance to participate, add value and make money. Also looking to see if there are existing companies that might have a very good shot at winning parts of that new market, and look to avoid or complement those.

In the case of OpenStack, which is an open-source centric market area, and where the key technologies relies alot on Linux, and to some extent KVM, I would think that people would give Red Hat a pretty good chance at winning the major role in this market. Looking at Red Hat and seeing that they have become the #1 contributor to the project, and given Red Hat's track record in linux and jboss, and in being able to balance community with commercial open source to profitable success, I would stay away from the key market area that Red Hat is targeting.

If I add in the fact that openstack, when combined with Linux and kvm is kind of like "Super-sized-Linux" in many ways, and it will require a strong third party ecosystem of hardware and software participants and developers. I would then look and see if players in this market have experience in this area, have existing relationships with ISV's and IHV's, and are trusted by the third parties to build a sustainable platform, price it fair and provide updates and support. On that front Red Hat would be in the best position, and maybe IBM has some chops there, and VMWare some, but they are not fully in with OpenStack from what I see. Given that you have a company in Red Hat, that most all ISV and IHV companies would trust to be a solid, stable company, and have support and technical skills to back up their solution, and open source skills to balance community and commercial interests, I am not sure why people are trying to take the core Openstack part of the business. That is a very tough battle.

I think it is better to get some concentration of force around one company that can be trusted to drive it forward, and build applications and hardware and software solutions around it. Having 5-10+ OpenStack versions confuses third party ISVs, IHVs and end customers.

I can see why someone like HP fancies going after this area. They currently have no strategic infrastructure software (i.e. virtualization, operating system, database, middleware), and with IaaS emerging as a strategic new infrastructure technology, I can see why they would want to try it. The challenge is that their ability to attract an ecosystem that includes their head-head system vendors like Cisco, Dell, IBM and others, is very unlikely to happen. I just don't see it happening.

HP drops $1bn, two-year OpenStack cash bomb

HP is sounding Oracle-esque, except...

they don't own any strategic, or high value software. They are sounding like Oracle/Sun about the complete system and all the parts from one vendor. Though not sure that is working that well for Oracle, and they have an incredible global lockin customer base with their database, and many application level software plays that give them more credibility to try and pull off the "complete system" play. HP has mainly hardware, and that is a commodity game, and Intel and their white-box marketing machine will eat them up in the next 2-5 years is my prediction. I give HP credit for trying this, but doubt it will work.

Red Hat teams up with community-based RHEL lookalike CentOS

Sounds like a brilliant move

CentOS has been a great "market development" tool for Red Hat and has helped hold back any serious competitors - ala Suse, Ubuntu or others in the server market. Now it looks like Red Hat is raising the game in open source by adapting an additional model. These guys created the dual community (Fedora) and commercial (RHEL) model well ahead of anyone, and have now applied it to Jboss, Storage, Virtualization, OpenStack and their PaaS OpenShift. Splitting a community version and a commercial version. But this takes it to a different level.

I give Red Hat credit for having the guts to do this, and I bet it baffles many of the large industry vendors and cloud providers that were hoping that Centos somehow kept Red Hat from getting too strong or influential. Will see how it all plays out, but my guess is that many "strategy" folks at these large companies will be scrambling to figure out what this means. When they do, Red Hat may then shift to another level of open source models.

Good stuff, good action !

Bill

Larry Ellison: Google is ABSOLUTELY EVIL, but NSA is ESSENTIAL

Pot and kettle on copying - kinda disgusting !

How does Larry's rationalize this comment:

"I don't see how he thinks you can just copy someone else's stuff. It really bothers me," the database mogul continued.

With what he has been doing in Linux for the last 5+ years. He came out and said "Red Hat is not supporting Linux properly, so we need to have an Oracle version, but it will be 100% compatible with Red Hat". This sure sounds like copying someone else's software to me.

He needs to give up whining about the position that Sun was in when Google started using Java, Where Sun begged them to please support Java, for free.

Larry, larry, larry, you are riding a slow moving boat, with many boat anchors on board (SPARC, Solaris, Oracle Apps, Fusion Middleware). Good thing you have your database. But wait, that one is taking on water also with Hadoop and NoSQL models taking shape.

Ride that baby down hard, and keep getting plastic surgery, but remember your ship is taking on water my friend.

Salesforce and Oracle forge partnership to smash rivals

Skeptically, it seems to me...

1) From the SF.com point of view - they are dependant on the Oracle DB on the back end, and it has served them well in buidling their offerings. They wanted to get a great, cheap, and predictable-over-time price for the DB as they keep expanding their user base. They also likely wanted to avoid the potential to have their price increased dramatically on a renewal of their license and support agreement at any point.

So I see this as mainly SF.com cementing a predictable cost structure for their infrastructure technologies. They made noises and motions about shifting to PostgreSQL, as part of the dance of negotiation with Oracle (hiring key Postres engineers for example). It seems that SF.com had a pretty good upper hand in the discussions, but also was pretty trapped into the Oracle DB as the back end for all their solutions. So the reality of switching to Postgres would be ugly and costly for them.

I am sure SF.com does not really want to run Exa-systems or Oracle Linux, and get themselves further locked into more Oracle technologies. Since Exa-systems are the opposite of being able to take advantage of low-cost scale out computing with x86 systems and infrastructure software (mainly open source). But to get the best price, they agreed to tell the world they will use these other Oracle technologies that are lackluster at best.

2) From the Oracle view - this, and the Microsoft cloud move, are about realizing that they are slipping on many fronts in the modern, cloud computing era. With hardware, middleware, and Oracle apps sales all being very challenged, and some new challengers to their database technologies (Hadoop, NoSQL, NewSQL), they had to do something since people are not buying the Exa-system message or story. So I think they gave the deal-of-a-lifetime on the cost side of the DB to SF.com, and they will be able to keep saying SF.com uses their database. I doubt SF.com will use many of their Exa-systems, or Oracle Linux, or Oracle Java, as the employee antibodies at SF.com against doing so, will be hard to change. While Marc B is off trotting around the globe pitching SF.com I doubt he will be checking on how the Exa evaluations are going.

So, I see this as a good win for SF.com to get a cheap, key piece of their infrastructure for many years, and Oracle gets to keep saying a hot company uses their DB, and the rest as "much ado about nothing" or "frivolous noise".

Oracle puts database, middleware, Linux on Microsoft Hyper-V, Azure

Okay, okay - let's get real here !

What I see, skeptically, is two, aging giants, who were forced to play nice together, as they are getting their lunches eaten from nearly every direction they play in.

Both running from the onslaught of SaaS offerings that are outfoxing them, and from open source based solutions in operating systems, database, middleware, and the new data and big-data wave. The open source stuff is eating them in multiple directions, both on-premise and in cloud computing.

And in Microsoft's case, hurting from the explosion in mobile devices and pad computing, with a bit role so far, and one that encroaches on their core Windows client and Office cash-cows.

I am trying to figure out who was more desperate to get a deal like this done, and best I can tell it was "equal mutual desperation", almost a 50/50 split. Though I doubt it will help either one of them over the long haul a whole bunch.

It actually reminds me a lot of the Sun and Microsoft 10 year partnership announced awhile back with Ballmer and McNealy trading hockey jerseys. That one did not even dent an upside for Sun, and I doubt this one will do anything for Oracle here.

But it is kinda fun to see two old guard guys - Hurd and Ballmer up there yabbing about how great this is.

NetApp reveals Exadata backup plan

Funny exa-numbers ?

IDC only takes data from what vendors tell them. And Oracle has been changing their story on Exadata, and Exadata and Exalogic numbers. This link below describes it and points to the earnings call transcripts.

http://database-diary.com/2012/01/30/oracle-reduce-their-exadata-projections/

I have heard that Oracle has been asking their sales reps to do weekly forecast updates for Exa products (instead of monthly for others), and 3-year forecasts for Exa (instead of 1 year for other products), which to me feels like someone desperate to try and get people to believe that there is a huge pipeline of demand and opportunity, that may not really be there. Somewhat un-natural motions, since it seems to me that they will be hard to sell in any decent volumes. That was somewhat of my original point. That Oracle has been, and continues to talk up the "demand" and interest, to try and convince people they need one and they are flying off the shelves.

I wish someone would actually do a survey of end users or VAR's and see if any real value, Not an interview with the Oracle distributors, since they will just say what Oracle tells them.

I predict the next 12-18 months volume predictions will keep getting pulled downward by Oracle, unless they stop providing details to the market, since it may be too embarrassing.

I smell something funny

Sounds like a bad business decision to me. So NetApp can sell to the 100+ Exadata customers in the world ? The Exadata systems will be low volume sellers, and Oracle will try to force Sun/Oracle storage sales to them. So why would NetApp waste their time on this ?

My guess is that Oracle had something on them, like "we won't certify any of your storage systems for our Oracle Database, unless you come out with a compatible storage system for our overpriced engineered systems".

It really feels like Oracle is going to great pains to convince people that Exadata and Exa-everything are big sellers and in high demand. But it is not true. They had to admit on their last earnings call that it is below forecast, and it sure smells like a bunch of baloney to me.

NetApp was likely strong-armed into this, and Oracle Exa systems are the next Data Generals and Primes of the world.

Oracle revs home-tweaked Linux kernel to 2.0

We are here to help, trust us....

OK - so let me get this straight. The new kernel is better than other Linux kernels, but....it may break a variety of software applications or device drivers that run on those other popular Linux versions. And if I buy this, I get to also buy more Oracle/Sun servers and storage and "engineered systems" that will all work faster and better. But I don't seem to get strong compatibility with the whole world of x86 based server systems (Dell, HP, IBM, etc), storage (NetApp, EMC, etc), and software applications that run on, let's say Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Or maybe I do, they seem to say something about some version being compatible with Red Hat, but then I get lost trying to figure out what they are saying.

For that matter, it seems that I may also have issues if I want to use the virtualization market leader VMWare, with these new Oracle software offerings, since they prefer I use their virtualization solution, which has "1-2% market share" (and I think that is market share within Oracle users even). I certainly don't know anyone running Oracle virtualization who also does buy millions of dollars of their other offerings.

This sure feels like a big pain for any software company or corporate application developer who wants to support a wide range of hardware and software options to try and support. I guess that is Oracle's plan, to make everyone buy 100% of everything from Oracle. Which feels like the battle from 40 years ago, but maybe they are smarter than everyone. It will be interesting to see how the sales of their products go over the next 12-18 months as the landscape changes.