Oracle to Compete With Red Hat for Linux Support

PCM2 writes "It's not Oracle Linux, but Larry Ellison has announced that Oracle will be providing full enterprise support for Linux. This means not just phone calls but also patches, security fixes, and backports, in addition to indemnification from lawsuits like SCO's. This puts Oracle in direct competition with its erstwhile partner, Red Hat, whose entire business is based on providing similar support for its Linux distro and related software."

I'm confused...

I'm also seeing news that Oracle will adopt Red Hat Linux as it's own.

Re:I'm confused...

Ellison explained it more fully in his presentation. Basically, Oracle will provide Enterprise support for RedHat as well as its own version of Linux called Unbreakable Linux. Unbreakable Linux will essentially be a copy of RedHat. Every time RedHat comes out with a new release, Oracle will take the source code, remove all of the RedHat trademarks, and release it as Unbreakable Linux. Oracle will allow both RedHat and Unbreakable installs to get support from them, including bug fixes, patches, and other software.

All a RedHat client has to do to move to Oracle support for their RedHat install is to stop using RedHat's update servers and start using Oracle's. Oracle will provide patches, and will backport those patches to earlier revisions than RedHat does in order to keep enterprise-level clients from having to upgrade all of their systems too often.

So, as it stands now, Oracle will basically be offering a higher level of support than RedHat for the same exact software for a lot less money. RedHat is going to be forced to drastically reduce their prices just to compete.

I would think that over the longterm Oracle's Unbreakable Linux will fork off, especially if this ends up seriously damaging RedHat, but for now Unbreakable Linux is nothing more than a re-branded copy of RedHat.

Re:I'm confused...

Oracle, unlike CentOS, has money. They hire the fleeing Red Hat people and eventually buy the shell of what was Red Hat for a song. Larry, being partial to bowlers, adopts a new logo.

Re:I'm confused...

"If Oracle does provide support, then the kernel developers get paid by Oracle..."

Ah yep: [infoworld.com]

Oracle has been aggressively recruiting kernel developers out of Novell. Novell has lost three in the last several months, making it hard for Novell to claim any leadership against Red Hat, which is a hard-core innovator on the kernel. Oracle understands that to support a community-based product, it has to be part of that community. This, incidentally, is still the best reason for Red Hat customers to stay with Red Hat for support: Red Hat is doing more to innovate and develop the kernel than anyone else, including Oracle. Source of code matters more than source code in Linux, and Red Hat is the predominant source.

Re:I'm confused...

Sounds to me like they're trying to smoke Redhat out. Undercut their pricing until they have to drop their own pricing to the point they no longer make money. Then it's simply a matter of purchasing Redhat at the new low low discount price.

About time!

About time! I for one am glad to finally get more complete end-to-end support.

first step towards buying red hat?

Perhaps just a strategy to get RHAT stock low enough to buy them?

Re:first step towards buying red hat?

Let's see if Oracle REALLY undercuts Red Hat support prices. I have yet to see Oracle undercut ANYONE on the price of ANYTHING. They would be well advised to properly support their own products first. I've had my fair share of offshore disappointment with Oracle support -- not anxious to repeat the experience. Then again, I suppose anyone can serve patches. Hell, I run Centos at home. There is nothing going on with Oracle vs. Red Hat that Centos isn't doing already (on a smaller scale, of course).

Meanwhile, a competitive market might actually help Red Hat. Lower prices would increase Red Hat's volume, even if some of the sales went to Oracle. The trick is to figure out the optimum price that maximizes total revenue. I suspect that magic price is somewhere south of Red Hat's current pricing. Oracle might accidentally help Red Hat find a richer price point.

For many other reasons, you are correct. Buying Red Hat means Larry gets JBOSS, which he wanted to buy before. And Oracle becomes the top Linux company overnight. That won't happen if players like Red Hat are still on the playing field. Otherwise, "Unbreakable Linux" is simply the latest Red Hat knockoff. Besides, growth via acquisition is Larry's game. Very rarely does Oracle crank up a new line of business on their own.

The Linux OS

``Oracle will be providing full enterprise support for Linux.''

That should have said "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and 4". They're not supporting every GNU/Linux distribution, nor are they supporting just the kernel.

Remember, there is no such thing as the Linux operating system. Linux is just the kernel, and the various distributions based on it are all different.

Re:Yes yes, this whole debate again...

``Where do you draw the line?''

If you're talking about a specific distribution (which is often the case), use the name of the distribution. If you're talking about the kernel, say "the kernel" or "the Linux kernel", and if you're talking about GNU/Linux systems in general, say "GNU/Linux", to avoid ambiguity.

``Linux distribution is a well accepted term and the practice of shortening it to Linux is well accepted.''

I agree, and I accept that usage, but, in this case, Oracle is supporting a single distro, not Linux in general. Saying that they support Linux is, at best, unclear, and I would say false.

``Without the GNU toolset (or one like it), the kernel would be essentially useless.''

I suppose you mean to suggest that we shouldn't be saying "GNU/Linux". However, I've built and seen systems based on Linux that didn't include GNU software, as well as systems that included GNU software, but not Linux. I can tell you that much of the identity of GNU/Linux comes from the GNU part, not the Linux part. That's why I prefer to use the combined term.

``If a desktop system, at least X, and generally Gnome or KDE is needed, so do you have to say Gnome/X/GNU/Linux in that case? If it's a particular config of a web server do you have to say Apache/Postgresql/PHP/GNU/Linux?''

I am not about to declare that everyone _has_ to call it a certain way, but I do like people to be clear, precise, and truthful. Konqueror is part of KDE, not Linux. Firefox runs on top of GTK, not necessarily Linux or even X. glibc is part of the GNU system, and works with various kernels besides Linux. Drivers for Linux won't work with AIX, no matter how many GNU utilities, X servers, and GNOME's you install.

In cases where it's relevant, it may make a lot of sense to describe a system as Apache/Postgresql/PHP/GNU/Linux, although the various components probably matter to different people. As a webmaster, I probably care about Postresql and PHP, and perhaps Apache, but not about GNU and Linux. As the sysadmin, I probably care about all of them.

I understand....

Why they would want their own distribution (either buy Rhat or make their own)..

But why not use established systems with guaranteed update mechanisms? Something like Debian with the stable branch comes to mind.

Extended warranty?

Ok, in summary, Oracle will support only RHEL3 and RHEL4 distributions (per TFA). They didn't mention CentOS and said they wouldn't be packing it themselves, so the implication it is only copies purchased from RH. Best I can figure is that Oracle would be offering the equivalent of an 'extended warranty', targetting those who took the shortest support contract possible from RedHat and paying oracle with the rest, meaning either their hoping their name will carry weight or they plan to undercut RedHat for long term contracts.

TFA says RedHat doesn't sell the 'OS', but that's bullocks. You cannot legally get RHEL without paying for it (some of the copyrighted artwork and name), hence the whole point of the existence of projects like CentOS. Their fundamental business is built on support, but it changes not the fact that they do not give away the distro they sell anymore.

Re:Extended warranty?

The goal is to not pay Red Hat a dime. Think about it, how does CentOS work? Easy, Red Hat, being an open source company, releases the sourcecode for the entire Red Hat Enterprise Linux distribution. Then CentOS takes the source code, removes all the copyrighted artwork and such, and BAM! CentOS. Oracle basically says they're going to do the same thing with their "Unbreakable Linux". So, you can get RHEL with out paying for it. Grab the source RPMs, remove the artwork, and rebuild binary RPMs.

Really, this is Crazy Larry being pissed off that Red Hat bought JBoss. He's going to stick it to Red Hat the only way he can, run his own Linux support business, at a loss, in order to grab marketshare from Red Hat. Once Red Hat is anemic enough, or belly up, and his own customer base is large enough, he'll jack up the rate to something that's profitable. In Economic terms, this is known as "dumping". Flooding the market with low cost goods in order to gain market share. Then when all the competitors go out of business, you have a monopoly. And we all know what happens when someone has a monopoly...

-Runz

Yay.

Because Oracle commits tons of code to the mainline linux kernel, unlike RedHat....

Oracle seems to support Oracle - like ocfs2, which so far as I can tell, is the only substantial Oracle contribution in mainline.

grep -r oracle.com /usr/src/linux
grep -r redhat.com /usr/src/linux

RedHat has invested in major contributors by putting them on staff. Oracle? Not so much.

Re:Yay.

Wrong. Oracle runs faster on Linux than Windows. And it will get faster still. The problem is that as soon as Oracle tweaks to the MS kernel, MS intrduces tweaks designed to slow Oracle. This approach is how they treat all of their competitors. The nice thing is that if Oracle sticks this out and works with redhat, ibm, sgi, etc, more software companies will port to Linux due to neutrality.

So?

If it's anything like their support for their flagship products, Oracle and PeopleSoft don't bother. Anytime we report an issue with our multi-million dollar enterprise implementation, they spend several weeks trying to find some other party to blame. It's your hardware, no it's the network....etc.

   

Re:So?

i've found oracle's support for their database and financials products to be great.

anytime i reported an issue with our several thousand dollar implimentation, they either already had a patch that fixed it, or had one shortly thereafter.

so i guess everyone can mod both of these 'my individual experience' posts down, and call it even?

It's about the value chain

Oracle's internal organization and practices lead to expensive services. They probably can't compete with Red Hat on price.

My guess is that Oracle isn't really targeting Red Hat, they're targeting IBM and eventually Microsoft. Larry E. isn't noted for humility and, if he takes out Red Hat, it's just a way station on the road to a greater goal.

RMS exonerated?

RMS always argued that free software is pro-capitalist, because there is a free market for support. I think it's great that we're seeing this argument validated with real-life examples.

Yes, there are several vendors who support their own distro of Linux, but are there previous instances where a third party (Oracle) is competing with a vendor who itself does support (RedHat)?

huh?

Wht wht?

Could this be a good thing?

My take on this is that Oracle is trying to reach out to every possible thing that it can devour. Last I heard that it was looking at Business Objects as its next victim. However, on the bright side, I think this will give some headlines to the Linux distro as more and more companies will start using linux as their main OS as appose to Windows. Would be perhaps a step in the direction of taking down the Microsoft giant. I see this to be a positive news (remember: look on the bright side of things :)) Cheers, Thusjanthan Kubendranathan

Trademark infringment?

Given that Red Hat licenses its trademarks in Enterprise Linux under restricted conditions (which include buying an annual contract), isn't Oracle going to be encouraging RedHat customers to violate their trademark licenses from RedHat? Isn't this something Red Hat could sue over?

Support for Linux

TFA: "This puts Oracle in direct competition with its erstwhile partner, Red Hat, whose entire business is based on providing similar support for its Linux distro and related software."
More support for Linux is a bad thing how...? Last I heard, Linux was more of a community than a business opportunity. One can say that with Oracle, Red Hat, and IBM all supporting Linux that it's really gone mainstream in a big way.

Good news but for unexpected reasons.

RedHat is stagnant. I have to admit a degree of ignorance here, but as far as I can tell, they are not really doing anything to excite interest in their market. They offer support and their own distribution (apart from Fedora Core) at outrageously high prices. (Even Windows server solutions are cheaper than RedHat.) Sure they gobbled up JBoss, but I do not think there is as much market overlap as one might suspect.

I might even go so far as to say RedHat has done a fair amount of damage to Linux adoption: they create high costs and little value or innovation likely because they face no direct competition.

With Oracle entering the picture, RedHat will be compelled to move quickly—to at least do something. I am not even quite sure what that is, but one way or another, this is adds choice for the market and that is always good, whether it results in a better RedHat or no RedHat.

It turns out my information was outdated.

I have not checked the prices of comparable RedHat and Microsoft server offerings. It turns out that RedHat is still cheaper, but by a trivial amount. Compare the RedHat Store [redhat.com] (see: Server Operating System Products) and Windows Server 2003 R2 Pricing [microsoft.com]. (Wouldn't it be nice if Slashdot support post annotation or editing?)

At any rate, Windows might still be a superior server platform thanks to the effectiveness of ActiveDirectory, fine-grained ACL, and so on. I am no Windows apologist (on the contrary, quite the advocate of open source solutions), but I fear Microsoft may be leaping far ahead of their competition in this space.

You won't believe this at first....

But this action, if Oracle succeeds at becoming a large Linux vendor, could actually propel Unix into a large market share in the "Corporate Enterprise" world if it actually takes hold.

The reason being is Oracle Finanials and Oracle HR. Larry is looking for a way to not only get at more of what is in the server room, but he's looking at a way to put Oracle on a platform that can quickly replace existing Windows boxes. Oracle's VERY expensive ERP software is less expensive when it is running on a managed Linux platform instead of a Wintel one paying the Microsoft tax. Every Oracle install on Windows generates a significant side revenue for Microsoft, and this is a way to eliminate it, plus there is the side money that comes with full-time Linux support and consulting.

Forget the Oracle file system for a minute and focus on what his business plan really is. Red-Hat is a target because it has the buzz, but it, and SuSE, have a decent install base (IBM now gives you Linux on every z/Series iron, so it's already running in most of the Fortune 500, but might not be running the critical things).

SAP already has full support of IBM and the Linux platform. If Oracle wants to get at what shops still solely on PC servers, this is a way to do it and to not give Microsoft any indirect cut of the action.

That's gotta be what's going on in this guy's head.

A fundamental problem with open source

In this case, we have the following scenario.
Company A develops linux distribution, supports it.
Company B simply compies Company A's work, supports it as well.

My question is this, what is company A's incentive to develop a distribution? Because the development costs are 0 to company B and substantial to company A, company B can easily undercut the price of company A. It would seem like you'd have to be a fool to develop a distribution, since the GPL forces you to surrender your work to competitors who can easily undercut your price.

it's so nice to see Oracle embracing open source

I assume Oracle will be releasing its source on the same terms. So that other firms can likewise offer competing support services for Oracle products. This is capitalism. Right?

My Experience with Third-party Support for RHEL

My experience with third-party support for RHEL was not that great. The support was through HP, which provides a support contract in partnership with Red Hat. In both cases where support was required, Red Hat developers had to be called in to acknowledge the problem and create a fix, but I was never able to talk to Red Hat directly, which IMO cost me a lot of time. It put me off from requesting support on other issues that I might have otherwise requested help with. We are looking at switching most of our non-production servers over to CentOS because the support we get does not justify the cost.

I cannot imagine this will be any better. In fact, it will probably be quite a bit worse because it seems that Oracle is setting itself up as a competitor to Red Hat, rather than as a partner.

Past performance is indicative of future results

Oracle's core product line is not built around the needs of small or medium business. I mean if you are a ten person shop is better to setup an Oracle DB or a mysql DB from a cost, ease of use, ease of install, etc. perspective?

Oracle has a sense of elitism that stems from Larry on down. I cannot seem them caring about a 35 person manufacturing plant that relies on Linux servers to keep their plant running and does it using text files instead of a DB. Rather I see Oracle as charging less and if they cannot fix the problem, saying "Sorry I cannot fix it, but if you wanted a company who cared you could have gone with a variety of other venders, instead you went with us because we were cheaper and have a bigger name. We like to think of ourselves as the Wal-Mart of linux support."

What have your experiences been with Oracle when you needed support on a problem or a bug? Did they give you attention, kick it up the line, put you in touch with a core developer on that product line? My experience is they give you the run around, put you in touch with low end support staff, have you repeat your problem, resend e-mails, and finally push blame everywhere they can and when that fails say please check back for future updates and versions. When they have had a fixes to issues, it has been my experience that it seems more involved then it should be.

Red Hat on the other hand is geared towards small and medium business. Red hat has been able to help me out through RHN a number of times with simple chats or e-mails when I have had questions. For example they helped me with getting an unsupported USB device to work on an older RHEL 3 server, do you think if you contacted Oracle's support they would have somebody interested in resolving your problem, or do you think they would say "That is an unsupported hardware device, I cannot assist you further."

You think Oracle will do that? If you do, use them.

There was one major problem that I found with a SAMBA release a few years back regarding ACL permissions in a Windows 2000 AD enviornment. I called Red Hat on the phone, got put all the way up the chain to their core SAMBA techician's line within minutes. Unfortunately he was out, so I left my number and information on his personal voice-mail and guess what, he called me back the next morning when he came into work.

You think Oracle will do that? If you do, use them.

He said he was interested in trying to reproduce the problem I had. He and I worked online and over the phone with him, he built a model of my network (Yes, he setup Windows servers to help me out) and he recreated my complex ACL settings and group permissions amd he was able to reproduce the problem with a simulated user load. He then kicked that information over to some Samba OSS programmers he had a relationship with and got the bug well documented and explained to them. He got the ball rolling, in the meantime he helped check over a script had written to check and reset ACLs if they were incorrect, basically what I had worked, be he made some changes and his script more efficiently. I placed it in a CRON job that ran every five minutes and was able to survive until the next version of Samba came out with a fix.

You think Oracle will do that? If you do, use them.

My experience is that Red Hat makes software contributions and sells a service and a personal relationship. Oracle is a big software giant that writes software and is going to try and make a quick buck here with little or no real investment in the community or their service line. Oracle will not have people contributing code especially in OSS projects that compete with their own product line.

Maverics and innovators are attracted to the smaller less bureaucratic institutions. How is Oracle going to attract the guy who gets excited and honestly loves what he does so much that he is willing to build a test enviornment to track down a linux bug and strengthen the linux community in the process? Then if Oracle did have such a guy

A Dream Answered

> Oracle to Compete Wth Red Hat for Linux Support

Finally! Now you too can own a $30,000 version of Linux.

* In keeping with the Oracle tradition of no GUIs, no KDE and GNOME will not be included. Larry has his fingers crossed someone else will write one.
* In the Oracle tradition of installers written in Java, you too can have a relaxed day of installation watching those damned applet windows keep redrawing themselves... very slowly.

It will help Redhat

Maybe it will just boost the GNU/Linux OS business as a support force from that big company comes to play, and RH will have its benefit from it.

Ex-Oracle OSS strategy guy's view

Very interesting blog by Dave Dargo [ingres.com], who, according to Matt Assay, used to lead Oracle's open source strategy, about the Oracle Linux announcement.

An interesting point from Dave:

I'm mostly curious as to why Oracle's first real support network is for someone else's product. Where's the Oracle Database Network and Applications Network and PeopleSoft Network and Siebel Network? Where are the support infrastructure networks for Oracle's own products to automatically distribute fixes, patches and alerts?

And this quote made me laugh:

It's amazing that they can provide all that for a mere $399 for a competitor's products, but not for their own $200,000 product.

Consider the target market.

We aren't a full linux shop - we are a typical midmarket corp IT shop - running Oracle eBusiness Suite, Oracle DBMS, Oracle App Server, along with a variety of apps backed by either Oracle DBMS or SQLServer. Our infrastructure is a mix of RH linux and MS 2003 Server. All the Oracle products are on RH linux, and we have been paying Oracle and RH for support.

So, now Larry is telling me I can stop paying RH for support, and I can pay Oracle. My cost will be about 1/3 what I'm paying now to RH. When I call for support on one of my Oracle apps, I don't have to worry about whether it is a bug in the app, the DBMS or the OS - the support call is the same and they need to help me figure it out.

Where's the downside for me? If you aren't currently an Oracle customer - fine, keep paying RHAT for support. If you are an Oracle customer, it's a no-brainer.
             

RH Response

Unfakeable Linux [redhat.com]

Download Oracle Enterprise Linux OS

From this page you can download the Enterprise Linux Operating System software. If you are interested in downloading Oracle Technology or Application software products, including those running on the Linux Operating System, click here.
From: http://edelivery.oracle.com/linux/ [oracle.com]

It seems a rebranded version of RHEL (a la CentOs). -- Ernest

Red Hat Responds

Hi
Red Hat seems to have replied:

http://www.redhat.com/ [redhat.com] with Linux Unfakeable, with info located at: http://www.redhat.com/promo/unfakeable/ [redhat.com]

Nice arguments there ;)

Ha Ha!

So Red Hat compromise on their flagship product so that they don't compete with Oracle, and Oracle turn around and compete with them. I love this!

Now I feel better about all that time I spent debugging their commercial apps for free!

Oracle offers SCOmnification ..

"The vendors aren't offering indemnification [groklaw.net], Ellison said, and because of SCO, there's all this uncertainty and doubt about intellectual property. He says he will offer indemnification. In the Q&A at the end, he was asked if Oracle was planning to buy SCO to bring that uncertainty to an end. No, was the answer.

"Red Hat has a separate indemnification [linux.com] policy. In Red Hat's case, this policy is called the Open Source Assurance program."

Presumably if Larry really believed the SCO case had any validity he wouldn't even consider using RHEL. And in relation to RHEL and the GPL what's stopping anyone buying a single copy of Oracle Linux and repackage it and selling it with support contracts. Presumably if Larry doesn't allow this then Oracle is in breach of the license.

"We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy [redhat.com], distribute and/or modify the software"

This makes no sense...

You can't buy RHEL without some sort of service agreement already attached to the purchase price.

Are people willing to pay twice for contradictory services? And what if Oracle's and Red Hat's upgrades differ? Will that void Red Hat's service contract?

Oracle stands for

One
Raging
Asshole
Called
Larry
Ellison

Need I say more?

Predicting the future isn't all that hard...

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=183901&cid=151 90614 [slashdot.org]

Lessee...
RedHat buys JBoss, something Oracle wants.
Red Hat needs Oracle way more than Oracle needs RedHat.
Oracle's wanted to commoditize OS's forever -- hence Oracle is the same everywhere. Same libraries, same APIs, same interfaces.
Oracle wants their own Linux distro to simplify their own support challenges and to more effectively compete with Redmond in the x86 space.

Suddenly RedHat takes one in the neck to the tune of a billion dollars. Suddenly RedHat's way cheaper if he decides to buy it, and if he doesn't, he's managed to cripple a company that he perceives as a competitor.

Who here wasn't surprised by this?

Fucketh not with Larry Ellison, for he has the political and financial will to break everyone but Microsoft and IBM. Hell, I think he rather enjoys exercising it.

If it's anything like their app server...

...Then this will be a shocking wake up call to Oracle. Oracle don't do 'communities' and 'sharing' so well. Most of the best documentation on their products is inside Metalink, hidden away from the prying eyes of the less than 'enterprise' customers. I'm an Oracle DBA, and I think that Oracle Database is a fantastic product, which is ultra reliable, scalable and well thought out. Support is generally pretty good, and it damn well ought to be for $25,000 a CPU! Contrast that with Oracle Application Server which is a buggy, badly supported, badly thought out mesh of acquired code and Oracle 'improvements'. Since it's written in Java, it's quite easy to pull OC4J apart and look at the code if you so desire. We run an enterprise Java application on Oracle application server, and it is a _lot_ of trouble. Try it on AIX, with the IBM JDK. Even more fun to be had there :) The trouble is, Oracle don't know much about Linux really. They don't contribute much to it, and this move is really riding off the back of other people's work. It's more about taking back what Redhat took from them - a decent and popular application server product. Why were they so keen to get hold of Jboss? I think it's proberbly because their existing application server is so shocking... Oracle do some things well, but they don't do community support, sharing, or cheap products. If they truly are looking to take over Redhat, then that will be a sorry day for Linux. I think Oracle have bitten off more than they can chew. I'm sure you'll be able to get 24x7 enterprise support, but it will be offshore, and you'll have to speak to 6 people and an account manager, 6 more people, a customer services representative, fill out a survey and then finally produce a test case to prove that there is a bug in their product, which would be obvious if you could actually speak to a devloper who spent twenty seconds looking at the code. Even IBM do Linux better.

Oracle better at linux??

Where is the data to back Oracle's claim that they are better than Red Hat at supporting linux? The essence of Oracle's claim is that Red Hat has failed to provide true enterprise level support, and now Oracle is going to step in and do it right (and cheaper too).

But remember that CentOS already provides bug fixes and updates for free, so the part about being cheaper is basically irrelevant -- anybody who cares about cost can already get basic support for free with CentOS.

Also remember any good changes Oracle comes up with must be GPL'ed, so Red Hat can pick them up immediately and use them as appropriate. (this is a good thing in both directions!)

So we're really talking here about extended support -- complex problems where you have to pay somebody to care about your twisted problem and help you figure it out in detail.

My experience with both companies is that you have to pay big $$$$ to get anybody to personally care about you in any way -- even a hundred Red Hat licenses don't amount to squat in getting somebody personally involved to help solve your problem, and I have no idea what level of $$$$ you have to pay to get somebody from Oracle to care (at least metalink makes no claims to care about you).

So I rate both companies about equally poor in serving my mid-sized company when complex problems arise.

In terms of interactions we do have, Red Hat seems generally earnest and honest, while Oracle seems arrogant and greedy. We get shaken down by Oracle once per year -- basically the sales guy shows up once a year with a baseball bat aimed at your kneecaps, asks how much you can afford to pay, and then invents some ridiculously large number that we now have to pay.

So the background summary is nobody can do complex support cheap, and in general attitude I prefer Red Hat.

The particular question that comes up here, though, is why would anybody believe Oracle has any specific expertise to support linux at any complex advanced level? This is a hard thing, and Oracle has no demonstrated competence at it... who would bet an enterprise production server on that?

Red Hat has built up its reputation and competence over a dozen years, and devotes 100% of its energies to doing linux well. Oracle has an egomaniac leader whose company has developed exactly one good product (not counting recent acquisitions) and who claims without proof a world class expertise in supporting linux, a task he claims is trivial and therefore clearly does not understand.

Oracle has a long trail of failed initiatives behind it, and this smacks of another -- dabbling in a field where it claims expertise but truly has none.

What big company is going to place a critical bet based solely on Oracle's reputation in a field where Oracle has no expertise? Anybody sensible is going to wait a couple years and see if Oracle can pull this off.

The people trashing Red Hat's stock right now are forgetting that this is a hard business, and Oracle is just a dilettante.

There is nothing magic about Red Hat that makes them a market leader -- the company has simply put in the hard work over the years and developed the expertise and critical mass to be the leading commercial linux distribution and support company. Oracle is not going to out-do Red Hat on any of those points because it's not their core business and never will be.

I predict utter failure for Unbreakable Linux beyond the Oracle software stack -- after a couple years of dismal sales (hello Novell) Oracle will end up supporting linux internally as part of its own bundled software stack.

I can't think o