SAP Admits to 'Inappropriate' Downloading of Oracle Code

netbuzz writes "SAP's CEO Henning Kagermann uses the undoubtedly lawyered term 'inappropriate download' to describe the company's questionable actions. Henning blames a rogue business unit, but there can be no mistaking the fact that Oracle caught SAP with its hand in the IP jar on this one. The legal proceedings that will follow should prove interesting. 'The admission hurts SAP's reputation in the battle with Larry Ellison's Oracle in the $56 billion market for software that manages tasks such as payroll. The rivalry between SAP and Oracle escalated when Oracle filed its March 22 lawsuit claiming SAP workers hacked into a Web site and stole software codes on a grand scale.'"

Re:Can I get a consensus opinion?

[johnw]

It's not a question of belief - the term "theft" has a very precise definition, and it doesn't include making unauthorised copies of someone else's software or films, despite what F.A.C.T. and F.A.S.T. would want you to believe.

That doesn't mean that copyright infringement isn't wrong or illegal - it just isn't theft.

Re:Honeypot?

[Vancorps]

This is pretty common practice with Oracle, this is why people pay good money for Metalink access. It's a very valuable tool if you have to work with Oracle products. We used it extensively to get our in-house application working flawlessly with Oracle 10g. There is tons of sample code up there. I doubt they found any actual DBMS code.

Re:Confused

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one confused as to why Oracle would be keeping source code on a production web server?

That is how Oracle sends out updates to it's ERP software. The customer uses a user ID and password to log into a secure site and then the customer is free to download any patch necessary.

Not Source Code

[Anonymous Coward]

There was no source code on the website!
It was Technical Support documents and patches that SAP was downloading. The only "theft" here is that SAP did not have support contracts to download the patches and documents.

Re:Can I get a consensus opinion?

[bobcat7677]

Oh for pete's sake! The article writer obviously had no clue what they were talking about. No "Code" or "codes" were "stolen" or otherwise questionably acquired by SAP. Some guys in a support center used logins that weren't theirs (but they were given permission to use) to gain access to software patches and support documents that Oracle was too stingy to give them access to in the first place. They were just trying to do their job and help out customers. At worst it could be considered trespassing...but "stealing code"??? Thats really stretching the definitions of both the term "code" and the term "stealing".

Re:Can I get a consensus opinion?

[Red Flayer]

SAP & Oracle both provide support for Oracle systems. So, it goes a little deeper than you would suggest, since the patches etc were then further distributed. Furthermore, the code in question went beyond the scope of the support being provided to the client.

The issue here is that SAP used underhanded (and illegal, likely) tactics to derive an advantage over a direct competitor in the support space -- they "stole" trade secrets.

Sure, it doesn't seem like a big deal, but remember that Oracle paid developers to write and test that code -- and SAP got an easy hand up in building similar patches / support mechanisms for what they address.

Summary is slanted - no "hacking" involved...

[Marcika]

The article summary by "netbuzz" is plain flamebait. As TFA says, SAP was authorized to download materials from Oracle's Web site on behalf of customers. The SAP support people made "inappropriate downloads" of fixes and support documents without direct customer need, but they don't state anywhere that there was any hacking or any "stolen" code or "intellectual property" beyond what Oracle specifically made available for support purposes!

Had to happen sometime

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to work for SAP's IT dept. TomorrowNow is a third party support provider for Oracle products, including PeopleSoft and JD Edwards. SAP purchased them to provide a support bridge for products Oracle would be sunsetting, and hopefully bring those customers to SAP's product line as they eventually migrated away from the legacy products.

Clever idea, but this sort of situation was always a concern. How do you provide support for your competitors' products without getting dangerously close to (actual or apparent) IP theft when you need to look something up or do research on those products?

SAP always took that concern very seriously and had very, very strict security policy and access restrictions in place between TN and the rest of the SAP world to try to isolate any exposure. Even still, it always felt (to me, at least) like it was just a matter of time before this happened.

Re:Codes plural?

[IWannaBeAnAC]

It depends on the subculture. In scientific computing and high-performance computing, it is common to refer to programs as 'codes'. This language originates from one of the original supercomputer applications, hydrocodes [afrlhorizons.com].

If you went to the system administrator of a large computing cluster and asked "what codes are you running now?", he would immediately grok that you know what you're talking about. I wouldn't be at all surprised if big iron Oracle people used the same terminology.