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HP Software

HP Announces Support For MySQL, JBoss 139

Chroniton writes "According to InternetNews.com: 'HP stepped up its commitment to open source software Monday by pledging to offer and support the MySQL database server and JBoss application server software in its servers' - it's also mentioned: 'The deal is truly symbiotic. While MySQL and JBoss get backing from a technology driver such as HP, HP gets the added credibility of being cozy with open source, a label many enterprises and HP rivals, such as IBM and Dell, are working toward.'"
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HP Announces Support For MySQL, JBoss

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  • IBM... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 31, 2004 @12:29PM (#9297169)
    a label many enterprises and HP rivals, such as IBM and Dell, are working toward.'"
    IBM is already open source friendly. Dell isn't open source friendly and doesn't seem to be trying either.
    • Re:IBM... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Nuclear Elephant ( 700938 ) on Monday May 31, 2004 @12:37PM (#9297228) Homepage
      Part of HP's plan had better include eliminating the planned obsolescence of their products. You used to have to pay $20 for a new printer for a CD to make it work with other windows versions. The open source community generally doesn't like the idea of having to buy a new printer every time there's a new kernel update (weekly?). HP's screwed us before with their DVD writers and other products...so IMO they've got to do a lot more than support open source to get my business. It would help if they built quality products that weren't designed to be replaced every 6-12 months.
      • Re:IBM... (Score:3, Informative)

        by Wise Dragon ( 71071 )
        > It would help if they built quality products that weren't designed to be replaced every 6-12 months.

        They do, in their business line of printers. Consumers don't really want stuff that will last forever, they want to have the latest and greatest of almost everything, not just computer hardware. Businesses want reliability and ROI.

        > HP's screwed us before with their DVD writers and other products...

        I was curious about this so I checked to see if you can use open source tools to write to HP dvd

        • Re:IBM... (Score:2, Insightful)

          Consumers IMO deserve printers that will last more than a year. There's a difference between a consumer product and something that's just cheap. With regards to the DVD writers, HP promised all of their customers that they'd be able to upgrade the firmware on their first generation writers to support DVD+RW when it was available. When it did become available, they erased a bunch of documentation from their website, denied they ever said it, and made people buy new writers. I've seen this same tactic used in
        • So if you don't mind, please elaborate on the alleged screwing that took place.

          My last two HP experiences.

          I bought HP's i100 DVD burner, thinking I could use it to build bootable ghost images for a collection of demo laptops. Boy was I wrong. Using a dozen brands of media, I found only a couple DVD drives that could even read the (data only) media, much less boot from one. They also claimed (in the website info, later removed) it could handle some other media types. For the update? They wanted $100
          • I found out there was a class action lawsuit regarding just the problem you experienced. I can't seem to find many details, but apparently the terms of the settlement are that HP will upgrade you to a 200i for free if you were misled. Link [bigclassaction.com]
      • The open source community generally doesn't like the idea of having to buy a new printer every time there's a new kernel update

        But having to upgrade the kernel to use a new driver is allright? Why should drivers come with the kernel anyway?
        • But having to upgrade the kernel to use a new driver is allright? Why should drivers come with the kernel anyway?

          Errr... they don't. You just have to add in the driver. You don't even have to add it to the kernel to use it, and if you do choose to add it you don't even have to restart.
          • May I know little about the Linux kernel but some motherboard at work required a driver that comes with a newer kernel than we use. And I had recompiled other drivers so them works with our kernel. I'm talking just the standard Redhat 8.0 kernel.
            So to me looks that some drivers source come within the kernel or are in the source tree at least which doesn't make sense for a network card. And drivers who doesn't aren't even binary compatible between kernel versions. May be some Linux hacker could explain this
    • >>Dell isn't open source friendly and doesn't seem to be trying either.

      It figures an AC would say that: http://linux.dell.com/ [dell.com]
      • Re:IBM... (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        It figures an AC would say that: http://linux.dell.com/
        Just making a front on your website saying you support Linux doesn't make it so. I own a Dell Laptop, I've requested many times to have correct Linux drivers for my video card, Dell has not complied. If you had actually bothered to visit the Dell support forums for Linux you would have found a large group of unhappy and frustrated Linux users that had the misfortune of purchasing a Dell.
        Good Day.
        • Are you sure it's dell's fault that you can't get the drivers, rather than the graphics card manufacturer's fault? I've had all sorts of problems getting a driver for my Radeon IGP in Windows, as ATI and HP kept bouncing me back and forth, each saying the other would provide me with the drivers, and that's nothing compared with all the hoops I had to jump through to get a driver that supports DRI in Linux. Even when I did find a driver, it was an unofficial one.
          • Re:IBM... (Score:1, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward
            In my particular case, Dell broke the working video card drivers by hard setting video ram in the Bios to 1Meg. Intel, the maker of the video card was not at fault for this and the video card would have worked had Dell not broken the existing bios. Appearantly Dell went out of the way to make my Insipiron incompatible with Linux.
    • Re:IBM... (Score:3, Funny)

      by chabotc ( 22496 )
      Actually i would call Dell pretty open source friendly. For the longest time they have supported and developed drivers for their PowerEdge servers (and sold those with linux installed and supported before IBM announced it's new linux strategy), and offered Linux server and pre-installed (and supported) Oracle on linux servers. Also they have supplied some of the major tv networks here in the netherlands with mpg storage and play back servers..

      No they are not a software development company, so they are not
    • Re:IBM... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by BiggerIsBetter ( 682164 ) on Monday May 31, 2004 @01:31PM (#9297487)
      IBM is already very very very open source friendly. Sounds like HP is just jumping on the bandwagon. Selling support for OSS software isn't really "cozy" either - it's just leaching onto a growing market share. Call me when they start contributing to the code in a meaningful way, or helping folks no IRC.
    • Actually, I'd say Dell is as Open Source friendly as they can be, but only on servers. They have their own developer working on drivers for things like RAID controllers and such.

      On the desktop, however, they are at best luke warm towards open source. And funnily enough, their recent desktop systems also seem to have a problem running Microsoft's Virtual PC software as well.
  • by Nuclear Elephant ( 700938 ) on Monday May 31, 2004 @12:30PM (#9297172) Homepage
    I don't know if this has anything to do with HP's new plan for open source, but they seem to have a new web crawler that is beating on websites hosting open-source software and ignoring (not even requesting) the robots.txt file they're supposed to leash themselves to. I've noticed this on about 3 different websites and we've had to blackhole their address space indefinitely.
    • While this might be true, the poster doesn't offer any proof. Some proof please?
    • by Anonymous Coward
      1. I don't know if this has anything to do with HP's new plan for open source, but they seem to have a new web crawler that is beating on websites hosting open-source software and ignoring (not even requesting) the robots.txt file they're supposed to leash themselves to. I've noticed this on about 3 different websites and we've had to blackhole their address space indefinitely.

      Why not put in a poison pill page that is not referenced in robots.txt and is linked with human readable text like "this is a link

  • PostgreSQL? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by danharan ( 714822 ) on Monday May 31, 2004 @12:30PM (#9297173) Journal
    Great news, but...

    Anyone know why MySQL as opposed to a more standards-compliant db like PG?
    • Re:PostgreSQL? (Score:3, Insightful)

      Public relations?
      MySQL is practically a household name compared to Postgres.
      • by Nuclear Elephant ( 700938 ) on Monday May 31, 2004 @12:43PM (#9297256) Homepage
        MySQL is practically a household name compared to Postgres.

        Yeah just the other day my grandmother asked me to pass the MySQL at the dinner table. And I heard a knock at the door, and when I answered it there were three Jehova witnesses trying to convince me to upgrade to 4.x
      • Flamebait? No.
        For the record, i use PostgreSQL.
        • Yours answer was a fair point, and I didn't take it as flamebait.

          My question was asked honestly, but it seems some mods can't tell the difference, and one modded me a troll. oh well... :)
      • Have been puzzled over this, too, as I'm a great fan of Postgres (and don't use MySQL at all, any more). What I wonder is, could it be license related?

        Seriously. People moan about the same thing when it comes to Linux vs the BSDs. Why is Linux SO much more popular? Well, in the case of the database wars, MySQL is LGPL and Postgres is BSD licensed. It's just too similar a corelation to ignore.

        My own sense of value says: If I were to contribute code/support/religious-zeal to a project, I would want t
    • Re:PostgreSQL? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rtaylor ( 70602 ) on Monday May 31, 2004 @12:42PM (#9297251) Homepage
      It's difficult to partner with PG as there is not a controlling company. Both MySQL and JBoss have firms which will train HP freely and perhaps even take on part of the load in return for commercial contracts.

      With PG they're basically stuck trying to learn it themselves. RedHat would train HP, but RedHat doesn't want to be known for offerring PostgreSQL support since Oracle didn't like RedHat Database competition very much.
      • What about PostgreSQL, Inc. [pgsql.com]? Check out their support services. And their current partners list [postgresql.org] shows a relationship with redhat.
        • All due respect for PostgreSQL Inc. but HP doesn't want to rely on that company.

          Fujitsu and Software Research Associates both fund PostgreSQL development in Japan and would make good partners for HP for a venture of this type -- but many of the knowedgable callcentre workers do not speak English (SRA). Fujitsu is making some inhouse modifications in the storage manager, it seems based on their questions, which would prevent an our of the box bundle.

          Besides, (conjecturing) I'm wondering that Fujitsu doesn'
          • All due respect for PostgreSQL Inc. but HP doesn't want to rely on that company.

            Sorry, I should say why. PostgreSQL Inc. is great for small shops looking for knowledgable support via phone or email at a good price, but PG Inc. has their hands full with their .org (Affilias) contracts to take on other big jobs.

            No, most of what Affilias requests is not tech support. PG Inc. writes Affilias a number of tools to enable them to do their work better and faster.

      • Re:PostgreSQL? (Score:3, Informative)

        by Sxooter ( 29722 )

        It's difficult to partner with PG as there is not a controlling company.

        I'm sorry, but I just disagree on this. While there is no one company to partner with financially, there certainly is a single controlling group known as the "PostgreSQL Global Development Group" or PGDG.

        Much like the Apache Group, the PGDG is the group that's the head mofos in charge. Their website is developer.postgresql.org [postgresql.org]

        Much like the Apache Group, the PGDG is made up of the key developers, each sponsored in one way or

    • Anyone know why MySQL as opposed to a more standards-compliant db like PG?

      I'm guessing it's for buzzword-compliance. It wouldn't be much work for them to support, since it's so simple, and they just want to tick the "open source database" box. But the sort of people who buy HP-UX kit are more likely to want to run something like SAP/DB, an open source database that is truly industrial-grade, or PostgreSQL as you say.
    • It's just the name, it's like Nike training shoes, Cocal Cola and Microsoft Windows. They might all be crap, but they're what people have heared of and are already using. It's a populist move.
    • Re:PostgreSQL? (Score:5, Informative)

      by jamiebecker ( 160558 ) on Monday May 31, 2004 @03:31PM (#9298111)
      I'd like to respond to this without starting a PG vs MySQL flamewar.

      I'm well aware of many advantages that PostgreSQL offers over MySQL (e.g., nearly full SQL92 support, stored procedures in many languages, "object-oriented" storage, views, triggers, etc) and also the performance advantage that MySQL enjoys over PostgreSQL for some operations.

      We've chosen MySQL over Postgresql because that is what our enterprise customers have requested. If we have sufficient interest in Postgresql, it will definitely move up on the roadmap.

      Jamie Becker
      Project Manager
      HP Open Source Reference Architecture
      HP Services
      jamieson dot becker at hp dot com
      • I suppose that it's OK to support something like mySQL, which is so clearly inferior to PostgreSQL, if such support is demanded.

        However, if clients are asking for advice, are you telling them to go with mySQL because that's what they want to hear? Or are you leveling with them and telling them that PostgreSQL is far, far better?
      • well, we have a payroll and a corporate portal running on postgresql on the company i work for, and as an independent consultant i have developed three or four of apps with postgresql.

        i've experimented a little with mysql, but my feeling it is not as powerful as postgresql, so i don't considered it in my projects.

        greetings
      • The other advantage is the licensing. With Postgresql it's pretty clear what you can or cannot do. Esp as a system integrator or application dev.

    • I've never really used PostgreSQL, but I've seen some stuff from it. There is nothing I need to do in PostgreSQL that I can't do with MySQL, so I don't really bother.
    • Simple, really. People who want PostgreSQL aren't as likely to be the people who need HP to hold their hands. They either are old hands and build form source, or they can just use the RPM bundled with whatever distro they are using.

      Plus, PostgreSQL still presents a higher maintenance load and learning curve for most people. While PostgreSQL has made great strides in being relatively maintenance free for joe average user, it still requires a little more than a passing knowledge of what you're doing to ke
  • by Anonymous Coward
    ...doesn't seem like the best way to make the open source community trust you...
  • by captainclever ( 568610 ) <rj@NoSPAm.audioscrobbler.com> on Monday May 31, 2004 @12:31PM (#9297184) Homepage
    Wow, the story mentioned JBoss.
    I know from experience that JBoss is the absolute BEST bit of software out there, it's so great. I can't recommend it enough. It's soooo much better than the competition..

    Ahem.. :)
  • by damieng ( 230610 ) on Monday May 31, 2004 @12:31PM (#9297187) Homepage Journal
    If anybody's interested - both JBoss and MySQL ship as part of OS X Server (as well as a few other open-source products [apple.com]).
  • HP support (Score:5, Interesting)

    by KoriaDesevis ( 781774 ) <koriadesevis.yahoo@com> on Monday May 31, 2004 @12:32PM (#9297190) Journal

    The article states that HP is giving testing and hardware support to these packages, and I assume that means they'll come up with a nifty little logo to show that it's "HP-Ready"... While that's all well and good, will they offer third-party technical support to users when these packages crash on HP servers? If not, who gets left holding the bag? If it were not open source, it would be cut and dry, but with the packages being open source and freely available, the issue of technical support gets blurred. The article didn't go into this fine point.

    • Re:HP support (Score:2, Informative)

      by Bickel ( 784388 )
      In addition to certifying a stack of software - RedHat, SUSE, JRockit, JBoss, MySQL - HP will be delivering integrated support and implementation services. This means a customer can but everything from HP, and HP will provide the first level of support to JBoss and MySQL and escalate issues to JBoss, Inc. and MySQL AB if needed as part of the JBoss and MySQL support contracts. Some customers may prefer this to buying separately and contacting separately HP, JBoss and MySQL - but you can still do that if y
      • Agreed. HP provides first level support for anything certified by HP.

        Jamie Becker
        Project Manager
        HP Open Source Reference Architecture
        HP Services
        jamieson dot becker at hp dot com
  • Dual Licensing (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Maybe HP can get the licensing changed to GPL only on MySQL. And LGPL on the client libs.

    That would be a helpful contribution.
  • by fastdecade ( 179638 ) on Monday May 31, 2004 @12:37PM (#9297225)
    I don't read much into this.

    HP has always jumped back, forth, and sideways in their "embracing" strategies. One day, they'll promote Java, the next day you'll hear nothing about it. Same with Linux. Compare that to IBM - they have a strong, consistent, stance on both Java and Linux.

    Part of this inconsistency is likely due to politics behind the Compaq merger. But it's gone on longer than that - for example, whatever happened to all their embedded consumer devices (I think it was branded "cool city")? All this indicates HP has big political problems, which is causing it to lack any direction.
    • by Anonymous Coward
      no, the inconsistency comes from the fact that the only one profitable part of HP's business is selling ink.
    • whatever happened to all their embedded consumer devices (I think it was branded "cool city")?

      Cooltown was (and perhaps is, although the web site [hp.com] seems to have been diverted toward another program) a research project, not a product line, generally looking at interesting uses for web-connected mobile devices. (But it's probably fair to say the research hasn't obviously engendered a swarm of web-connected mobile device products from HP.)

    • We've been developing this solution stack with major customers since late 2003.

      This architecture offers a reference architecture initially aimed at supporting Java and Jabber applications on Linux. Python, JPython, Perl, and PHP development support are planned for the next release.

      Jamie Becker
      Project Manager
      HP Open Source Reference Architecture
      HP Services
      jamieson dot becker at hp dot com
  • by daveschroeder ( 516195 ) * on Monday May 31, 2004 @12:39PM (#9297241)
    Apple already ships MySQL and JBoss [apple.com] with Mac OS X Server, and supports basic use (e.g., enabling, basic use) via free support channels, or advanced support of any aspect via Mac OS X Server Software Support [apple.com] products.
  • HP? (Score:5, Informative)

    by turgid ( 580780 ) on Monday May 31, 2004 @12:48PM (#9297285) Journal
    I can't understand why anyone would buy anything from HP when you can get exactly the same stuff from Dell [dell.com] at about 60% of the price. HP sales staff suck. They couldn't care less about your order. Dell will have you quoted up to your satisfation, and the stuff shipped to the right address withing 2-3 days. HP takes about 6 weeks, charges you more, gets your order wrong, blames you and then charges you more to put it right.

    I for one will not be buying from HP ever again, except maybe for laser printers...

  • by MosesJones ( 55544 ) on Monday May 31, 2004 @12:50PM (#9297288) Homepage

    IBM have WebSphere and DB2

    Oracle have 10gAS and Oracle 10g

    SAP have Netweaver and SapDB

    Microsoft have .NET and SQLServer.

    HP abandoned their old App Server and have worked out how to get good mindshare for low investment on a new one.

    Pretty smart move by HP as it puts them back in the "solutions" market and tied in with their SI business means they have a real opportunity in the custom build market.

    • by turgid ( 580780 ) on Monday May 31, 2004 @12:52PM (#9297299) Journal
      Pretty smart move by HP as it puts them back in the "solutions" market and tied in with their SI business means they have a real opportunity in the custom build market.

      Er no, HP have now painted themselves into a corner at the bottom of the low end. All the other big companies must be laughing all the way to the bank. Nice one again HP.

      • I think you are right on the money here. HP embarassed themselves with their indecision on Bluestone. Selecting MySQL and JBoss does not inspire confidence that HP will be a factor in the services market with the big players which is where the real money is these days, both MySQL and JBoss lack serious enterprise grunt. Also if you are looking to build a reputation JBoss might be a tad on the volatile side.

        It seems a strange choice that given their resources HP could have taken stewardship of other serv
        • One of the new execs at JBoss is Bob Bickel. Bob Bickel was VP or something or other at Bluestone and then worked at HP (forgot title) when HP aquired Bluestone.

          I had worked with Bluestone a lot. Really great product and company. It was a shame to see HP not carry through with it. Don't really know much about Fluery but Bob's always seemed like a nice guy.

          Just wanted to point out the relationship between JBoss and HP that exists.

    • HP continues to have an extremely strong partnership with both Oracle and Microsoft. This stack is an open source stack specifically designed to meet the needs of customers that are looking for an open source platform and are willing to forego some performance and administrative benefits to get there. There are valid advantages to each platform.

      Jamie Becker
      Project Manager
      HP Open Source Reference Architecture
      HP Services
      jamieson dot becker at hp dot com
  • by SpamJunkie ( 557825 ) on Monday May 31, 2004 @01:00PM (#9297341)
    This is obviously a sign that they've found a cure for that pox upon the tech sector, NIHS or Not Invented Here Syndrome. I estimate, based on absolutely no data, that NIHS costs the US economy billions of dollars.

    HP showed signs of beating NIHS with their iPod deal with Apple. With this announcement they have shown that they have a cure for NIHS, at least in some quantity.

    People and corporations with NIHS, unlike normal people, have an unfounded fear of technologies they didn't invent. It is related to paranoid dylusion. Countless hours and money is spent recreating technology that has already been inveted by someone else.

    It is yet to be seen if HP will sell their NIHS cure to other companies or keep it for themselves as a competitive edge. However, even if they do decide to sell the cure it is likely that most people and corporations will fear the NIHS cure and attempt to create their own.
    • by turgid ( 580780 ) on Monday May 31, 2004 @01:03PM (#9297362) Journal
      What HP is showing is that they're the Microsoft of the hardware world. Rather than investing in R&D to develop new stuff, they'll wait until someone else takes the lead, maybe loses their shirt and then copy them with a slightly inferior but more conformist product.

      In my day HP was like DEC, IBM and other great.respected corporations. Then they got Carly and it all went downhill...

      • Just to point out the obvious, HP was DEC. DEC was bought out by compaq who then merged with HP. Those compaq proliant servers? Rebadged digitals. The hp branded monitor and keyboard that I'm sitting at right now are identical to the compaq monitor and keyboard a couple of desks over, just the brand has changed (the model numbers are still the same)

        The hp compaq d530 I'm using is pretty nice though - P4 2.8G, pity it's running NT4 (as is still the corporate standard here).
    • > I estimate, based on absolutely no data, that NIHS
      > costs the US economy billions of dollars.

      and on the opposite end of the spectrum you've got "Invented Here Syndrome" (IHS) - in which companies are sure that commercial applications are 1000s of times better than custom-developed ones.

      These companies have plenty of CS skills, but due mainly to their inability to run a project have convinced themselves their their programmers suck, and that real products are 'bought' rather than 'built'. They fai
  • by aixguru1 ( 671173 ) <jdsfrakes@gmail.com> on Monday May 31, 2004 @02:22PM (#9297750)
    Come on folks, look at the bigger picture. Look at the two projects they are going to support, MySQL, and JBoss.

    Now look at their competitors products (IBM) Websphere and DB2 products. The reasons have to be more than just jumping on the bandwagon with open source. IBM has two products that are similar to the exact two projects HP chose to help.

    All is fair in business, but HP isn't going to throw money at projects just to claim they are on the open source bandwagon. I believe the direct intent is to improve MySQL and JBoss to go head to head with IBM on this one.
    • > I believe the direct intent is to improve MySQL and
      > JBoss to go head to head with IBM on this one.

      head to head? not a chance: while jboss & mysql have their merits, they are not direct competitors to websphere & db2. That's like comparing bikes to motorcycles, cars to trucks, etc, etc.

      Head to head would have involved a huge reseller's discount on selling WebLogic & Oracle. This is more like a quick & dirty move to get something into that solutions category.
  • by jamiebecker ( 160558 ) on Monday May 31, 2004 @03:49PM (#9298210)
    I'd be happy to respond to questions about this supported and certified architecture that may not be answered in this article.

    Jamie Becker
    Project Manager
    HP Open Source Linux Reference Architecture
    HP Services
    jamieson dot becker at hp dot com
  • Was it HP that backed out of the funding deal?
  • my 2 cents (Score:2, Insightful)

    by MasTRE ( 588396 )
    IBM is already into OSS in a big way, was Chroniton born yesterday?

    HP is (was?) an innovator, Dell is.. well, like McDonald's, sorta. Doesn't taste that good, isn't as cheap as it should be, given the quality (or lack thereof). But thru marketing you always hear of them, and lots of people simply buy their [usually inferior] products.

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