On 8/13/2010 12:50 PM, Ray Van Dolson wrote:
On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 12:45:10PM -0700, Petros Koutoupis wrote:
I didn't think Oracle had what it takes to really be about open source, this
proves that.
As much as I am disappointed with the end result of this whole
OpenSolaris drama, I still cannot find myself to agree with the above
excerpt. Oracle works heavily with Linux. In fact they are sponsoring
Chris Mason's development of the GPL'd Btrfs file system. They also
developed and GPL'd the OCFS. This is on top of other lesser known
management tools which all are focused toward their Red Hat based
Unbreakable Linux distribution (and in some cases outside of that).
While all of this never defined them as an open source company, they
seem to spend a lot of time and money contributing back to the
community. What the real reason(s) for not wanting to work with
OpenSolaris are....this answer we may never figure out.
Oracle is a big company... what one group does or is able to do may not
be the same as what another group.
Oracle has essentially full control of Solaris, whereas with Linux
being out of their control (yet widely used by their customers) they
need to play within the rules set up there -- which means upstream
contribution and open development...
Ray
OK, let me preface this post with the up-front disclaimer that I in
*absolutely* no way speak for Oracle, nor do I know anything that hasn't
been made public, and that the opinions expressed herein are solely my own.
Ray has pretty much hit things on the head. With the various Linux
projects, Oracle was pretty much *required* to share back, so they
played nicely. With Solaris, the mindset seems to be that "We own this,
so let's make fat bank on a cool technology, and not let others steal
our business".
The unfortunate thing here is that most of the value in an Operating
System is attributable to ADOPTION RATES. That is, the wider the OS is
used, the more revenue potential there is. Now, the per-instance
revenue potential tends to drop off, but the overall revenue ramps up
very noticably.
(note, this post, "OS" = Operating System, not OpenSolaris)
I think someone really, really, really needs to explain to upper
management these things:
(1) Having an open source base / development process is pretty
much a no-lose situation, with only an up side. The likelihood that
other OSes will be able to take advantage of your technology is quite
low (either due to incompatible license, or high barrier to port the
code), and, at best, such other OSes will lag significantly in uptake.
For instance, ZFS is about the only major technology from OpenSolaris
that I can name which has any reasonable adoption in other OSes. The
FreeBSD port of ZFS is *at* *least* 6 months behind that of
OpenSolaris. The Upside of a open development model is that you can get
outside contributions (if you actually want them, and design the
development model appropriately), outside testing, and a radically
higher adoption rate than a closed model.
(2) As a corollary to #1, yes, you might have some competitors
use your source base to build their own produce (cf. Nexenta).
*However*, those competitors actually *help* you, in that they will:
(a) most likely contribute work back to the open development
base that you (Oracle) would not have done
(b) increase the userbase of the OS itself (even if only in
appliances, this increases familiarity with the OS, increasing the sales
recognition, so selling other products based on this OS is simpler)
(c) provide new and innovative products, which enables Oracle
to "test the waters" in various market niches without committing any
Oracle resources (i.e. let someone else do your market testing for you)
(d) be small companies which aren't a serious threat to any
Oracle revenue, relative to their benefit
(e) they are a very big potential source of revenue
themselves, if you want to sell something like a "premium
developer-access support" contract.
(3) Giving away for free BOTH Solaris and OpenSolaris distros
doesn't hurt the bottom line. Period. No lost revenue at all. It
*absolutely* will drive additional revenue to you, particularly from
ISVs and app developers, who will use your product to create their own,
and drive more revenue back to Oracle, in the form of more server and
support contract sales.
(4) As a corollary to #3, making a cheap support option
consisting of security updates & Knowledge Base access only is FREE
MONEY. It costs you virtually nothing (ok, perhaps pennies per
contract), and gives you not only increased userbase (with the attendant
better ISV/appdev attention), but also a reporting base to monitor for
problems (i.e. free QA), and significant incentive for businesses to use
the OS vs other options.
(5) High-cost (and high per-copy profit) niche closed OSes are a
good way to die. OS/400, anyone? For that matter, going the route that
Oracle has mapped out for Solaris is a quick way to turn Solaris into
AIX or HP-UX. That is, anyone see either AIX or HP-UX gaining new
installed base (or getting new apps written for them) these days?
Solaris isn't *that* much superior to either of them (technologically)
to forestall a long slow decline into oblivion if Oracle decides to
radically contract the userbase. Which is what closing it up, and
requiring expensive support contracts for any use will do.
(6) The current model almost certainly guaranties that Solaris
will be abandoned by the Academic community. Once again, I bring up
OS/400, AIX, and HP-UX. Without an introduction to "serious" OSes -
which the academic community by far is the leading provider of - you
lose the next generation of sysadmins, app developers, and tech
managers. If they don't know your product, how are they going to use it
(or be inclined to purchase them?). It's already happening. There are
very few new Solaris SysAdmins under 30. You *have* to make your OS
product known to (and usable by) academia if you want any hope of future
sales. And, academia is requiring Open Source products these days (for
a lot of reasons).
(7) Solaris is not a PRODUCT, it is a PLATFORM. Products you
sell. Platforms you sell things to run *on*.
Frankly, at this point, I'd be all for Oracle spinning out the Solaris
group as a fully-owned subsidiary, responsible for paying its own way.
You'd see Solaris make lots of interesting product/marketing decisions
and far more cash than I think Oracle is going to make with what they're
doing now.
--
Erik Trimble
Java System Support
Mailstop: usca22-123
Phone: x17195
Santa Clara, CA
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