Is It War Between Oracle and Red Hat?
The database giant Oracle recently announced plans to provide support for its own enterprise-level version of Linux. The Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)–based distribution will be called Oracle Unbreakable Linux. While it's completely legal to take RHEL code, remove all trademarks, and re-distribute it or support it, this huge move by Oracle has raised quite a fuss in the industry.
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison has stated that Oracle will support its own version by offering fixes for bugs on past, present, and future releases of Linux. The company has also stated that support will cost less than what Red Hat is offering customers. Oracle's president, Charles Philips, is quoted as saying, "Oracle's Unbreakable Linux program is available to all Linux users for as low as $99 per system per year." This price for support is for network support only. For folks looking at 24x7 support costs, plan on $399 per year for a dual CPU machine and $999 per year for unlimited CPUs.
Oracle is claiming to offer compatibility between its version of the OS and RHEL, meaning that when a new version of RHEL is released, Oracle will re-spin its code to follow suit. Corporations such as IBM, Dell, Intel, and HP have already shown support for the goals involved with Oracle's new business adventure, but opinions vary across the board.
Red Hat has answered Oracle's announcements with vengeance. It has titled its Web page "unfakeable" (note the URL), which makes quite a statement toward Oracle. The page answers many questions on topics such as hardware, software, and source code compatibility, along with indemnification and security. Red Hat has stated that Oracle will fork the source code, which will "result in a different code base than Red Hat Enterprise Linux."
One of Red Hat's major concerns is the fact that Oracle customers may now be able to have a one-stop shop for database and OS support. In other words, when your OS stops responding, you need only place one service call to Oracle for a repair, instead of the OS being supported by one vendor and the database (or other software) being supported by a different vendor.
Even with Red Hat recently experiencing a big slump in its stock and Oracle promising to undercut support costs and offering top-notch support to customers, well-known Linspire CEO Kevin Carmony doesn't think there's a need for Red Hat to panic quite yet.
In a recent Linspire Letter, Carmony stated, "Since when has Oracle been interested in saving IT departments money? Since when has Oracle been known for offering quality support?" He then went on to cite a CIO Insight Survey in which Red Hat has been ranked #1 for two years running. Carmony said, "Where is Oracle? This year, they were at #39! This is even worse than Microsoft at #31." Although Linspire isn't a Red Hat derivative, Carmony went on to note he purchased Red Hat stock recently.
It'll prove interesting to see what develops over the course of the next few months between these two software corporations. Is it a war? Not exactly because both Red Hat and Oracle plan to play nice in working on JBoss and middleware subscriptions for Oracle-based products and in supporting joint customers, which is a wise move on both of their parts; customers should always come first.
Microsoft and Novell Holding Hands
The announcement of a deal between Microsoft and Novell sent shock waves through the IT community in the past few weeks. Some may find it hard to fathom Microsoft being interested in the open-source software world. After all, why would Microsoft even consider open source, especially with all the FUD it usually rains down on the masses about Microsoft being superior to enterprise and desktop Linux. To boot, Novell even sued Microsoft over antitrust violations back in 2004.
The deal struck between the two basically assures each other's customers protection from lawsuits from either party. Novell won't sue Microsoft, and Microsoft won't sue Novell for possible patent infringements—for a small fee, of course. Both parties will have to make up-front payments to one another, and then Novell will also make royalty payments based on its revenue generated from open-source products.
Another aspect of the deal incorporates a guaranteed collaboration on improving virtualization technologies between both Windows and Linux. With this, Microsoft and Novell are addressing the mixed environments of data centers deploying both types of systems. Another virtualization issue between the two is how to successfully provide management tools between each other.
A few other projects mentioned on Novell's Joint letter to the Open Source Community include work in both the Office Open XML and the OpenOffice Open Document Format (ODF) as well as future collaboration frameworks. Both companies maintain plans to locate a research laboratory that is of equal distance between Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Washington, and Novell's headquarters in Provo, Utah.
Obviously, Novell is excited about this deal, but many others in the industry are scratching their heads and wondering why Novell has entered into such a proposition with rival Microsoft. Steve Ballmer invited other competing Linux vendors, such as Red Hat, to the table to conjure up deals as well.
Red Hat immediately flipped Microsoft the proverbial bird with a very candid response: "An innovation tax is unthinkable." Red Hat's We believe...Web page goes on to explain the company's beliefs in customer service assurance programs and its patent promises to its customer base.
We all know that Microsoft's own updates frequently indicate that Microsoft is not genuine, but what about when it comes to the open-source world? Is Microsoft truly interested in promoting interoperability, or are its selfish intentions just being masked until a later date? Will this thwart or provide growth to Novell in the future?
There seems to be a broad range of answers to these questions, and unfortunately only time will uncover Microsoft's true intentions. Mostly, the industry is on the defense for fear of Microsoft's usual lack of respect and trust toward open source. For instance, I recently ran across a company thinking about deploying several new servers in its data center with SUSE Enterprise. Since Novell's announcement, however, the company has said that Novell made the decision for them by siding with Microsoft, and they are going with another vendor.
Fortunately for some of you, this deal does not directly pertain, since the deal is only between the corporations of Novell and Microsoft, thus affecting only its own customer bases. What happens if or when Microsoft decides to sue Red Hat or other Linux vendors remains to be seen. Is this the beginning of interoperability between proprietary and open-source software? I'm skeptical, so buyers beware....
Max Hetrick is a PC Support Analyst/Specialist who holds a certification as an MCSA. He also has experience with installation and maintenance of Linux operating systems from the PC to server levels. Max can be reached at
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