RSSOracle Considering Own Linux Version
By Nate Mook | Published April 17, 2006, 11:08 AM
Oracle, most known for its database software, is considering whether to release its own Linux distribution, and has even discussed the possibility of buying Novell in the process. The news, revealed Monday by the Financial Times, follows the purchase of JBoss by Red Hat.
With JBoss providing software that competes in the business market with Oracle, Red Hat has become a potential rival. Red Hat is the largest distributor of the Linux operating system, which Oracle relies upon to sell its own products. "We have to re-look at the relationship; so does IBM," Oracle CEO Larry Ellison told the FT.
Along with IBM, Oracle has long embraced the open source world as a way to compete with Microsoft's dominance on Windows. Microsoft's SQL Server is a top competitor to Oracle, and the companies have a number of overlapping products.
However, in the process, Oracle has become reliant on third party Linux vendors, which have increasingly been expanding into business solutions as a way to raise revenues.
"I'd like to have a complete stack," Ellison said, referring to both applications and the operating system they run on. "We're missing an operating system. You could argue that it makes a lot of sense for us to look at distributing and supporting Linux."
According to the FT report, Oracle has even considered acquiring Novell, the second largest Linux vendor thanks to its purchase of SUSE. But at this point, such talk is merely explorative, Ellison says.
Oracle + Novell.
The blind leading the stupid.
Carry on with great exuberance!
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|MINUMUM System requirements for HOME system:
8 2.4GHz 64bit dual core CPUs (w/ 8 CPU licenses)
32GB RAM
Fully meshed SAN (Dual homed across redundant backplanes)
60GB RAID 1+0 (18GB 15k spindles) /log
30GB RAID 1+0 (18GB 15k spindles) /var
100GB RAID 5+0 (18GB 15k spindles) /
100MB /boot (heh)
5000GB RAID 5+0 (72GB 15k spindles) /home
Sysadmin to tune kernel, + DBA to tune oracle err I mean /proc (Available from Oracle consulting services)
Just kidding folks heh
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|Instead of thinking of buying Novell, why don't they just come right out and make an offer for Redhat? Surely at what Oracle charges for licensing they can afford it? I just hope that any error messages generated in their version of Linux aren't preceded by an 'ORA' prefix. I shiver when I see them in Oracle products as it is, would have to shoot any Linux-based servers they sell that display those.
It would be very interesting to see what Microsoft and IBM would do, if Oracle does offer their own OS, though Oracle would also have to write/buy a collaboration environment like Notes or Exchange to REALLY get at either of them :)
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|This would be a good idea for Oracle. Do you guys use Oracle databases at work? I see tons of SQL Server but Oracle seems to be dying.
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|M&A can and will make linux better.
it is going to be lot better to have 5-6 flavour's of linux rather than hundreds to choose from
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|altho the kernel is the same i'd much rather use an Oracle release of linux over red hat any day ... that'd be almost like using a cisco router over a dlink :P ....
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|Would be more like using a dlink router with a cisco logo on it, imho.
If they want a good OS, why don't they roll their own release of BSD, save themselves some money and have a better product.
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|Perhaps because BSD is not a better product.
That was just too easy LOL
How many companies are behind BSD?
Oh, right.
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|I don't know...maybe Apple? considering OSX is based on BSD.
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|BSD has even worse hardware support than Linux. Here's one glaring example: even though the IA32 FreeBSD OS supports Atheros based wireless network adapters the Atheros driver is STILL missing from the AMD64 (64-bit) version of FreeBSD.
At least 32-bit IA32 and 64-bit AMD64 versions of Linux have identical hardware support.
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|That's I don't know ... maybe *1* company?
They don't "support" BSD, they used a MACH kernel, and re-released the source.
By support BSD, I mean build commercial enterprise software for BSD like Oracle.
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|makes a lot of sense.
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