[CLUE-Talk] Upcoming Oracle presentations question

[Nate Duehr]

On Mar 2, 2004, at 11:02 PM, Jeff Cann wrote:

> On Tuesday 02 March 2004 8:19 pm, Nate Duehr wrote:
>
>>> No I didn't miss that part at all - we're talking about SUPPORT not 
>>> what
>> you can LOAD it on.  If you call Oracle and tell them you're working 
>> on a
>> problem on Debian servers, they'll try to help, but any really 
>> difficult
>> problems arise -- they'll tell you to pound sand.
>
> OK, I understand that you're wanting support from Oracle - I must have 
> missed
> it previously.

Well, not me personally -- I just see Oracle claiming to support 
"Linux", but they really don't.  They support the companies that make 
up RedHat and UnitedLinux.  Linux has earned a good name for itself, 
and a lot of commercial software companies say they provide "Linux" 
support when they really only support certain Linux'es.

> But, now I'm confused - since you think support on the net is as good 
> / better
> than Oracle (and I agree), then why do you care if it is not supported 
> on
> Debian?  If you can run it on Debian, then do it.  No one's stopping 
> you.
> Plus, at the outrageous rates Oracle charges for support (which you 
> don't
> need) why worry about it?

Um, I never claimed support from the Net was better.  There were some 
posts from someone else about how Oracle couldn't support a distro 
who's main source of support was the Net via newsgroups, etc.

On the question of "why do you care"... that one goes back to something 
another poster said: If an engineer were to spec out Debian/Oracle as 
their chosen platform for a solution to a problem, their boss would 
probably not be comfortable with that -- not because of any engineering 
or technical reason, but because Oracle would immediately say "not 
supported".  It's that "not supported" I challenge -- Why?

>> I'm sure "money talks" here... if you had 200 machines with licensed 
>> copies
>> of their database product on them running Debian, they'd be more 
>> likely to
>> help you anyway.
>>
>> You're being an apologist for them when true engineering and logic 
>> show
>> that those "enterprise class" distros use the exact same kernel code 
>> the
>> others do.
>
> I'm not an oracle apologist.  I'm just countering some other post 
> saying that
> Oracle *runs* only on Red Hat.  Which is not true (and not what you 
> said -
> but another poster did)...

Yeah, understood.  Even in the Linux community there are so many that 
believe that there are really differences between the distros, it's 
amazing.  (And thus, distro flamewars.)

> For all I care, Oracle can drop off the face of the earth and my 
> projects are
> unaffected.  Oracle's software is overpriced and their support is weak 
> and I
> refuse to purchase it - even though it does run on Linux.

LOL... well, I have to admit, other than my last job where Oracle was 
used heavily I rarely see much use for it in my personal projects or 
work projects either.  It has some very interesting capabilities as a 
database, but rarely will a well-designed system need them.

>> My theory?  The QA manager at Oracle doesn't have enough experience 
>> with
>> Linux to realize there's no difference.
>
> If you mean the kernel, then yes there are no real differences (except 
> the
> kernel tweaks required by Oracle to run on Linux).  Unfortunately, 
> Oracle
> executables are linked at installation time.  Since not all Linux
> distributions put the shared object libraries in the same filesystem
> locations, it *is* a matter of differences between the distributions.

That's what the ever-so-hyped FHS was for.  And distros that follow the 
FHS never saw the gains supposedly provided by it.  In addition, 
Debian's release cycle is so slow, Oracle could *easily* support 
anything they've done in a non-standard location, which by looking over 
some of those newsgroup-support and websites about how to run Oracle on 
Debian, shows that the changes are exceedingly minor.

>> So like thousands of clueless
>> newbies who used to install RH on their home machines because "RedHat 
>> =
>> Linux", they make the same uneducated decision... and the person that 
>> made
>> that decision feels justified in it because they "mitigated risk" that
>> simply wasn't there in the first place, but their limited experience 
>> with
>> Linux limited their decision.
>
> Given that Oracle was one of the first database shops to support Linux 
> (4
> years ago), I don't think you're accurately portraying their 
> decisions.  This
> is a company that runs *all* of internal databases on the Linux 
> operating
> system.

That's interesting.  I didn't know that.  Where do their competition 
stand today?  DB2 for Linux I assume is available and supported.  (Just 
a guess there.)  Does IBM limit the distros it supports DB2 on?  After 
IBM's purchase of Informix, is/was there ever a Linux version of that?

> Finally, in that FAQ I posted they stated plainly that they will look 
> to
> support other Linux distributions in the future.  Perhaps more people 
> will
> ask for Debian support from Oracle.

I hope so.  But really my point was people should ask for Linux support 
overall from Oracle and not support for some distro.  It's simple for 
Oracle's installation software to do some searching on the filesystem 
for things it wants in the linker step later on.  Linux "enthusiasts" 
honk the horn of a particular distro.  Linux professionals realize the 
differences between the distros are slight and ask that companies just 
"support Linux if they're going to say they support it."  I guess 
that's the point I've been trying to make all along.

> My opinion is that Debian probably won't be supported because there is 
> no
> company backing Debian.  Oracle wants to deal with companies like SuSE 
> and
> Red Hat -- they build partnerships to sell more products.  Who's 
> selling
> Debian?  No one, so why would Oracle support it?

And in this, I think you're right.  Oracle as a company doesn't know 
HOW to deal with a non-entity that produces a high-quality OS platform. 
  So open-source and Free software still have a long way to go... ten 
years ago the arguments against Linux were techincal ones... "It just 
doesn't work quite right yet."  Today, the arguments against full 
support of Linux are social ones.  Of course, to a company like Oracle 
(or anyone else) both of those tie back to economics.

Linux is making progress!  Now the leading edge of awareness is in 
getting companies like Oracle to find some clue when it comes to 
distros -- Linux is Linux.  It'll take a while, and some brave folks 
willing to run a large site on something like Debian/Oracle and then to 
demand support for the product they've paid for... but it'll get there.

Nate Duehr, nate at natetech.com