Robin Hood Linux v. Unfakeable Linux (was: GNU licenses)

[Alexander Terekhov]

http://www.redhat.com/ -> redhat.com/promo/unfakeable/

Now, here's nice commentary (the best part being "And isn't it great that 
someone can take the Fedora -> RHEL model, where RH profits from work 
done by others (open source community, in RH's case) and make it work for 
the enterprise customer (RHEL -> UL) while profiting only from the rich. 
Unbreakable Linux = Robin Hood Linux :-)"). LOL.

http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=202726&cid=16594350

-------
That Unfakeable page is act of desperation...

Red Hat spreading FUD about another open source product, how noble! And
let's not forget how they sent that cease-and-desist letter for CentOS
for stating they're based on RHEL...

Let's see what they have to say:

Q: Does Oracle's announcement include support for the Red Hat
Application Stack, JBoss, Hibernate, Red Hat GFS, Red Hat Cluster Suite,
Red Hat Directory Server, or Red Hat Certificate System?
A: No. Oracle does not support any of these leading open source
products.
-
Uhm, that doesn't matter.

The point is this: for any any Unbreakable Linux bug that is submitted
to Oracle and can be duplicated on "golden" RHEL 4 system in Oracle's
office (for which Oracle has valid support contract), Oracle can submit
it to Red Hat Support as Red Hat bug and require quick fix. Then, as RH
fixes it, they can fix it in their own Unbreakable Linux.

Q: Oracle says their Linux support includes the same hardware
compatibility and certifications as Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Is this
true?
A: No. Oracle has stated they will make changes to the code
independently of Red Hat. These changes will not be tested during Red
Hat's hardware testing and certification process, and may cause
unexpected behavior. Hence Red Hat hardware certifications are
invalidated.
--
Well, yes. They don't say that Red Hat h/w certs will be considered
valid (actually, they don't care, to be exact) - as long as you've got
one, they'll support your RH cert on their Unbreakable Linux. The same
goes for ISVs. And Oracle isn't that stupid to screw things up so that
they don't work.

Q: Oracle says they will provide the same updates as Red Hat Enterprise
Linux. Can they do this?
A: There are multiple requirements to building binary compatible
software. One piece is the source code; another is the build and test
environment. While Oracle may be able to take the source code at some
point after a Red Hat update release, obviously their build and test
environment will inherently be different than that for Red Hat
Enterprise Linux. For similar reasons, there is no guarantee that the
source code for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux update will work correctly
when integrated into Oracle's modified Linux code base.
--
Hah, this one is hilarious! So this is Red Hat's secret sauce - the
unreproducible build environment. Are they trying to say that their
build environment is different from what's available to everyone else
(which wouldn't be too good for compatibility which they emphasize all
the time)?

Q: Does Red Hat allow you to tailor your support level to your workload?
A: Yes. Many customers match their Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription
level to their application SLA requirements. For example, customers may
choose a Basic subscription for non-mission critical file and print
servers, while selecting Premium subscriptions for database servers.
Oracle does not allow this flexibility - their support policy reads: "If
acquiring Enterprise Linux Premier Support, all of your Oracle supported
systems must be supported with Enterprise Linux Premier Support."
---
Nice try. On the other hand Oracle's Linux is free and updates only are
$99/year. Match that, Red Hat! Basic support for RHEL Workstation is
$279.
As for Oracle DB servers - yes, you'd probably want to have premium
Linux support for those.
BTW, did RH mention that their support agreement requires that support
must be purchased for all copies of OS used by the customer?
Self-tuning SLAs can also be achieved by using CentOS (community and
basic support), RHEL and UL.

Q: Can Oracle produce timely security updates to Red Hat Enterprise
Linux as they stated?
A: No. There will be a delay between the time a Red Hat Enterprise Linux
update is issued, and the time the source code makes its way to Oracle.
And there is no guarantee that the source code for the Red Hat
Enterprise Linux update will work correctly when integrated into
Oracle's Linux code base; this integration and test may take additional
time. In the case where the update corrects critical security flaws,
Oracle customers may be exposed to additional risk.
--
Yes, if the bug is submitted to Red Hat, there might be a delay of 1-2
hours.
If it's submitted to Oracle or to CentOS, RH and Oracle, there's no
reason why Oracle couldn't issue their own fix before RH and, if change
doesn't require reboot, re-issue RH's update after they get it from Red
Hat. It's great to know that Linux requires timely security updates
because it seems prone to frequent critical security problems, though.

Q: Will Oracle's Linux customers have the same degree of influence over
Oracle's Linux as Red Hat's customers do with Red Hat Enterprise Linux?
A: The support we provide for Red Hat Enterprise Linux starts when Red
Hat and its customers collaborate in the design of new versions. This
collaboration extends through the development, test, and production
deployment of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Vendors of a derivative
distribution are simply not positioned to provide their customers the
same collaboration opportunity.
-
Oh yes, Red Hat is well-known for their excellent collaboration with
ISVs and IHVs... And they're very easy to work with...

Q: Hardware vendors such as Dell, HP, and IBM provide support for Red
Hat Enterprise Linux. How is Oracle's support offering different?
A: Red Hat's hardware partners provide front line support to customers,
backed by Red Hat. Red Hat has a close contractual relationship with
these partners, which requires training, well defined escalation paths,
Red Hat back-line support, and cooperative customer issue management.
Our joint customers enjoy the same degree of collaborative participation
as any Red Hat customer.
--
According to HP's stats (you can google news.com for that article) in
2005 about 4,000 Linux support issues escalated to the HQs, less than
100 had to be escalated to Linux vendors.
Besides, all major OEMs endorsed Oracle's Unbreakable Linux, see today's
news.com article on UL.
Maybe they don't give a damn but hey - why not get yourself in a
position which helps you get a better price for RHEL :-)

In any case, each dollar invested in UL makes RH cheaper by more than
one dollar, so this is a nice move by Larry. So far, so good -
(http://finance.google.com/finance?q=RHAT - not a pretty sight).

And isn't it great that someone can take the Fedora -> RHEL model, where
RH profits from work done by others (open source community, in RH's
case) and make it work for the enterprise customer (RHEL -> UL) while
profiting only from the rich. Unbreakable Linux = Robin Hood Linux :-)
-------

Alexander Terekhov wrote:
> 
> More free software perspectives in light of Oracle announcement...
> 
> July 25, 2001:
> 
> http://lwn.net/2001/features/oreilly2001/BruceMomjianInterview.php3
> 
> ------
> How would you characterize Great Bridge's relationship with Red Hat
> today?
> 
> I have a funny story for you.
> 
> I was down at Red Hat, with Michael Tiemann, their CTO, to give a
> speech to the Red Hat engineers. I went down there to speak about an
> article on my web site. The article is about the ``prisoner's
> dilemma'' and what that implies for how companies control various
> resources. The speech was about the challenges of open source and
> the challenges of companies involved with open source.
> 
> I give the speech then fly back to Norfork to spend a couple of days
> at Great Bridge. I drive over to Great Bridge. I'm walking in the
> door about 5:30 in the afternoon. The President of Great Bridge is
> walking out. He says that about a half hour ago Red Hat announced
> that they are going to be doing commercial support for PostgreSQL. It
> was kind of eerie to leave Red Hat then realize that they made this
> announcement as I'm flying away. It was a kind of surreal position to
> be in.
> 
> I've obviously been to Raleigh-Durham to speak to all the Red Hat
> engineers. I went up to Toronto where Red Hat's PostgreSQL engineering
> group is going to be located. I met with Patrick McDonald there and
> spent a full day going over the development community, how it operates,
> went over the 'to do' list and how they can get involved. We're
> obviously very excited to have them adding resources to PostgreSQL.
> 
> Great Bridge's feeling about this? It is not a surprise to us that they
> got involved. We understand the need to move into the larger enterprises.
> You can't get the kind of additional revenue possibilities large
> enterprises offer in the desktop environment. We would have liked a
> larger head start in this market but we understand why Red Hat had to do
> it. Their coming was anticipated.
> 
> Our relationship with Red Hat seems to be pretty good. We get along with
> them well, they are very nice people. Obviously Frank Batten [Great
> Bridge's chairman and an early investor in Red Hat] has a relationship
> with Red Hat. In a sense we also have that prior relationship going into
> the project
> 
> Our feeling is that the open source database pie is just so big that
> there is certainly room for both companies. In fact, Red Hat's choice of
> PostgreSQL is a validation of Great Bridge's involvement. We've got
> people saying "Oh wow, there's Great Bridge and now there's Red Hat.
> Obviously the wagons are circling around PostgreSQL." It just shows that
> this is a very sane space to be in: that a lot of companies see potential.
> We think that there is a lot of room for everybody.
> 
> What do you see as the primary differentiators between Red Hat's offerings
> and what Great Bridge offers their customers.
> 
> There are probably two primary differences.
> 
> One is that Great Bridge focuses on PostgreSQL database solutions. Great
> Bridge has a huge amount of database expertise by hiring three of us [from
> the PostgreSQL core team] and having already established themselves in this
> database marketplace.
> ------
> 
> September 6, 2001:
> 
> http://news.com.com/2100-1001-272715.html
> 
> ------
> Great Bridge, a Norfolk, Va., subsidiary of Landmark Communications, will
> close, and 38 of its 41 employees will be laid off, said Frank Batten,
> chairman of parent company Landmark and Great Bridge's founder.
> 
> In retrospect, it would have been a good idea to sell the company to Red
> Hat, Batten said. Red Hat this spring offered a "modest price, but it
> would have been better to have sold the company for something rather than
> nothing," Batten said.
> 
> Great Bridge is working with Red Hat and other companies to try to find
> jobs for its staff, he added.
> 
> Great Bridge's product was based on the PostgreSQL database, and the
> company employed several programmers on the core team for the software
> project.
> 
> The company lowered its pricing scheme after Red Hat joined the fray, and
> it found more customers were interested in paying for hourly consulting
> rather than annual support deals.
> 
> "We could not get customers to pay us big dollars for support contracts,"
> Batten said.
> ------
> 
> Alexander Terekhov wrote:
> >
> > And here comes the GPL girl:
> >
> > http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20061026013857159
> > (Oracle's Offering and Red Hat's Response)
> >
> > ------
> > The CEOs of Dell and HP, among others, say this is a great leap forward,
> > in video clips at the end. Things are beginning to smell funny, folks.
> > There does appear to be some kind of enterprise makeover attempt, to
> > remake Linux in their image. Why would anyone imagine that grabbing Red
> > Hat's work product and cutting Red Hat off from its own customers would
> > be progress? And if Red Hat is put out of business, what will Oracle
> > sell then?
> >
> > What the corporate dudes never do grasp is that you can't coopt FOSS
> > past a point, because FOSS programmers won't work for nothing to buy
> > them yachts.
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > Making Linux more successful in the enterprise is the right goal. But
> > not if you kill off what makes Linux desirable, namely ethics. It's the
> > value add of FOSS, and if the corporate guys don't figure that out soon,
> > they really will kill the Golden Goose. Let me explain in one sentence
> > why:
> >
> >     Cut throat competition destroys software.
> >
> > ------
> >
> > LOL.
> >
> > http://news.com.com/5208-7344-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=22307&messageID=196964&start=-1
> >
> > ------
> > ...the fact that Oracle does it shows that RHAT and other Linux
> > distributors have been living in a dream. Their business model is
> > "develop software, give it away and live off support". But there's
> > nothing preventing another company from establishing a slightly more
> > interesting business model: "NOT develop software, take what's
> > already out there, give it away, live off cheaper support". Nothing
> > bad with that, but then the companies investing in developing Linux
> > will have a cost center with nothing to show for it. Why would any
> > serious company spend money on something that gives zero $ in return?
> >
> > Net result: corporate Linux development is stalled, and only
> > development comes from individuals and nonprofit organizations. Not
> > the death of Linux, but certainly a bad sign.
> >
> > And the crazy thing is that this was evident from day zero. But some
> > tried to look the other way, especially investors trying to look into
> > some innovative business models.
> >
> > Now it's time for a reality check. And RHAT stock is just beginning
> > to show the consequence of that reality.
> > ------
> >
> > alexander.terekhov@gmail.com wrote:
> > >
> > > http://news.com.com/5208-7344-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=22307&messageID=196945&start=-1
> > >
> > > -------
> > > interesting business plan
> > >
> > > Reader post by: hedred
> > > Posted on: October 25, 2006, 4:17 PM PDT
> > > Story: Oracle to offer Red Hat Linux support
> > >
> > > Copy RedHat's product and steal their customers.
> > >
> > > So, what happens when RedHat goes out of business?
> > >
> > > Will Oracle be able to update the OS on their own?
> > >
> > > Is Microsoft behind this just like they have been behind SCO?
> > > -------
> > >
> > > LOL.
> > >
> > > alexander.terekhov@gmail.com wrote:
> > > >
> > > > http://www.charvolant.org/~doug/gpl/gpl.pdf
> > > >
> > > > -------
> > > > The open-source movement has provided the impetus for another form of
> > > > patronage. Companies such as RedHat or Linuxcare need free software to
> > > > succeed to be successful themselves. As a result, these companies hire
> > > > the producers of free software to ensure the supply, provide good
> > > > public relations and provide in-house expertise for the support
> > > > operations that make up the companies income.
> > > > This is in addition to the general desire on the company's part to do
> > > > the right thing; open-source is still a social movement.
> > > >
> > > > Eric Raymond argues that this form of patronage works, in part, because
> > > > the companies dispensing the patronage are leaders in the field, and
> > > > thus benefit in proportion.[20] If this is true, then it also
> > > > represents the break-point for this form of patronage. As the market
> > > > becomes more competitive, a significant free-rider problem appears:
> > > > companies that do not have the overhead of patronage and can offer the
> > > > same services at reduced cost.[13]
> > > > -------
> > > >
> > > > http://news.com.com/Oracle+to+offer+Red+Hat+Linux+support/2100-7344_3-6129544.html
> > > >
> > > > -------
> > > > "As of this moment, Oracle is announcing full support for Red Hat
> > > > Linux," Ellison told thousands of attendees at the Oracle OpenWorld
> > > > conference here. "If you are a Red Hat support customer, you can very
> > > > easily switch from Red Hat support to Oracle support."
> > > >
> > > > Becoming an operating-system company is one of a series of bold
> > > > attempts at growth by the Redwood Shores, Calif.-based software
> > > > company, which in recent years also has acquired small and large
> > > > rivals. Many major computing companies have embraced Linux, but until
> > > > now, all have chosen partnerships with Linux companies rather than
> > > > direct competition.
> > > >
> > > > Ellison argued that customers of the Unbreakable Linux 2.0 service will
> > > > enjoy lower costs, better bug fixes and legal protections compared with
> > > > Red Hat. Software updates cost $99 a server, while technical support
> > > > costs $399 for a two-processor server and $999 a year for a larger
> > > > system, Ellison said. And unlike Red Hat, Oracle will let anyone
> > > > download the software for free.
> > > >
> > > > "We will backport your bug-fixes" to earlier Linux versions, he said.
> > > > "We will indemnify you from intellectual property problems. And our
> > > > support costs way less than half of what Red Hat charges," Ellison
> > > > said.
> > > >
> > > > Oracle, like the CentOS project, wants to clone Red Hat's Linux based
> > > > on the source code produced by the company, not create a new Linux
> > > > variant. And Ellison promised that software certified for Red Hat's
> > > > Linux will still work.
> > > >
> > > > "If your application runs on Red Hat today, that application will run
> > > > unchanged when you're getting Oracle support," Ellison said. "It's very
> > > > important not to fragment the Linux market. Every time Red Hat comes
> > > > out with a new version, we're going to sync our version with that
> > > > version. All we add is bug fixes."
> > > >
> > > > Red Hat didn't immediately comment. Red Hat shares fell sharply in
> > > > after-hours trading, down more than 10 percent to $17.45 a share.
> > > >
> > > > Oracle will sell support to any Red Hat Linux customer, not just
> > > > customers of Oracle products, Ellison said.
> > > > -------
> > > >
> > > > Alexander Terekhov wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > Alexander Terekhov wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > John Hasler wrote:
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > Well, you can also get whitebox Linux or something like that...
> > > > > >
> > > > > > [Red Hat's free-riders]
> > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > White Box Linux and Centos.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > WBL is not well supported. Centos has more friends (Sun Microsystems
> > > > > > and OpenSolaris Project). At some point Red Hat will have to fire 
> > > > > > core
> > > > > > programmers and only packagers will stay (free-riders do not have 
> > > > > > the
> > > > > > overhead of patronage and can offer the same patching services).
> > > > >
> > > > > Now, this is fun:
> > > > >
> > > > > http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061025/tc_nm/oracle_dc_1
> > > > > (Oracle CEO targets Red Hat with half-price offer)
> > > > >
> > > > > -------
> > > > > 31 minutes ago
> > > > >
> > > > > SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq:ORCL - news) is taking
> > > > > aim at Red Hat Inc. (Nasdaq:RHAT - news), the top distributor of Linux
> > > > > operating system software, with an offer to provide half-price 
> > > > > technical
> > > > > support to Red Hat Linux users, Chairman and Chief Executive Larry
> > > > > Ellison said on Wednesday.
> > > > >
> > > > > Speaking at the company's annual user conference in San Francisco, the
> > > > > technology industry's most outspoken executive said Oracle was seeking
> > > > > to solve key problems that have held back the development of Linux 
> > > > > among
> > > > > big corporate customers.
> > > > >
> > > > > "As of this moment, Oracle is announcing full support for Red Hat 
> > > > > Linux,"
> > > > > Ellison told thousands of attendees at the company's annual 
> > > > > OracleWorld
> > > > > conference. "The goal is to enhance and speed the adoption of Linux."
> > > > >
> > > > > "Our support costs less than half what Red Hat charges," Ellison 
> > > > > added.
> > > > >
> > > > > Linux is the most popular varient of open source software, which 
> > > > > allows
> > > > > developers to share code in order to focus on creating new features
> > > > > themselves. Software like Linux allows customers to use programs for
> > > > > free, paying only for custom features, maintenance and technical
> > > > > support.
> > > > >
> > > > > (Additional reporting by Eric Auchard)
> > > > > -------

regards,
alexander.