Bonum Certa Men Certa

To Oracle, 'Community' Means Paying Oracle Customers

Summary: Oracle continues to extend only its own distribution of GNU/Linux (which is a ripoff of another), leaving everyone else out in the cold

Oracle, the selfish company run by a selfish man (who has risen to power in part thanks to CIA help), just announced a new clone of Red Hat Linux 6.5 [1,2]. This clone is not free and it's not about Free/libre software, it is about control (by Oracle). It's merely a copy of Red Hat Linux 6.5 [3,4] and it has some Oracle-only 'features' [5]. Oracle didn't make these, it bought these from Sun.



This attitude from Oracle is not surprising. Given the way Oracle just slapped OpenOffice.org at Apache (with little or nothing done to help) [6], leaving it for people to take from there [7] and to enhance [8] amid the decline of offline word processors [9], the treatment of GNU/Linux by Oracle is not shocking. Other than btrfs, what has Oracle really done for GNU/Linux? Almost nothing. Even btrfs is hardly promoted by Oracle anymore. Let's face it. Oracle just does its own thing the proprietary way (trying to keep up with what's shareable [10] and then adding its own private extensions at the top). To Oracle, Free/libre software is a rival [11] which it is only ever willing to co-opt in order to help sell its expensive proprietary software. When it comes to Free software, Oracle is a user, not a developer. btrfs needed to be licensed like the kernel it targets. ⬆

Related/contextual items from the news:



  1. Send in the clones: Oracle, CentOS catch up to Red Hat Linux 6.5


  2. Linux Top 3: RHEL Clones Update as Linux Mint Gets a new Dash of Cinnamon
    This past week marked the final release of Linux Mint 16 codenamed 'Petra'. So far, Linux Mint has been made available in two officials builds, one with the new Cinammon 2.0 desktop and the other with MATE.


  3. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 ships, but still no RHEL 7 in sight
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.5 has reached general availability following a six-week beta period, making it the first minor release of RHEL 6 to ship since version 6.4 in February.


  4. Fact sheet: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5
    The latest iteration of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (6.5) is now available, and it's a serious contender to usurp all other platforms as king of the enterprise space. This particular release was designed specifically to simplify the operation of mission-critical SAP applications. The new release focuses on key enterprise-specific areas....



  5. Oracle integrates DTrace debugger into its Linux distribution


  6. Apache OpenOffice 4.1 to Bring Enhanced Accessibility Support
    The Apache OpenOffice project is pleased to announce that it has successfully integrated support for the Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) and IAccessible2 interfaces. Support for these interfaces enables screen readers and other assistive technologies to work with Apache OpenOffice, which in turn enables greater productivity by OpenOffice users who are blind or who have low-vision.


  7. Stakeholders and Remixes: the other names of true communities
    This year we had a workshop dedicated to LibreOffice migrations inside the 3ctor and I spoke about what was going on in France. I was however reminded of a very important notion during my various conversations with the audience. Free Software licences pass on several rights to the users. But these rights or freedoms, while essential, do not mandate how a Free Software project community should work. If anything, that would be quite out of topic and perhaps going against the very spirit of Software Freedom. Among these freedoms, two are implied that are of particular importance but often overlooked in regard of Free Software development projects: the right to fork and the right -as a user- to leave the software or the vendor/supplier who is providing you support and services on the FOSS stack in question.


  8. LibreOffice now has a built in XML-parser


  9. Word processors are no longer central to the computing experience
    Word processors are no longer central to the computing experience, but there are still good reasons to use them. The question is, how well do the work in today's computing environment?


  10. Oracle Linux 6.5 and Docker


  11. Devil is in the details of Oracle-to-PostgreSQL migration
    EnterpriseDB execs have moved customers off Oracle, but contracts and app packages can tangle switch to PostgreSQL

Recent Techrights' Posts

Dejan Panovski Outs linuxize.com as a Slopfarm, Another Site That Sold Out and Became LLM Garbage
From what we can gather, both images and text are slop
A Microsoft Lunduke OS (LCOS) is Not Even in Top 100 in DistroWatch, Microsoft Lunduke Just Games the Numbers Like Linspire Did (and Got 'Banned' for It)
Linspire used to send people to 'its' DistroWatch page to make the illusion of popularity
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: Temporary Public Office or Permanent Personal Feather-Bed?
there are no visible signs that the Administrative Council has the slightest interest in contemplating a change in leadership at the EPO
Brigading Against Women - Part IV - Death Threats, Threats to Women, and Threats for Pointing Out, Correctly and Based on Hard Evidence, That Garrett and Lozza Talk to Each Other About Me Every Year (for 4 Years)
Brett Wilson LLP too is a toxic manosphere
 
Brigading Against Women - Part VI - On Garrett and Lozza, Defamation, Attempts to Crack My Wife's Accounts, Social Engineering to Try to Take Sites Offline, Subscribing Us to Mountains of SPAM
tried swatting us
Links 27/09/2026: "Provost of Dartmouth Busted Using Hey Hi (AI) Slop for His Own Writing in Newspapers and Academic Journals" and "UK Government Enforcement Reform"
Links for the day
People and Sites Wish a Happy 43th Birthday to GNU (Today)
We've collected some examples
Links 27/09/2026: Microsoft Fired People a Day After Promotion, "Fragility of Online Journalism"
Links for the day
Brigading Against Women - Part V - SWATTING, Extortion Against Webhosts, and Lawfare Under Sworn Oath (Perjury Also)
Matthew Garrett has no qualm about still collaborating with Lozza
20 Years Later
There's a strong anti-democracy movement brewing in many places
Gemini Links 27/09/2026: Telescopes/Gskyer, Writing for Writing's Sake, and Writing Tools
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, September 26, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, September 26, 2026
Gemini Links 26/09/2026: Computer Cases Dreary, Web Drowning in Botspam
Links for the day
Reform UK auditor: Electoral Commission accounts, Companies House accounts, a going concern or not?
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
More GAFAM Layoffs at Apple, Second Time in Weeks (Silent Layoffs Silently Target Older and "More Expensive" Staff)
How many layoffs happen at Apple silently and go unreported or very scarcely reported?
Gemini Links 26/09/2026: Rant About Slop Ruining Crafts (Drowning the Signal With Plagiarism) and "Going Mechanical"
Links for the day
Links 26/09/2026: Microsoft Says Notification Data Breach/Surveillance Hole There by Design, EU Rapidly Dumping Microsoft for Digital Sovereignty
Links for the day
The Former Linux News Site ostechnix.com is LLM Slop
Please do not link to sites that promote and/or spread slop
Links 26/09/2026: Volkswagen Recalling ~50,000 Cars, US Attacks Its Own Media
Links for the day
Making Oneself Obsolete With Slop
Dr. Lemire also puts on display a degree of hypocrisy
Brigading Against Women - Part III - Racism Looms Large, Not Just Sexism
threats from a racist
Microsoft CEO Calls Layoffs "Streamlining" and Says Microsoft Layoffs Are "Great to See"
The lack of honesty here is only to be expected from Microsoft
Media silence deafening as Reform UK on brink of administration
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 26/09/2026: Travel, Group Insurance Death Spiral, Stargazing, and Lagrange Meets LLM Slop
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, September 25, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, September 25, 2026
Longtime Symbol of Microsoft's XBox Franchise, Halo, Down to Barely 20 People
The purge is huge, far bigger than submissive media cares to point out
EPO Meeting Ran Out of Time to Discuss the Scabs ('Young Professionals')
EPO staff representatives in The Hague meet a member of the 'cocaine cabinet'
The Register MS Promotes Slop for Banned Companies That Put Chinese Back Doors in Things, "AI" Mentioned 37 Times in One Page!
taking money from the undemocratic state and its surveillance outfits
Microsoft Attacked European Courts and Jurists, Now Europe Dumps Microsoft
This is because GNU/Linux is technically better, but the political factors contribute to that as well
Julian Assange Ready to Talk More (After More Than a Decade of Arbitrary, Unjust Confinement)
Two years ago, upon his release, his wife said he'd need some time off before properly or fully returning to the public eye
IEEE Tribute to Richard Stallman, Michael Tiemann, Linus Torvalds, Larry Augustin, Eric S. Raymond, Bruce Perens, Frank Hecker and Brian Behlendorf (Revolution OS Showing)
Live shortly
Winding Up Racists
What happens next shall be interesting
Links 25/09/2026: Selling Rogue, Defective Bots as "Agents" Results in PR Fiasco and Breaches; Russian 'Hybrid Attack' and "How Russia Evades Sanctions"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/09/2026: Arvelie Calendar, 44net, Pebbles, and Building the Bagel Concert Finder
Links for the day
Large Wave of IBM PIPs, the RAs Wave Comes After 'Low-Hanging' Fruit (Families) Disposed of
PIPs are the new RAs
Links 25/09/2026: Carcinogen Atrazine Pollutes Americans' Bodies, "Donald the Deadbeat Does Diesel", and Anger Over Data Centres Grows
Links for the day
Theory That Microsoft Cheapens Its Workforce to Push Workers Out on Their Own (Theory Advanced by Insider)
people work longer hours for less, i.e. their hourly salary is decreasing
Daniel Pocock Makes It Into Mainstream Media Again (Going After Racists)
American bigots funding blatant and shameless racists here in the UK
Tackling Racism in the United Kingdom (Racism Funded by Americans) Using the Courts
We'll talk about racism my wife and I experienced in the events leading up to litigation
Another Woman (or Women) Has Just Run Away From Brett Wilson LLP (After Barely a Month!), the Hired Guns of Garrett and Graveley (Microsoft)
They call this phenomenon "death spiral"
SLAPP Censorship - Part 200 Out of 200: Will GNU Boot Undo the Technical Damage Caused by Microsoft and Garrett? (And Garrett's Litigation Allies From Microsoft)
Today we publish the final part of this series
US Government Sites Can Now Totally Ignore Mozilla Firefox Users or Users of Firefox Derivatives
Firefox, now at 1.1% in the US (based on American government sites), has sunken to the point of no return
Things Not to Measure in Quantity Alone
More patents do not beget greater innovation
Even Microsoft Boosters Start to Doubt XBox Will Exist (It's Being Phased Out, Just Not "Officially")
This is how to phase out a business unit without officially saying so (as it might alarm investors)
Omarchy is Built on the Idea That Slop is Desirable (It's Not)
They call bots and plagiarism "agents" and "training"
IBM is Shrinking Very Fast (Silent, Unannounced Layoffs)
IBM and Microsoft both avoid WARN notices by compelling staff to leave or silently removing them with some NDA
In Some Parts of Microsoft 50% of All Staff Subjected to Layoffs, Media Pretends Only 0.1% of Staff Are Removed
This really says a lot about the state of today's so-called 'media'
SLAPP Censorship - Part 199 Out of 200: An American Burden on the British Legal System
A year ago (October 2025) the head of media (Jointly in Charge of the Media and Communications List), the judge in the Garrett case, said that this case was a waste of the court's money
EPO Management Wants Everything to be Done in Microsoft Spyware
In reality, this management should be ousted for normalising cocaine at the Office
Criminalising Opposition to Fraud
slop causes social issues
The Register MS Does Not Properly Flag Its SPAM About Slop
Signs of desperation
Gemini Links 25/09/2026: Ljubljana, Tanana River, and Curse of Slack
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 24, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, September 24, 2026
Supporters of winding-up process staking claims against Reform UK Party (CR-2026-007405)
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Winding-up petition leaked before service on Reform UK Party Limited / Nigel Farage
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock