Bonum Certa Men Certa

Who's Afraid of Oracle Linux?

Regardless of the denials, I have always thought the Microvell deal was at least in part a response to Oracle's entry into the Linux market, it all felt rushed and even in the ensuing days it was clear that both parties weren't in total agreement on the significance of the deal.

I don't think the Microsoft-Novell deal was born of any specific Oracle Linux concern, but it seems to have been an induced birth that may have been a bit premature, and perhaps unnecessary. If Novell had taken the time to look, they probably would have noticed that Oracle's Linux is a pile of poo.

Maybe Novell is feeling silly now for their knee-jerk reaction to speculation of the time, while everyone saw the obvious attack on Red Hat posed by Oracle Linux, analysts also recognized the potential impact on Novell:

So does Oracle Linux actually hurt Red Hat?

Not as much as you might think.

I believe that it actually hurts Novell far worse since Oracle is essentially standardizing on a Red Hat base. As long as the myth of binary compatibility between Oracle Linux and RHEL exists, users will potentially have the option of moving back and forth between the two.

Novell should have noted "the myth of binary compatibility", which would have only taken a download by one techie at Novell and perhaps they wouldn't have sold their souls. Red Hat is not afraid of Oracle Linux, because it is apparent that Oracle has no idea what it is doing with Linux.

"They rolled out something that they don't understand," Pinchev told ComputerWire of Oracle’s announcement. "He [Oracle chief executive, Larry Ellison] tried to announce that Oracle is supporting Red Hat Linux, what he really announced is Oracle forking Red Hat Linux."

[...]

"They are delivering no innovation, delayed patches, delayed releases, no real knowledge of open source and no involvement with the community, so where is the value?" he asked.

Pinchev also said that Oracle had launched its offering on a basic misconception of the value customers get from open source software. "They are not buying just the support, they are buying the speed of innovation, because this is very important today to compete. They are going to open source for innovation."

When I had first heard that Oracle announced their Unbreakable Linux Support for "Red Hat", at lower cost than Red Hat, I was intrigued. When I also saw there was to be an "Oracle Enterprise Linux" distribution that was going to maintain RHEL certification and compatibility, I thought nice - CentOS is getting a backer. But no, it is just as Pinchev said, Oracle is forking Red Hat Linux, and given their history in providing timely bugfixes and security updates, I can't see why you'd want them for your Operating System support. Here is an Unbreakable Uncompatible Linux experience:

The installation was just like CentOS installation. It went by without incident. After I rebooted, I went through the same initial boot configuration. And then I was dropped onto a Gnome desktop, where things got bad:

  • When I click the Applications menu, there is nothing available.
  • When I try to add an application to a panel, there are no applications available.

Out of the box, those two are already show stoppers. So much for “unbreakable”. I question the reliability of Oracle’s QA department over this. Out-of-box experience should not be this horrendous. But, it gets even worse. Ellison and his FUD factory promised “compatibility with Red Hat Linux“. Not even true. I ran an up2date in Breakable Linux and the little up2date icon turned green — telling me that everything is up-to-date. So:

  • Kernel version: 2.6.9-42.0.0.0.1.EL (compared to Red Hat version 2.6.9-42.0.3.EL)
  • Firefox version: 1.5.0.3 (compared to Red Hat version 1.5.0.7)
  • Thunderbird is completely missing from the installation options

That shows that first: Oracle has already broken from binary compatibility with RHEL because the kernel version is completely off (and who the hell got decimal happy?). Second, it shows that Oracle is already behind in putting out bugfixes when you look at the Firefox version. Lastly, Thunderbird being missing from the custom installer really proves that Oracle is not putting together a true RHEL rebuild.

Perhaps Oracle is listening, and will get it right, perhaps not. But, as long as they abide by the letter and spirit of the GPL and the community, they are welcome to keep trying.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Now Confirmed in Western Media: Microsoft Azure Layoffs This Month
Affirmed by more sources moments ago
The 'Culture Wars' in Free Software Have Gone Out of Control
Social control media amplifies such utterly infantile discourse
10 Out of 10: RMS Attracts Massive Audience in Göteborg, Sweden (All Seats Occupied, Some People Standing)
a 55-second clip of his talk
The Lawsuit by Clients of Brett Wilson LLP Against Brett Wilson LLP is Officially On, It is Progressing, The 'Experts' Pick Outside Law Firms (RPC and Mills & Reeve) to Spare Them From Litigants in Person
So it is probably quite potent
Slopwatch: Plagiarism and "Linux" Articles by Bots
Sites that do this won't survive; many of them rely on slop services (suppliers) that will cease to exist after the bubble bursts
 
MIT Technology Review is Part-Time SPAMfarm of Billionaires and Mega-Corporations
Does MIT operate its own "b2b" SPAMfarm?
Open Source Initiative Executive Director Leaves, Replacement Sought by Monopolists, Not the Community or OSI Members
Serves to show who runs this show...
Links 11/10/2025: China-US Tensions Grow Again, "Hey Hi" More Widely Recognised as Bubble Made of Capital That Doesn't Exist
Links for the day
Peter O'Callaghan QC represented grandparents, Westernport Hotel, at Liquor Royal Commission
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Either The Register MS Divests From FOSS Coverage or Liam Proven is on Long Holiday
Publishers perish when their audience loses trust in them
Microsoft Cancelling Another Datacentre is a Sign of Financial Trouble and Lack of Growth
The debt continues to grow
Gemini Links 11/10/2025: An Evening at the Fair and Fast Fourier Friday
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 10, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 10, 2025
Geminispace is Very Large
The word continues to spread and the number of participants grows
Teaser: To Compensate for the Fact Our Clients Are Terrible Human Beings Who Strangle Women (While on Microsoft's Payroll) and We Get Paid by Mystery Parties We Bombard You and Your Wife With Almost 10 Kilograms of Legal Papers
If you can't win an argument, then drown the other side with papers?
Another Wave of Microsoft Layoffs, This Time During National Day Holiday
This time it's China again
Staying Happy in Times of Crackdowns on Civil Society
Optimism in this sort of "new reality" or "new normal" seems like something for the irrational person
"Nobel" Exploited Posthumously for "AI" Hype, Now They Do the Same With "Quantum"
ere have been many jokes about "Nobel" for peace (often granted to pro-war people) and a fake one for "Economics" (establishment propaganda)
Distinguished Lecture by Richard Stallman This Coming Monday in Rome
After "Free software, Crucial for Freedom in a Digital World"
Links 10/10/2025: Putin Admits Russia Downed Azerbaijan Airlines Jet, More New Heat Records
Links for the day
Noteworthy Claim That IBM is Firing a Lot of Lawyers This Week (RAs in the Legal Department)
A lot of what they do is patent 'trolling' or lawyering up against their own staff (e.g. HR disputes)
Links 10/10/2025: US Judge Bars Attacks by ICE On Journalists and Protesters; “We Took The Freedom of Speech Away” Says the President
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Serial Sloppers, Google News Gifting Slopfarms, and Fake News/Plagiarism About "Linux"
Google itself is a slop pusher these days
Qualcomm, the New Owner of Arduino, Blasted for Its Software Patents Tax on 'Smartphones'
A lot of Qualcomm's patents are on software. We wrote about this in prior years.
XBox Layoffs Rumours, Downtime, and Criticism From XBox Co-Founder
"everyone is ditching the xbox."
Links 10/10/2025: Honoring The Legacy Of Robert Murray-Smith, Many Articles on the Hey Hi (AI) Bubble
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: October Gothic and Reading Middle Earth Role Playing; C and Ada
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 09, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 09, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Farewell to Jane Goodall, California Bans Algorithmic Price-Fixing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Lost Wages and a Saga Of Continuing To Use Palm PDAs
Links for the day
Richard Stallman's Talk in Helsinki is Done. Tomorrow Göteborg.
There are scarce details in Finnish about Dr. Stallman's talk
New XBox Leaks Probably Serve to Confirm XBox's Collapse (Many More Layoffs)
It's very much consistent with what many other sites have reported lately
The Slop Song
The train wreck marches on
LLM Slop/Advanced Plagiarism Flooding the Zone With Capital That Does Not Exist
Many publishers out there still participate in this bubble instead of calling it what it is
Links 09/10/2025: Sacked Microsoft Workers Make "Sackbird", IBM Taps CockroachDB for PostgreSQL
Links for the day
"Happy Hacking Day" Richard Stallman Talk This Afternoon (From 14:00 to 16:00) at Haaga-Helia University in Pasila
Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Finland
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 08, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 08, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Impact of Microsoft Layoffs, More Data Breaches
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Autumn Blues and C IRC Bot
Links for the day