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Hey Oracle, Why Not Ubuntu? 234

Posted by Zonk from the i'm-not-good-enough-for-you dept.
OSS_ilation writes "While much has been said about Novell or Red Hat as potential targets for Oracle this week, there are some in the Linux community who believe a different distro might deserve the attention of Larry Ellison. That distribution is Ubuntu, and analysts like Burton Group's Richard Monson-Haefel believed that it would be a better fit for Oracle, which is looking only for an OS and not for any of the baggage associated with Novell, like Netware. Ubuntu, with its huge community base and version 6.06 on the way, could be the perfect fit, he said."
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Hey Oracle, Why Not Ubuntu? More

Hey Oracle, Why Not Ubuntu?

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  • Oh, god, please no (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gclef ( 96311 ) on Tuesday April 18, 2006 @01:07PM (#15150574)
    Oracle's security record is abyssmal, their products have major usability issues (yes, including their database...god that thing's arcane), and the company itself is arrogant as hell. Please, don't let that beast absorb a sensible distro.

    • Re:Oh, god, please no (Score:4, Insightful)

      by moro_666 ( 414422 ) <kulminaator@gCOB ... m minus language> on Tuesday April 18, 2006 @01:22PM (#15150759) Homepage
      in some ways i agree, there's no point of giving oracle the most quickly evolving distro. larry would mess it up.

      but in some other ways, let's face it, ubuntu is already quite bloated so the damage couldn't be very large :p

      all-in-all, if oracle wanted to buy a distro for it's servers, i'd rather have seen them forking their own gentoo fork with prebuilt packages or taking over arch-linux. oracle knows that the market is tight, they want to roll out bigtime with this, so it's either a choice of good performance (gentoo/arch/you-name-your-good-optimized-distro-h ere) or a massive package of bloatware mixed with oracle style stuff that never quite does what you'd expect it to.

      suse will do for the stuff that they chose. maybe they already felt that ubuntu could be a bit too big fish to catch, besides i don't think it was 'on sale'. whereas outside germany suse was heading down (at least in the linux communities that i move around, nobody really suses anymore), and it was therefor easier to pick up. and also, getting the novell along with it is like buying a meal and getting a free sauce with it, why the hell not ?

      i remember installing oracle 8i database on linux ... that was a living hell in the first attempts.

      i'm running ubuntu right now on my laptop here, and i'd doubt seriously if i'd still use it if this poor thing would be overloaded with oracle mess.

      oh who cares anyway, i will switch to freebsd 6.1 as soon as it comes out ...

  • Ubuntu? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Lxy ( 80823 )
    Why not just use Debian, which is the base for Ubuntu? Then you get no corporate overhead.
    • Why not just use Debian, which is the base for Ubuntu?

      I was going to say the same thing. But I reread the blurb and I think them mean, "as an acquisition target", not, "as another platform for which to release a packaged version of Oracle." They want the developers and maintainers. I think it would be very hard to buy the Debian crew, and I think that is a good thing.

      Agreed, though, that if it was just about having a solid server-oriented distro for deploying Oracle, Debian would be (in my never even remote

    • Re:Ubuntu? (Score:2, Funny)

      by phy_si_kal ( 729421 )
      Now that you failed to buy MySQL, try debian - it's easier.

  • I don't think the people understand (Score:5, Insightful)

    by saleenS281 ( 859657 ) on Tuesday April 18, 2006 @01:08PM (#15150586) Homepage
    Anyone in the ubuntu community doesn't quite understand what will happen if oracle were to buy out Ubuntu. Ubuntu in my experience is targeted at making it easy for n00bs to use linux. Oracle will definitely NOT be focusing on this area. They'll be focusing on tweaking whatever OS they do use to make oracle easier to use and setup. They don't care about the latest video codec, your new soundcard, or that great new 3D rendered desktop.

    The goals of oracle and ubuntu are so far off from each other it troubles me to hear anyone even make the suggestion.

    • And (Score:3, Informative)

      by WebHostingGuy ( 825421 ) *
      The other thing to realize is that now that SUSE was bought by Novell it "corporate". Ubuntu is not. Once something because a corporate item it is perfectly acceptable for other corporations to buy it. But even if the product is very similiar and is not corporate; they will shy away.
      • The other thing to realize is that now that SUSE was bought by Novell it "corporate".

        Suse was 'corporate' from the beginning. Novell's purchase of Suse was an indication of this.
    • Anyone in the ubuntu community doesn't quite understand what will happen if oracle were to buy out Ubuntu. Ubuntu in my experience is targeted at making it easy for n00bs to use linux. Oracle will definitely NOT be focusing on this area. They'll be focusing on tweaking whatever OS they do use to make oracle easier to use and setup. They don't care about the latest video codec, your new soundcard, or that great new 3D rendered desktop.

      Kiss Ubuntu goodbye is the long and the short of it. It will be subsumed

    • Beyond that; Ubuntu is a desktop distro. Not to mention, why does Oracle need to _buy_ a Linux distro? Beyond that; does Oracle (database server) even run on Ubuntu? 'cos last time I checked, it was a nightmare to get running on Debian, and I seem to remember they're fairly similar...
  • Oracle and Ubuntu are two completely different universes. Oracle products are designed for high-availability enterprise applications. The Database and the Database price tag is overkill for most smaller applications.

    Ubuntu is a cutting edge Linux distro with a cute, fun desktop with great installer/maintenance applications. Ubuntu can install MySQL in a few minutes. Not sure I would trust it for any sort of high- availability application. Debian Stable, RedHat Enterprise, Suse Enterprise & Solaris would be a wiser choice.

    Oracle:
    • Installation require a DBA
    • Installs in 8 hours, after 4 tries.
    • Oracle Installer crashes several times because you forgot to change kernel.foo_bar_strings from '0' to '100000' in /etc/sysctl.conf . You now need to uninstall all of the files by hand and start from scratch.
    • It crashes a second time because you forgot to install GCC_2.9.6_legacy_library , and didn't do 'cat "RedHat Enterprise AS" > /etc/sysconfig/kernel/version'. You now need to uninstall all of the files by hand and start from scratch
    • Once installed, Oracle can handle 10,000 customers a second on a 40-million row table


    Ubuntu:
    • Even your grandparents can install it
    • Installs in 10 minutes.
    • Recognized my video card & sound card out of the box.
    • MySQL & PostgreSQL are installed and running, out of the box.
    • The host freezes up after the first 5000 queries ;)


    • The host freezes up after the first 5000 queries ;)

      Oh, come on, let's not be quite so flamebaitish. I agree that Ubuntu is focused more on the desktop/easy-of-use side of things, but it _is_ based on Debian, one of the most solid and reliable Linux distributions out there. Maybe it's not the optimal choice for server applications but there's no reason to believe (at least, none that you give) that it couldn't perform as a perfectly adequate server at a less-than-enterprise level.
      • I'm in complete agreement with you!

        Ubuntu is actually *quite* stable. Even running the beta Dapper version, I can't remember a single crash that brought down the system (after many months of use). I run Apache off my desktop box and leave for the weekend expecting reliable remote access, and I always have it. The userspace apps included in the main distro are all high-quality and well supported. I've hit one or two gnome bugs but not much else.

        Ubuntu is the most stable, reliable, no-rough-edges Linux de
      • that it couldn't perform as a perfectly adequate server at a less-than-enterprise level.

        That's kind of the point though isn't it? Who exactly do you imagine uses Oracle at a "less-than-enterprise level." ?

    • "Once installed, Oracle can handle 10,000 customers a second on a 40-million row table"

      It all looked good except that line to me. You need a *, I'll add it for you.


      Once installed, Oracle can handle 10,000 customers a second on a 40-million row table*
      *assuming you have the obligatory DBA who earns 6 figures to optimize your tables twice a week.


      unfortunately for me, the company I work for does not. And let me tell you, oracle is a complete dog if you don't have a DBA doing the proper optimizati

      • It all looked good except that line to me. You need a *, I'll add it for you. Once installed, Oracle can handle 10,000 customers a second on a 40-million row table*

        *assuming you have the obligatory DBA who earns 6 figures to optimize your tables twice a week.

        unfortunately for me, the company I work for does not. And let me tell you, oracle is a complete dog if you don't have a DBA doing the proper optimizations.

        Oh come on! Even MS Access is a dog if you don;t tune it properly! Sheesh!

    • Why is the parent modded as funny? This is entirely the point. Oracle are not in the least bit interested in making things easy because making things difficult is where they earn their money. Their software is a nightmare to install and manage where other databases that are capable of 100% of what 95% of people need from a database are a breeze (PostgreSQL). If I were an Ubuntu developer the LAST thing I would want would be Oracle getting their grubby fingers all over it and making a big mess out of it.
    • If you are too stupid to follow a simple installation instruction that tells you exactly what all the kernel parameterrs need to be, I wouldn't put the blame on anyone but yourself.

      And if you try to install Oracle on an unsupported distribution, you can not expect it to work flawlessly. I install databases on a regular basis and I have never had the installer crash on me since version 8.0.4, i.e approx 7-8 years ago. Does it crash? Sure, most of the issues we have with the installer is due to people not r
      • From what it sounds like, most of these complaints about the installer are from the 8i and early 9i versions (or before).

        The installers (or really any GUI that Oracle made) really were horrendous back then. It was more reliable to do a create database script by hand than use the installer. We ended up doing that for quite a while here. We even had a guy from Oracle come out to help us install our 9i RAC system years ago, and it still took 3 days of fiddling to figure it out. And to top it off, we're sti
      • I've said it before and I'll be happy to repeat it. Oracle RDBMS is currently the most complex piece of software sold publically and it requires knowledge about the product to manage it.

        Ask yourself. Why?

        People scoff at Access, yet, when you come right down to it, what separates the logic of creating a database in Access verse creating one in Oracle. It's all just rows and columns, with some primary keys, indexes and hey presto, there's your database.

        Please explain why exactly Oracle needs a DBA, yet an Access database can be created by an accountancy intern? Yes the Access database will be dog slow and unoptimised, but where's the software that optimises on the fly? Where's the software to make setting up an oracle database as painless as seting up one in Access?

        Answer. It doesn't exist. It will never exist. The "power" of Oracle lies entirely in the hands of the DBA who regularly grooms it. Oracle can and will grind to a halt without constant lubrication and maintainance.

        Oracle is complex because without being so, it could not be hand tuned to be efficient. If MySQL allowed the kind of low level control and optmiisation Oracle has the two would probably be able to go toe to toe quite easily.
        • The difference is that your accounting intern using Access has probably never even heard of "indexes", "data integrity" or "normal form". Any idiot -could- set up some random tables in Oracle with only a small knowledge of SQL but they'd suck just as much as if they put the table in Access - the only benefit would be that your data wouldn't get corrupted when you had more than 2 users trying to work with it simultaniously.
        • I'm sure most Linux users would be able to, let's say, compile a small source program consisting of a single source file (MS Access in this case) but not everyone can, without instructions, get OpenOffice (Oracle in this case) to compile easily.

          I mean, you can probably drive any car on this planet, but can you fly the Space Shuttle? And why do we need one, I mean cars work fine for everyone.

          Your argument is on primary school level.
      • Thank you for reminding me about Oracle's arrogance.

        Few of these errors happened to me-- ironically, some of them happened on our systems while the *Oracle* consultants were installing the software on a freshly installed supported distro.

        using an incorrect version of JRE

        1. The installer should not rely on my rely on my JRE. The Oracle installer should (and does) use it's own JRE. When we encountered these (early 9i I believe), this installer using Java 1.1 , which may explain the installer's poor error hand

    • Re:Ubuntu & Oracle -- two different universes (Score:4, Informative)

      by jwocky ( 900748 ) on Tuesday April 18, 2006 @02:43PM (#15151505)
      installing oracle on debian/ubuntu is about the easiest thing ever:

      add following lines to /etc/apt/sources.list file:
      deb http://oss.oracle.com/debian/ [oracle.com] unstable main non-free
      deb-src http://oss.oracle.com/debian/ [oracle.com] unstable main

      #apt-get update

      # apt-get install oracle-xe-universal

      # /etc/init.d/oracle-xe configure

      it runs like a dream on my ubuntu box.
    • The semi-funny parent post goes along on the trouble of installing Oracle as compared to MySQL and/or Postgres. My experience is that any DB Server requires solid knowledge of it's workings in order to do a clean install. Postgres from scratch is just as painfull as any other. And just because you can apt-get install mysql doesn't mean it's usually easy to install.

      My question: Isn't it the big problem with various DB engines that they are more or less very simular but all still have the anoyances we all ass
      • Answer is - No.

        As one philosopher once upon a time said: "The language forms the thought". As long as you think in SQL you will be stuck in a 25 year old mentality regardless of the underlying engine. SQL as such is a language which is mostly synchronous. In fact most DBA pray to the god of synchronicity calling it the Holy ACID.

        Well, do they like it or not 95%+ of modern applications which feed a DB are network based. Nearly all are asynchronous. Forcing synchronous execution on them kills the performa

    • The host freezes up after the first 5000 queries ;) /blockquote I know that was meant to be funny but its also flat out wrong. There are major corporations (mine included) running mission critical apps on mysql. Our database is over a terabyte and grows about 1 gigabyte a week. It is in use 24x7 and supports multiple call centers and teams.
    • Not sure if Ubuntu is the way to go, but Oracle having its own Linux-OS would be great for all the reasons that you mentioned about fiddling with the kernel parameters and installing lib_compat_this, lib_compat_that, Patch_set_this and Patch_set_that.

      Imagine if all that was obviated because the DB installer was also the OS installer. Basically, you would start with a blank unpartitioned hdd (or array of blanks), boot the DVD, answer a few pointy-clicky questions in the Oracle installer, go get a cup of co

  • It's the Apps, not the O/S (Score:5, Interesting)

    by OYAHHH ( 322809 ) * on Tuesday April 18, 2006 @01:09PM (#15150594)
    Richard Monson-Haefel,

    Says "Oracle, which is looking only for an OS".

    Well he is wrong. Oracle is pretty much O/S neutral. And they have good reasons for being so. I'll let you figure that one out on your own.

    If all Oracle wanted was a Linux O/S distribution then what would stop them from simply going to a particular distribution's website and downloading it?

    What is really happening is that one of their major Linux partners, Redhat, has been moving into the applications business recently. So much so that they have begun to compete with Oracle on quite a few fronts.

    Thus, Oracle is looking at the situation and saying what money making venture, not charitable situation, is the best fit in a changing competitive landscape. Apparently the answer is Novell, i.e., fits better than any other, it's more mature, etc.
    • Oracle never looks just for an "application", they have more than few themselves and would be fully capable of getting a decent Distro out..

      But the thing they seem to buy is Userbases. (Hint: Netware is still widely used)

  • "Baggage" no only negative things... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by luvirini ( 753157 ) on Tuesday April 18, 2006 @01:09PM (#15150600)
    Novell does have some other things in itself besides Linux.

    One of the things is a fairly large userbase for Netware.. and a working structure of a company.

    So, yes if you are looking for just a linux distro, they are not the thing to aquire, but if you are looking to expand you market share in general.. (like Oracle tries to) Novell does have (atleast potentially) other benefits too.

  • Only one problem (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Philodoxx ( 867034 ) on Tuesday April 18, 2006 @01:09PM (#15150602)
    Mark Shuttleworth has no incentive to sell Canonical/Ubuntu to Oracle. If he were in it for the money, Ubuntu wouldn't mail me CDs once every six months.

    • Re:Only one problem (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MoxFulder ( 159829 )
      Very true...

      Basically the whole Ubuntu community has been freeloading off Mark Shuttleworth's resources for a couple years and it's been quite a fun ride. Thanks, Mark :-)

      As far as I can tell, what he's trying to do is to use his considerable wealth to build up a really top-notch distro that sticks close to free software ideals, and he's hoping that he'll come up with a viable business model to make some money off of it along the way. I sincerely wish him luck, I think it's a rather risky but admirable mo
    • He owns the company with 100% stock. He hires ppl on and at good salaries but offers no stock. He is TOTALLY into this for the money. But I doubt that he would sell it to oracle at this time. It is too early. If he gets to the size of Redhat, then he will sell for billions.
      • I seems unlikely that Shuttleworth is "TOTALLY" into this for the money. If that's really so, then he's not thinking straight, because there are many other investment opportunities that in all likelihood will dwarf the returns he's going to get on having invested in Ubuntu. IOW, if he were really TOTALLY into it for the money, he'd be doing something else. There seem to be motivations at work here other than, or in addition to, money.
        • While you have a good point about the use of the TOTALLY, there really is not other great opportunties save the Space industry. He is trying to get into something before it becomes huge and grow the industry. Basically, Linux is one of the few (if only ) real plays going on in the tech industry. Right now, there is no other market that is not saturated.
          • I don't really disagree, although I think there are other opportunities in the tech industry (I'll tell you what they are if you have $10m to invest... ;)

            In any case, if he succeeds, I for one welcome our new Shuttleworthy overlord! He couldn't possibly be any worse than Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, or Scott McNealy.
            • If he succeeds, he will be moving on. Basically, he has gotten a taste of building a company and then flipping it. More likely than not, he will sell it in about 4 years and go into something such as space or maglevs.
  • What about the Ubuntu community makes anyone think they would want to be locked into making Oracle applications run better?

    What about Oracle and Larry makes anyone think they would want to answer to Ubuntu community every time they want a change to make an Oracle application run better?

    • What about Oracle and Larry makes anyone think they would want to answer to Ubuntu community every time they want a change to make an Oracle application run better?

      What about Oracle and Larry makes you think they would answer to the Ubuntu community every time they want a change to make an Oracle application run better? They'd just do it.

  • Ummm.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Tuesday April 18, 2006 @01:11PM (#15150633) Journal
    "Oracle just wants to add the OS, so Ubuntu Linux would make a lot more sense than Novell," said Richard Monson-Haefel, a senior analyst with Burton Group.

    Far be it from me to question the wisdom of Richard Monson-Haefel, but I assume people at Oracle are capable of grasping the difference between adding a Linux distribution and buying a company the size of Novell.

    • >Richard Monson-Haefel, a senior analyst with **Burton Group**.

      Well, what do you expect from some more used to selling cheap suits?
  • Ubuntu's philosophy is to provide a free operating system for the masses. It was never intended to be a commercial product like Novel's Linux (whatever you call it these days) or Red Hat.
  • Oracle plays in a different niche than Ubuntu. Oracle should buy RH or Novell if they want to reach enterprise users.

  • I'm very much confused why oracle would want to buy one anyways. They could just as easily take Debian or CentOS(or Gentoo I suppose), and include the patches to the kernel/etc they want to run their database. They would have a very specific market, but would be responsible for their own patches, etc.
    • They don't want to buy an OS, they want to buy an OS company. Rolling their own won't get them the developers and brand recognition, which is what they are really after, not just another platform on which to run their DB.

  • Channels (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Tuesday April 18, 2006 @01:15PM (#15150682) Journal
    Oracle is not looking to buy a linux. They are looking to buy a channel. If they were looking for a distro, they would simply roll their own. Getting into businesses is the hard part esp. with companies such as MS blocking their way (illegally, but overlooked these days) and IBM (not illegal, but DB is a real database).
  • I read elsewhere that Oracle was considering to buy Novell to get SuSE Linux. I hope not. This is my favorite distribution that I stuck with since 1998. I wasn't too thrilled with Novel now owning SuSE, although version 10 was a pretty solid product and the installer recognized all my hardware right out of the box. I'm not sure what Oracle would do with it.

  • Ubuntu forum community smaller than Gentoo's? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Dan Ost ( 415913 ) on Tuesday April 18, 2006 @01:17PM (#15150696)
    Ubuntu also boasts one of the largest community bases of all the Linux distributions, called the Ubuntu Forums, which contain more than 67,000 unique registered users.

    Hmm...the Gentoo forums have over 111,000 unique registered users.

    As if unique forum name count was a meaningful metric of anything.
  • Bad idea.

    The Oracle server works on a variety of linux distros already (plus unix, plus windows, etc). Why they would want to own their own distro is beyond me, but if they did - the worst possible one would be one focused upon desktops.

    Seriously, you don't normally want to put open office, mp3 players and tux racer on a database server. You want support & tuning for raid adapters, multiple cpus, etc. And what of the ubuntu community? They *barely* support server installations & questions. Go a

  • Why not Ubuntu (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Elektroschock ( 659467 ) on Tuesday April 18, 2006 @01:19PM (#15150723)
    When we speak of Novell we mean SuSe Linux. Suse is a KDE centric distribution which has a respectable market share on Linux desktops in Europe. Currently some Novell desktop strategist try to achieve the same with Gnome centric solutions, with limited success.

    (K)Ubuntu has no market as the product is not sold.

    Companies can justify to buy another company and lose a lot of money for the strategic advantage. They cannot justify to donate large portions of money, even when the effect would be the same.

    The other issue is control. When Oracle buys Novell they can control corporate policy but they will have no say over Ubuntu. And I do not believe they will buy canonical.

    As Oracle I would rather buy Mandriva.
    • Nope.

      When we speak of Novell, we speak of Novell -- which counts one of two enterprise class (ie supported) linux distributions as one of its many assets.

      It also has a huge customer base, multi-os deployment tools, best of breed identity management / directory solutions, and still one of the widest deployed server OS's in the world.

      Novell includes Suse, but brings much more to the table. Novell would be an interesting acquisition to Oracle even WITHOUT the OS. Zenworks and eDirectory alone probab

  • When Norwest Bank bought Wells Fargo Bank, the company kept the name Wells Fargo. Even though Norwest was the larger business. Norwest was in more states. Norwest had more customers.

    But Wells Fargo had a brand and image that would take an amazing amount of time and money to match.

    Larry isn't so dumb as to not know the value of a solid brand name. Oracle has some perception problems in the Open Source world. Novell is viewed as one of the good guys. Oracle needs a brand with geeky goodness associated with it
    • This is why agile, modern SBC Communications purchased aging, failing-in-the-marketplace AT&T, then proceeded to rename themselves. They think the name clout is worth the effort, even if it takes a few years to shed AT&T's recent reputation as a has-been. Even I think that bringing back the old "T" stock ticker was a cool thing to do.

  • Fork! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by moochfish ( 822730 ) on Tuesday April 18, 2006 @01:23PM (#15150761)
    Yeah. If Oracle tried to take Ubuntu, the very next day you'd see news about a fork. The goals of Oracle are simply too different from the developers of Ubuntu for any simbiotic relationship to develop. Oracle wants a stable, no frills server for a massively scaleable database. Ubunto aims for the desktop crowd.
  • Why not Ubuntu? Zealot attitudes destroy trust.
    Earlier today someone flamed a Linux release for the self-
    righteous feeling it gave him. Such a person must NEVER
    be given any real responsibility.

    (By the way, I *do* use Ubuntu and I do *not* use Oracle.)
  • It's funny that Oracle, one of the world's largest database (and arguably most enterprise deployed) software manufacturers, *might* one day absorb Novell. Makes the old days of Netware with their crappy bundled BTrieve database engine look pretty pale by comparison. Ah...brings back memories:

    LOAD BTRIEVE.NLM

    CPU EXCEPTION ERROR (0x3H) ATH+++++++.............

  • Cause it's not about the distro! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by truthsearch ( 249536 ) on Tuesday April 18, 2006 @01:34PM (#15150873) Homepage Journal
    It's not about the distro. If it were they'd take a small team and customize their own disto. Novell offers services and software (much more than just an OS) to a wide range of governments and mid-sized companies. Oracle has owned the really big business market for a long time. They have a much harder time getting mid-sized and smaller customers. That's where Novell fits in today.

    A Novell purchase would be about much more than a distro. It's a corporation with long-term contracts and consultants. Which distro they choose is almost insignificant in comparison.
  • Ok, as a desktop Ubuntu is great, but how does it compare in HA, fault tolerance, enterprise hardware support and other enterprise areas? Sure a Ubuntu Apache server is one thing but what about everything beyond the generic services like Email, FTP, HTTP, etc.

    This is the reason my Linux servers arn't Gentoo, Ubuntu, and even Debian. I could use them for Email, FTP, etc, but I prefer to standardize my environment so I'm not emerging or apt-get on different servers because it's not an Oracle database or a c

  • Ubuntu, or possibly Mandriva? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dcavanaugh ( 248349 ) on Tuesday April 18, 2006 @01:37PM (#15150901) Homepage
    Full disclosure: I own a small number of NOVL and RHAT shares.

    Compared to Novell, I think it would be more practical for Oracle to acquire Ubuntu or Mandriva. If I owned ORCL I would rather see them get into Linux by purchasing a Linux-only company.

    NOVL has alot of legacy stuff that is of no value to ORCL (although it throws off enough revenue to give them some breathing room while they figure out how to operate as an open source company). RHAT has been relatively successful in monetizing Linux, but the share price includes alot of future expectations. I own both of these and would benefit nicely if ORCL buys either one. But I doubt they will.

    Canonical Ltd. looks like they are privately held and might be a relatively easy buy. On the other hand, they seem quite serious about keeping Ubuntu "free as in beer". Mandriva is more of a conventional company. They are publicly traded, and they sell nothing other than Linux and related services. Although they try to avoid giving away the product, Mandriva never crossed the dreaded "Caldera line". As a result, they have a viable product (a Red Hat derivative that could use some work) and their name is unblemished.
    • I agree that a takeover of Mandriva would be best choice.

      Mandriva is strong and solid. It fits to Oracles product line. Many ERP software manufacturers chose Mandriva. Mandriva is also strong aimed at the desktop, the French Suse so to speak.

      And I assume Mandriva would be a cheap takeover.

  • Duh... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by big.ears ( 136789 ) on Tuesday April 18, 2006 @01:43PM (#15150957) Homepage
    Ellison's announcement was not about acquiring Novell--it was an announcement meant to punish Red Hat for acquiring JBoss out from under Oracle's nose. If Ellison can't have JBoss, he's threatening to compete directly against the firm that has it. The stock market has taken back all the gains RHAT had since they announced the JBoss deal; down 5-6% yesterday. So forget about Ubuntu, this is just PR.
    • Now Oracle getting Mandriva makes a lot of sense to me. And an alliance with Debian too.
    • Ellison's announcement was not about acquiring Novell--it was an announcement meant to punish Red Hat for acquiring JBoss out from under Oracle's nose. If Ellison can't have JBoss, he's threatening to compete directly against the firm that has it.
      "If Ellison can't have JBoss" -- ummmm. Do you really think Red Hat could have stopped Oracle from acquiring JBoss, if that's what Ellison really wanted? Obviously Oracle evaluated the option and passed on it.

  • Why not Oracle? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by digitaldc ( 879047 ) * on Tuesday April 18, 2006 @01:46PM (#15150983)
    Just hire some people and make your own software? Is this too hard?
  • Two obvious reasons: 1) Ubuntu focuses its efforts on the desktop. Oracle's software is server oriented. The two could mix but there's many better options out there for Oracle.

    2) Ubuntu is Shuttleworth's pet project. It's not his get rich quick scheme. Profitability is important, but I think he's more interested in Ubuntu actively contributing to the communities from which his fortune grew. Selling to anyone, Oracle included, would be an inadvertant admission that someone else is more qualified to direct ho
  • Ubuntu has been around for what... couple of years while Novell has been around close to couple of decades?

    Buying out Ubuntu is like buying an empty paper bag while buying Novell is like buying paper bag with grocery in it.
  • Then they would be able to listen to beautiful music.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • But then, I'm a die-hard Suse user, and want the big O to keep it's hands off my distro.

  • It's the Debian, Stupid (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Tuesday April 18, 2006 @02:34PM (#15151419) Homepage Journal
    Ubuntu is based on Debian. SuSE is based on, well, SuSE.

    Oracle can't own Debian. It think that pretty much covers it.
  • These corporate analyst wankers really don't understand the world of free software whatsoever, do they?
  • I for one would be extremely surprised if Mark sold Ubuntu to Oracle. The guys got a ton of money (he's been into space for fscks sake!), Ubuntu seems to be a project that interests him - why sell it to a big corporation who would ruin it?

    Of course, on the other hand, everything in Ubuntu is open source anyway, so what's to stop him selling Canonical to Oracle, then taking the same codebase and continuing as a new distro?

  • Stupid ass question (Score:4, Insightful)

    by tacocat ( 527354 ) <tallison1&twmi,rr,com> on Tuesday April 18, 2006 @02:54PM (#15151613)

    Why Unbuntu?

    Because they can't be recognized as an Enterprise Capable product with a company to back them up with resources, SLA's, and contractual gaurantees. That's why.

    This is kind of a dumb question. Sure, Oracle could run on Debian or anything else, but none of these products are making any significant inroads into the corporate american businesses who would purchase Oracle in the first place. It would make as much sense as buying out Amiga.

  • Ubuntu - "Humanity to others"

    Larry Ellison's Oracle - "In-humanity to others"

  • I'm still pretty new to the linux scene, but I don't understand why Oracle would even think of BUYING a linux distro. I'm sure there's more to it, but the only difference I have seen between Slackware, Debian, RedHat, and DSL (just the ones i'd tried) is 1) their standard apps 2) how conf files are stored/handled and 3)their package management. If Oracles only goal is to create a custom OS centered around their DB, they might as well head over to linuxfromscratch.org [linuxfromscratch.org] and build their own custom distro. ot
  • Maybe Oracle wants to provide a plug'n'play cluster solution? With OS and relabelled hardware? If they got a good deal on the hardware from some vendor and the OS was pretty much free and controlled by them - then they would end up with more money in their pockets while the TCO for the customer would be reduced.

    Does this make sense?
  • 2 years ago, everyone talked about Debian, Debian, Debian..
    1 year ago, Debian sucked and it was all Gentoo, Gentoo, Gentoo..
    Now it's the Unbutu-thing.

    Come on, Oracle are not teenagers, they want something serious.

  • Story = Comment generating, ad-clicking, flamebait (Score:3)

    by fbg111 ( 529550 ) on Tuesday April 18, 2006 @07:52PM (#15153650)
    Honestly, could it be anything else? Oracle + Ubuntu = ridiculous, for reasons already elaborated on by other posters, not the least of which is that Ubuntu is targeted at the DESKTOP. For that matter, FreeBSD would make more sense for Oracle than Ubuntu.

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