back to article Down and out? Rimini's Oracle slap spells trouble – for Oracle

The odds of paying Oracle top dollar to keep updating your database or business software shortened this week, despite Oracle’s victory over Rimini Street. Larry Ellison’s giant secured $50m in damages from Rimini in a case that has rattled on for five years. $14m of that will be paid by Rimini’s charismatic chief executive, …

  1. Warm Braw

    Sales of new software ... fell for the year by nine per cent

    I'm sure there are some applications for which Oracle would be the product of choice. However, for many applications, it's been chosen for arse-covering purposes. Given Oracle's increasing propensity for biting the arse that feeds it, the direction of travel of new sales is hardly a surprise.

    1. asdf

      Re: Sales of new software ... fell for the year by nine per cent

      Amazing how fast word gets around in IT circles when you start putting scrotums (ok budgets) in a vice huh?

  2. Gordon 10
    FAIL

    Unconvinced by this article

    Oracle is the 800lb gorilla and will be until the day it is asset stripped and broken up.

    It will continue to crush anyone who tries to offer 3rd party support. The only way for any of these 3rd parties to profit is it to quickly build a business big enough that Oracle themselves or someone with similar clout (the usual suspects) will prefer to buy them before Oracle sues them into oblivion.

    Hell hath no fury like a Database vendor scorned.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Unconvinced by this article

      3rd-party support isn't a problem. 3rd-party support using information taken without permission from the vendor is another matter.

  3. Fraggle850

    Pay for security updates?

    I've no experience of the Oracle ecosystem but the idea of having to pay for security updates suggests that the whole thing is a scam. The sooner these IT dinosaurs go belly up the better. There's got to be a better way (and I don't mean run to the clouds), maybe they could merge with Dell and EMC? Have a big old dinosaur party and toss lawsuits at each other?

  4. JassMan
    Devil

    Time for a class action

    It looks like Oracle are indulging in fraud and protectionism if they are preventing 3rd parties from from fixing bugs (which may or may not be deliberate) then charging said customers over the odds for a service which the support companies provide at a much lower cost before they are sued out of business.

  5. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Shirley

    this behaviour means that anyone with any sense would try to avoid oracle software like the plague.

    Oh, yes. I said "any sense"

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

      Re: Shirley

      You know that there is another recent thread here (with over 200 comments) saying much the same thing about Microsoft.

      AFAIK, they are simply copying the behaviour of the old IBM learnt by Oracle (as it originated on the IBM platform) and moved to MS.

      This is basically.

      "Screw you"

      This behaviour makes other IT Giants seem like charities.

  6. theWatcher

    Hipocracy much ?

    But Oracle is fine with attempting to deliver "support" for Red Hat Enterprise Linux ?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hipocracy much ?

      Oracle doesn't support Red Hat. Oracle has it's own distribution of Linux. That is the whole point of Linux - it's open source so that anyone can create their own distribution and then provide support. Entirely legally.

      However, the software that is in dispute here is Oracle's wholly owned software, and copyright infringement is theft.

      1. Vic

        Re: Hipocracy much ?

        copyright infringement is theft.

        No, it isn't. However wrong it might be, it isn't theft, for the same reason that driving over the speed limit isn't shoplifting.

        We've done this many times...

        Vic.

      2. ToddR

        Re: Hipocracy much ?

        Its RedHat EL with out the RedHat logos, similar to Centos.

  7. ArthurHH

    @Steve Davies 3

    "AFAIK, they are simply copying the behaviour of the old IBM learnt by Oracle (as it originated on the IBM platform) and moved to MS."

    Did not originate on IBM.

    Google "Oracle pdp11" and you'll find lots of facts like this:

    "RSI first offered Oracle commercially in the summer of 1979, on Digital Equipment PDP-11 minicomputer"

    RSI being the original name of Oracle Corporation.

    Oracle development was done on the PDP-11 and later on VAX, then migrated to other platforms.

  8. ArthurHH

    The quote in my post above came from

    http://cs.iupui.edu/~ateal/n311/history.htm

    Editing functionality at The Reg could be much improved.

  9. MaxPlanc

    It's hard to take El Reg seriously

    I'm a big fan of the cheeky Vulture, but the Oracle-bashing is getting a bit tired. Do any of you really think that Oracle is actually significantly different from any other major multinational tech company? It seems like a bit of an angle that El Reg takes on Oracle news in order to win the attention of a community of haters (I presume because they are a lucrative segment of the market for tech infotainment?)

    1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      Re: It's hard to take El Reg seriously

      "Oracle-bashing is getting a bit tired"

      We bash everything, mate. We don't have quotas on companies. "Oh man, we've said five non-nice things about Oracle, better make the next one nice." No, that's not how life works.

      There's plenty of nice things about Oracle on oracle.com.

      C.

    2. Vic

      Re: It's hard to take El Reg seriously

      Oracle-bashing is getting a bit tired

      You registered just to post that?

      One could almost imagine you have an agenda...

      Vic.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like