back to article Breaking bad: Oracle's Unbreakable Linux website takes a break

It might be dubbed "unbreakable", but Oracle’s Unbreakable Linux website is certainly stoppable. The online support network feeding the enterprise-grade distro with fixes and updates will be taken offline by the database giant on Friday. It will be down for three hours from 3pm Pacific time (11pm UK) on 2 August, the company …

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  1. MrMur

    Breaking News, Read all about it - Oracle website maintenance performed.

    1. Timmay
      Thumb Up

      Heh, I had two attempts before yours to say the same thing (in decreasingly sarcastic tones), but both were rejected - seems they like you more than I!

      1. gazthejourno (Written by Reg staff)

        Oh go on then, I'll let you have this one cos I took my eye off the ball earlier.

        1. MrMur
          Trollface

          Surely the Reg didn't reject us because we used a bit of sarcasm against an article? If you applied the same principle to the articles themselves, you'd have nothing to publish!

      2. MrMur

        Yeah, this was my second attempt. I re-read the house rules and I couldn't see what was wrong with it. I added "Oracle" and resent and hoped for the best.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          resent

          You mean like in "resentment" ? or re-sent? I could understand resentment towards Oracle, perfectly understandable ...

  2. Timmay

    Hahaha

    Hahahaha, how crap of Oracle having to take down a website for maintenance that happens to serve up Oracle UNBREAKABLE Linux, talk about irony!!

  3. DrXym

    I wonder who uses this Linux

    Isn't it basically a ripoff of Red Hat Linux? IIRC, Red Hat started releasing their patches as an enormous patch instead of discrete bug fixes to stop Oracle leeching off their work so easily.

    1. keithpeter Silver badge
      Linux

      Re: I wonder who uses this Linux

      Yes, indeed it is a recompiled RHEL, just like CentOS, Scientific Linux and Springdale Linux (aka PUIAS Linux). I thought about popping it on this laptop just as a conversation starter(*), but decided to use CentOS instead.

      The desktop version clones RHEL even to the extent of installing LibreOffice... now there is irony for you.

      I would imagine Oracle Linux is used mainly by people running servers that support other Oracle products. I think I recall reading about Oracle doing a modified kernel for servers somewhere as well.

      (*) OK, more like physically trolling other Penguins...

    2. AdamWill
      FAIL

      Re: I wonder who uses this Linux

      Yes it is. (I work for RH). Oracle takes our entire product, rebrands it, and then attempts to steal our customers by claiming cheaper support prices (and not bothering to do any of the hard engineering work).

      Of course, when someone tries to compete with Oracle by offering third party support for their products, they welcome them, say 'this is capitalism!', and compete fairly. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH JUST KIDDING no they don't, they sue their pants off: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/07/26/2346235/oracle-sues-companies-it-says-provide-solaris-os-support-in-illegal-manner

      Oracle: truly the world's shittiest company.

  4. nematoad
    Happy

    Hmmm..

    "We are trying to offer a better product at a lower price. "

    Good luck with the second part of that statement.

    Or can it be that Larry and co. just don't get FLOSS software?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    iHop

    Do you mean IHOP as in Pancakes? Or is this a maker of robotic pogo sticks?

  6. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Need a "vote meh" button.

    Want to down vote the article for making a mountain out of a molehill, but want to up vote anything that further exposes Larry's blatant attempts tp rip off RHEL and claims his "unbreakable" product is better.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This is capitalism, we are competing?

    Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison .. hoped Oracle's flavour of the open-source operating system would compete with Red Hat by providing a "better" Linux distro.

    How is stripping off references and then recompiling from Red Hat sources in any way competing?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: This is capitalism, we are competing?

      Because the major cost of enterprise OS is support?

      For the right customer the cost of Oracle RDBMS and OEL together for licensing and support (patches, support advisors etc) is considerably less than the cost of Oracle RDBMS and RHEL together.

      Of course whether it's a good idea is another matter but there used to be a saying that no one got fired for buying IBM - in certain businesses it's the same with Oracle.

      Annon. because of my employer.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: This is capitalism, we are competing?

        The RHEL / OEL OS may be free, but for enterprise grade customers the support costs of Linux are steep.

        If you want to produce and contribute to a freely available OS, you can't complain if another company provides support at a lower price.

        You can take your car to the main dealer, or take it to an independent garage and get the same repairs a lot cheaper.

        Oracle are arguably abusing their position as the main provider of DB software and support for the enterprise. "Buy our DB software and support and we will chuck in OEL support for free". The are also developing parts of the kernel so that Oracle software runs better on the OEL unbreakable kernel.

        Red hat have responded by making life difficult for Oracle by removing cluster services from RHEL 6 and making it an add on that Oracle can't/won't provide in OEL 6.

        Essentially, they are firing blows at each other trying to monetize something that is heralded as "free".

        Oh well, that's capitalism I guess.

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