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You can be authentic and speak your mind without being arrogant, insulting, and condescending.

In terms of tone, I wouldn't hold this up as a good example - it distracts from any legitimate argument the writer may or may not have.

I think a lot of blog posts like these get triggered by some acute event which pushed the writer over the edge, and it's expected this will shine through in the text. The rest is probably due to living in an employer-typical bubble.

If I was an Oracle customer (which I will never, ever be) I would appreciate the honesty. This honesty enables me to make purchase decisions as well, better than megabytes of legalese would have. In this case it's not a really surprising attitude given the company, but I really wish more vendors would be as open about the nature of their intended relationship with their customers.

> This honesty enables me to make purchase decisions as well.

Fair point. And a hint to everyone still hanging on to oracle Databases.

One of the best lines is this here:

> Q. What does Oracle do if there is an actual security vulnerability?

> (...) if there is an actual security vulnerability, we will fix it.

Sure, the question is 'when', not so much 'if' customers have payed a hell of a lot money to get this straight.

You cannot swear you will never be an Oracle customer. You buy a service from a third party, the company get bought by Oracle, you are a customer now. In many instances in B2B systems, it is a lot more pain to migrate away than sending a check...

Not sure jumping on such a minor point is a productive use of our time, but just for the sake of clarification: sure I can, personally. You have no basis for disputing my intention. I have never in my life made a decision to purchase a service that could only ever be provided by a single company, and with good reason I believe. Over my contracting years, I have also gained enough insight into the dynamics customers have with providers such as Oracle, enough to avoid this kind of lock-in at all costs in my own decisions.

You can be authentic and speak your mind without being arrogant, insulting, and condescending

If you are by nature arrogant, insulting, and condescending, then no, you can't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error

In my honest and not-so-humble opinion, the tendency to attribute arrogance to Oracle is by no means "undue" (which is required for the parent comment to fall victim to FAE).

I think it's an accurate representation of her employer, however.

Interesting that all the reasons she cites for why she thinks trying to reverse-engineer Oracle products is a bad idea are the same exact reasons why more and more administrators with any sense in security are switching to open-source software and have been for the last decade or so. Being able to inspect the code yourself (or hire someone to do it for you) is apparently important enough to a sufficiently-large population for Oracle to whine about it.

Tell that to Pottering or de Raadt or Torvalds.

The blog post is as authentic as a big pile of rubber dog shit. The faux-folksy patina does nothing to hide the utter contempt Oracle has for their customers.

Is this so different than the accusations of contempt often levied at several large personalities in the open source world?

I'm honestly curious about this.

Depends on which "several large personalities" you're referring to. Perhaps if you specify, your curiosity will be sated.

I am curious in general, as it is often noted that there is a trend in open source development communities to be hostile to end-users.

If pressed for specifics, Linus Torvalds and Theo de Raadt come to mind as a couple that are often called out for their abusive behavior.

In those cases, the difference is that the end result of the projects they command - Linux and OpenBSD, respectively - are free software, and therefore ultimately respect the user by providing said user with the various essential freedoms. This is in stark contrast with Oracle's software products, which are not only proprietary, but repressively so.

The hostility is also usually confined to those on the development mailing lists of those respective projects (which are implied to be meant for developers, not end-users). It's also with full understanding that - if someone doesn't like how Torvalds or de Raadt run their respective projects - they're welcome to fork (even if said forking rarely happens in practice).

The reason why I pressed for specifics is because there are some personalities in the FOSS world who - while still not in Oracle realm of dickery - probably would come close if given the ability to. Mark Shuttleworth comes to mind, being outright hostile to user feedback on things like Unity, Mir, the Amazon Shopping Lens, etc. (as opposed to the interdeveloper harshness characteristic of Torvalds and de Raadt).

I very much don't agree, the only time I've seen writing like this is when someone is deeply frustrated about something.

I don't think it's an unreasonable fairy tail to say this is a person who is frustrated, who has drunk the corporate kool-aid in a big way, who is dealing with the detritus of a rather nasty security confidence scam industry, and is putting their views out there. Even if you or I don't like the message, I believe she meant it. I believe it. Maybe I'm gullible.

Opening up with the gambit about inventing unique ways of killing people was a genius way to set the tone for the piece.

FWIW, I have no objection to the folksy tone. It's more to the opinions that she's expressing, and worse, to their consequence. The fact that Oracle objects to anyone trying to figure out where the holes are in their software says a lot about why there are so many holes in their software.

> But: this is authentic. This is what we (i.e. hackers) are always claiming we want. Someone speaking her mind, shooting from the hip, etc. Not an anodyne blob of corporate-speak: this is an opinion, stated pretty clearly, and backed up with fighting words.

We also want intelligence and clear thinking along with it. We don't, as a rule, want loud and dumb as a bag of rocks. That way lies Donald Trump.

At the same time, this is a huge improvement over corporate doublespeak. It helps the stupidity and arrogance shine through clearly, which is one reason that I like it when people talk this way.

Ten out of ten for authenticity, minus several million for authentically saying something that's a good idea.

Agreed. The author is clearly wrong on a bunch of fronts; I don't think anyone here would argue otherwise.

I just don't understand the hatred directed towards someone who's writing without the usual corporate brain-mouth filter ...

The tone obfuscates the message. I don't think it's hatred so much as bewilderment that someone in an executive position at a huge tech company would present an argument about customer behavior this way.

I felt embarrassment for the writer and Oracle. The fact that it was taken down confirms they felt that way as well upon reflection. It wasn't professional. Just my opinion.

I see a few objections in this HN thread to the tone, but the primary objection (and my objection) is to the content.

Authentic shit is still shit?

If someone does one thing you like, among a bunch of other things you don't like, you can still complain about all the other stuff.

It's like if I say I wish people would stop murdering people with guns so much, then I get stabbed in the chest and you say, hey, isn't this what you want, people not using guns?