Why didn't they just offer paid support for CentOS? Why not dedicate full time engineers and donate?
Someone at Oracle needs to be fired over this.
Ah! I think you nailed it. A key part of what makes open source work is corporations putting guys on projects, donating code, and being part of the ecosystem.
Oracle doesn't want to be a part of the ecosystem. They want to be the ecosystem. They don't contribute to projects. They either purchase them outright if they can or start their own.
Technically, that's still open source. It's just seriously anti-social open source.
There are some companies that offer CentOS support but they are not as prominent perhaps. I think Oracle should have done that, and in the process win some brownie points with the OS community.
From their point of view pissing off some idealistic OS nerds wearing T-shirts and flip-flops is nothing to worry about. However, the problem is a lot of these nerds end up making technology choices, directly or indirectly by advising their managers what is better, etc.
We already have that, it is called CentOS. If giving something for free means trying to trample another open source project, then 'No Thanks, I think I'll pass'.
I don't think Android's developers should feel super duper sad that they killed Meego's chances of rising from obscurity.
I don't disagree with anyone that is wary of Oracles motivation with this product. I also don't disagree that the product itself is nice. But given Oracles known interactions and history with open source an attitude of "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me" isn't unwarranted.
This can be interpreted as an attempt to suck the air out of CentOS and Red Hat at the same time. Considering Oracle's past, the hypothesis cannot be ruled out easily.
We use CentOS on basically all of our Linux servers, so it seems appropriate to support the project financially.
Could be a way to kill MySQL ;-)
Do you know ANYTHING about CentOS ?
They aren't exactly the most open and accommodating OSS project around. And with the very worrying communication issues around that developer who went AWOL I am surprised you think Oracle would give them any money at all.
Yes I know a thing or two about CentOS
Yes, they had that issue. And some people switched to Scientific Linux. That is not different than relying on Oracle and find out overnight that management changed and now the project is discontinued. In large companies whole department get laid off and focus changes.
Has Oracle tried to help. How about a donation first.
> I am surprised you think Oracle would give them any money at all.
I would be surprised but not for the same reason, but just because it is Oracle. It doesn't exactly have a good standing with the open source community. If it donated, I would be shocked. Instead if chooses to trample.
CentOS is well known, used by many, it had its issues, and it seems to me Oracle instead of trying to help is trying to strangle is replace it. I don't see that as a good move.