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Comment by seangrant | Hacker News Reader

When's the last time Oracle has built "cool stuff"?

April 28th, 2016 according to vagrant on my Mac https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Changelog

At least I think it is pretty cool (and very gracious of Oracle)

You're not exactly setting the bar very high for Oracle. VirtualBox was mostly GPL'd before its developer was bought by Sun, which was later bought by Oracle. Saying that it's "very gracious" of Oracle to not kill a successful project or fire all its developers makes it sound like you've been brainwashed under an oppressive tyranny.

You're a special kind of ingrate. Oracle spends a great deal of its treasure on open source software. They maintain and innovate on those projects at great cost to themselves. You have no leg to stand on. Oracle is doing a nice thing for the engineering community. They don't have to, but they do. It is nice of them. You are being rude

> "They maintain and innovate on those projects at great cost to themselves."

Net cost? Most certainly not. That's not how Oracle works at all.

Saying that they aren't entirely opposed to participating in mutually beneficial arrangements is still setting the bar pretty damn low and is not a distinction worthy of any praise.

That's not how favors work. When someone does something nice for the engineering community you use it with gratitude (if you do use it). Oracle makes cool software. It doesn't cost anything to aknowledge it, but it sure makes you look like an ass to argue that they don't. So many people use vagrant right now and it just works because of VirtualBox. That's cool. No bar to clear. It's just nice that Oracle paid for that

Vagrant works with many other VMs as of version 1.1. Oracle didn't create VirtualBox, they bought it. I avoid using it, like I avoid depending on any Oracle-owned software. Especially if it means I would be obligated to thank them for it.

Oracle paid for all the work done on VirtualBox. They paid for the past work and they pay for current work. You can dismiss it as something they bought, but that doesn't address that they paid for all the past work done on it when they bought it. It doesn't address that they pay to maintain and innovate on it. Everyone knows vagrant works with other VMs. Almost everyone uses VirtualBox. You are not obligated to thank them, but you are an ingrate if you do use it and don't have an attitude of thankfulness that it works well for you (if that is the case). I mean, if a person does that they really are ungrateful. What else do they complain about? Do I hate working with them? Probably. Attitude and acknowledgement of the way things actually work and who pays for them is a big part of being a nice person

America's Cup?

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