Hacker News Reader

Comment by bayindirh | Hacker News Reader

We've bought some of their high end ZFS boxes. While I cannot comment for the hardware and experience (I temporarily left the team after we bought the HW), during the buying process I gained some valuable insight about them.

It looks like, unlike Apple, Microsoft or Google they are motivated solely by the money. Not the monopoly, not the domination, not the technology, just the money.

If they can earn the same amount of money, without doing anything, they will happily do that. Yes, they have very good technologies, but they are just built for the money.

Every corporation is in for the money, but money is generally a byproduct of good services and technologies, however it's backwards for Oracle. Services, products, and technologies are a byproduct of money. Money is not needed for products. Products are needed for money.

This is why Oracle is used also as an acronym for Larry Ellison's character and material wealth.

View on HN

See also this VP's blog post https://seclists.org/isn/2015/Aug/4 which reinforces Oracle's worst stereotypes

Wow - that's shockingly tone-deaf.

He's virtually goading people into releasing discoveries to the public first (but of course they have already discovered these bugs and the fix was ready anyway - so THERE!).

Aren't we past the days when decompiling code would offer any real advantage?

In his defense, there is a real problem with people running code analysis tools and assuming the results to be correct. It can be difficult to deal with a constant barrage of incorrect "security findings".

It still doesn't excuse some of the things said in that post, though, of course.

I think he's doing his job very, very well [0]. The vulnerability in linked post is disclosed directly to the public.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18395855

"One Rich American Called Larry Ellison"

I heard that acronym expansion with a different A-word which ends with 'hole'.

Tangentially topical, fuck censorship, "asshole" is what people were calling him.

While that is true, I am under the impresssion OpenJDK project is mostly Oracle developers

There'll be a diaspora soon enough, as other companies beef up on their OpenJDK rosters to bolster credibility in the face of Oracle FUD.

That is correct. Oracle funds ~90% of OpenJDK development, and will continue to contribute most of the security patches (just not backport them).

> unlike Apple, Microsoft or Google they are motivated solely by the money

Unlike Google? What other motivations Google have? MS and Apple have solid products (hardware and Office/Windows). What Google have?

I'd risk to say, any business is motivated solely by money :) The differentiator is what and how are they selling. Oracle sucks in the 'how' department. Google sucks in 'what' department - phishing for people's data mostly, and selling it to businesses.

I think what he's implying is that they don't ever start with a product idea without a monetisation strategy or customers, like Google have done a few different times now.

@faceplanted, exactly that. Thanks for the clarification.

That might be true but I don't exactly see what's wrong with that? After all by identifying what is going to be financially successful they are very much trying to serve the demands that people have on the market.

If anything not enough companies actually ask themselves if there is a market for their product, and instead spent a lot of manhours on building products around 'ideas', when at the end of the day someone actually needs to buy your stuff.

That last part isn't the side-effect of a business, it's what it's about, and it generally makes both consumers and businesses better off.

By experience, I divide the businesses / businessmen into two main groups. First group is motivated by serving the demands and needs of the market, and they earn money as a result. Second group wants to earn money, and they earn money by trying to serve the market's demand or by bullying people into buying their products.

First group earns way more money, produces way more higher quality goods, and people are happy to work with them, because don't feel ripped off or short changed. The second group makes you feel ripped off, produces inferior products and never supports you if something goes wrong.

Earning money is a side-effect for the first group. Yes, they earn money, but since they provide quality goods or services, they earn money without effort. For the second group since earning money is the primary target, they don't care about the products they provide unless the money stops flowing.

I didn't intend to imply that business shall be free. I tried to say that good business inevitably brings money in, and Oracle doesn't provide good business to earn money. They just want your money, and give you something in return to act as a memorial item and as an instrument to get more money from you.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com