There is some speculation that Oracle is planning to buy Redhat.

That would pretty much be the end of independent commercial Linux distros (if you don't count small players).

I may be slow, but I'm missing why this would be bad. One of the issues with getting Linux into the "real world" is for the capitalists to figure out the business models needed to make money. A big player like Oracle going after RedHat may simply mean they have some ideas in this regard.

For the "little people" who just want to setup and run their own machines, how will they be hurt?

Open Source is such a huge paradigm shift that it may need several waves of new computer science graduates before things stabilize (to the extent that anything ever stabilizes in high-tech). Company A buying Company B is just a fly speck in the larger picture.

If you are concerned about anti-trust issues, look for the current US administration to be be more proactive (After, of course, they clean up a few other minor issues....)

I didn't mean to imply that it would be a bad thing in my opinion.

Plus I completely forgot that there is also mandriva but I doubt they compare in size to redhat or suse.

It's just that this looks like a great time to sell the imaginary redhat stock I never bought...

Edit: Also looks like a great time to read what I'm writing before posting

The secret to success in the stock market:

1. Do your research
2. Select a stock
3. If it goes up, sell it
4. If it goes down, don't buy it

If this happens, I really hope Oracle would continue the trend of open sourcing their technology (OCFS) and contributing back to upstream Linux. It would be a shame if they got heavy handed and took it in the wrong direction.

Didn't Oracle try to do their own RH based distro a few years ago? I seem to recall that take up was very low. If that is right, then this would make a lot of sense from their point of view.

They still got that distro.

They rebranded Redhat Enterprise into Oracle Enterprise Linux OEL

It makes sense from that point of view, but also from the standpoint that Redhat has products that directly compete in their middleware, identity and directory services space.

I don't like that either...

I also wonder how the other big players who use Linux as middleware (IBM and friends) would react on this.

Blog post from Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols:

http://blogs.computerworld.com/oracl...buying_red_hat

I don't really care what will happen - just made the thread because I figured it's a interesting piece.

That being said - Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols as usual bends a couple of things around to fit his reality.Oracles Linux distro sold about one and half contracts the last time I checked.So he is correct in saying that they already have a Linux distro.

What he neglects to say is that it is a total bust so far.

Thanks for the article. We're a RHEL / Oracle shop, but I'm not crazy about the idea of Oracle (potentially) buying up Red Hat. I work with a couple DBAs who have had less than nice things to say about Oracle's support.

IMO, Oracle definitely does seem to be a little confused about what they're doing in the Linux distro maintenance/support space. Maybe a move like this is inevitable.

OTOH, in general, I have a negative gut reaction when it comes to corporate mergers. Especially when it comes to Red Hat, I'm content with things the way they are.

+1

OCFS2 rocks, by the way.

What Larry Ellison wants, Larry Ellison takes. If it happens it'll happen so fast your head will spin. And if there's an antitrust "problem", he'll resolve it like he did last time around: by paying the Draconian penalty of having to contribute money to his own charity (without having to admit guilt to anything that may or may not have happened, of course.) :slapself:

That's justice, really, it is, because the authorities say so, case closed. :slapselfagain: