RE: White papers - going off-topic - copyright

Date sent:      	Fri, 14 Jul 2000 02:26:50 -0800
To:             	Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com>
From:           	Nikolay Kumanov <nkumanov_at_zgb.bg>
Subject:        	RE: White papers - going off-topic - copyright

...
> As to the availability of the white papers, I think that making them
> available for free does a great service to the professional community. I
> have always wondered why Oracle makes all or most of the software available
> for evaluation for free, but restricts some of the techincal information
> only to those with support contracts.

Conventional wisdom is that a big part of Oracle's profits are in training and support.

I also have the sense that Oracle has a long history of obfuscating and limiting access to support info that is frustrating to elements of the user community. In an ideal world, a lot of the maddening stuff ORacle does wouldn't exist. The reality is that the industry is part of a highly charged and competitive capitalist system. Oracle hasn't always given away software (or anything except glossy marketing materials, which was mostly b.s.), and you can rest assured that when they did start giving stuff away, they were doing it in the context of a larger marketing strategy, not because of altruism and compassion. Even so, Metalink and Technet are a huge improvement over the "old" (closed system) Oracle in a *lot* of ways.

It is also probably worth stating that a large american software corporation is always going to present the face of "cultural imperialism" to people in some contexts.

That said, I understand why Steve Adams feels that there are some important *ethical principles* that need to be brought to the attention of otherwise well intentioned people that are basically stealing Oracle's intellectual property on the web.

I would imagine these range from personal morality and beliefs to wanting to take a "stand" (position) in the industry where he practices his professioal expertise, about the general moral decline and lack of honesty and integrity that seems to be increasingly characteristic of a chaotic world situation.

I personally would like to see Steve say more on this topic if he is comfortable doing so, and I would hope that people try to remain aware of the need for tolerance of a diversity of perspectives about complex ethical issues, especially where there might be political overlays involved.

regards,
ep

>Although I am not a Microsoft fan, it
> seems that MS knows better and makes all the knowledge base, white papers
> etc. available for free over the Internet.
>
> A nice day and a nice weekend to all,
>
> Dr. Nikolay Kumanov
>
> MIS Manager, Zeitungsgruppe Bulgarien GmbH
> 47, Tsarigradsko chaussee, Sofia 1504, Bulgaria
> phone: +(359-2)4339-643, fax: +(359-2)946-1286
> mailto:nkumanov_at_zgb.bg
>
> "Show me a completely smooth operation and I'll show you someone who's
> covering mistakes. Real boats rock." - Frank Herbert, "Chapterhouse: Dune"
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2000 10:26 PM
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
>
>
> <snip>
> I don't know if Bulgaria is a
> signatory of the Treaty or not. If it is a signatory there are steps Oracle
> could take. Otherwise they're just plain out of luck.
>
> Having said that, it's darn nice to see the whole collection in one handy,
> accesible bucket, and it would be good if there was a similar publicly
> available page at Technet/Metalink. That way everyone could get to the
> papers they need, use Oracle's bandwidth to do it, and be reasonably sure
> that the paper is authorized and up-to-date.
Received on Fri Jul 14 2000 - 14:25:50 CDT