RE: How best to get Oracle to divulge "proprietary information"

As usual, Tim hit the nail on the head.

One thing to add: Not too many years ago it was pointed out to Oracle by two user group boards working in concert that bugs expressed implied a hole in the regression test suite. So whether it was the e-Business suite's Vision database, the database's EMP database, or augmented, not necessarily user friendly, testing databases specifically built for their own regression test suites, it would likely be a good investment to sanitize prior bug test data, recast them in a regression suite, and thereby win twice: Previous bugs automatically tested in future releases AND universally viewable example cases. Two executives at Oracle at a level where you could count on one hand who they had to say yes sir to and a handful of technologically hands on people well positioned in Apps, kernel, and support were on board with that. Likely the exit of the two executives in question deflated the initiative. I'm almost certain the investment would beat their internal rate of return, but the financial evaluation has far too much spread in the input values to really get an answer. Still, maybe the lurkers will remind well positioned folks of that notion. It would certainly fit with Larry's notion of using technology to make customers happy and thereby increase Oracle's value and position. If the sum of the savings of avoided patch releases and support cases is even close (or less) than the cost of quickly augmenting the regression suites, then everyone wins. WELL, everyone but Microsoft...

-----Original Message-----
From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org [mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of Tim Gorman
Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 11:48 AM To: Oracle Freelists.org
Subject: Re: How best to get Oracle to divulge "proprietary information"

The problem is customer privacy. There are customer company names, people names, phone numbers, email addresses (i.e. contact info) as well as details about what the customer is trying to do in those bug texts.

Of course, there is plenty of text that is "hidden" from view without that justification. But, when there is legal liability involving privacy and the competitive advantage of customers, one naturally tends to paint with a broad brush, just in case. I'm sure that the rule within Oracle is "if in doubt, hide the text".

I'm sure that Oracle Legal goes ape on a regular basis on having *any* bug text exposed on MetaLink. They don't give a darn about the advantages to customers trying to diagnose problems -- they are concerned only with the liabilities involved and the resulting potential financial exposure, and that exposure is considerable. Think about it.

I've worked for companies that host systems for bitter competitors in the same industry -- these competitors actually stipulated in their hosting contracts that their data would not reside on the same storage devices as their competitors. Of course, they would not share the same servers. They even mandated that they would not share network or network components. Can you imagine how these people would react if they found their competitor reading one of their bug texts, with some bit of identifying information exposed? "Ballistic" doesn't begin to illustrate what would happen...

For that matter, think of the existing exposure the bug texts in MetaLink could represent for medical companies in the US covered by the HIPAA regulations. I hate to say it, but Oracle could already very well be in violation of federal law on that. It's bad enough I just said that on an open forum, and it is purely hypothetical and speculative, but what if it is true?

Think about that, and just be grateful that *any* of the bug texts are exposed. Personally, I work each day with the expectation that they will disappear altogether.

Nuno Souto wrote:
> Charles Schultz wrote,on my timestamp of 3/10/2006 11:58 PM:
>
>>
>> Or am I barking up the wrong tree?
>>
>
> I think to a certain extent you are. Feature-wise,
> I don't expect to ever see Oracle disclose the details
> of how they do the new fast sorting in 10g, for example.
> Or RAC cache. Or a number of many other "competitive
> advantages". They are not under the GNU license,
> so that's fair.
>
> However, I do object very strongly to not being able to
> check all bugs and their text in Metalink or even be
> able to see a short description of them. After all I'm
> paying for Metalink access as a service that is supposed,
> among other things, to help me find solutions to problems
> I might be experiencing or expect to encounter.
>
> Or at least a note on if it is a known problem or a new
> one. It used to be that way. But it appears Oracle
> have lapsed back into "we're the only ones who can see
> the bugs" mode, in recent years. And that's as annoying
> as can be! Certainly not worth my moolah...
>
>

-- 
Tim Gorman
consultant - Evergreen Database Technologies, Inc.

website = http://www.evdbt.com
email   = tim_at_evdbt.com
mobile  = +1-303-885-4526
fax     = +1-303-484-3608

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