Re: Oracle Vs SAP Round 1

If SAP can offer better support at a cheaper price, more power to them. However, they should not
be so blatantly stealing (as outlined in the legal brief) Oracle's property. If they can re-engineer
(even if illegal) or otherwise take something that they can easily get their hands on, and then through
their own efforts create something that is marketable, that's fair enough. But using an Oracle
customer's credentials to illegally acquire Oracle's property is outrageous. I'm just surprised that
Oracle didn't include their ex-customers in the lawsuit as well. It seems like that would have had
merit to the case as well, and also prevented other customers from entertaining the thought of
allowing someone outside their company access to their id's and passwords. Those ex-customers
are almost as culpable as the people at SAP-TN are, as SAP-TN wouldn't have been able to do
what Oracle claims without tacit support and acknowledgement from the ex-customer.

What Oracle's legal staff has outlined is no worse than if I borrowed (not purchased) every book on
Oracle I could find, scanned them all, and created my own publishing company, selling 'my' books
at half price, and then claiming to be the world's foremost Oracle author.

I imagine several people on this list would be highly irate if I did that, and that's exactly what SAP
has done, according to the brief.

The "source code" SAP is alleged to have stolen is probably the sql scripts to build the data
dictionary, as most of the procedures, functions, packages and other objects are wrapped, unless
SAP also has an 'unwrapper'. Without the data dictionary, the database itself is pretty worthless,
hence it is still pretty accurate stating the source code was stolen as well.

Many of us may not like some of the 'difficulties' we've encounterd with Oracle Support, but
nothing is stopping us from finding another source of support either. However, how would that other
'source' be able to provide us with upgrades, patches, etc. unless they broke numerous existing laws
to acquire them and them "re-sell" (even via yearly maintenance fees) without compensating
Oracle in return for each and every copy "re-sold"?

I'm also surprised that if Oracle is so confident of their claims that the FBI hasn't been brought in
to investigate and bring criminal charges against the involved parties, as numerous interstate laws
are alleged to have been broken during the accomplishment of this. M$ has no qualms about
using the FBI to substantiate their claims of piracy, and this is no worse.

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• Bill Ferguson

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