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Re: native Oracle-port on Linux -- why bother?

From: Bjorn Borud <borud_at_guardian.no>
Date: 1998/01/05
Message-ID: <m2d8i7b2au.fsf@lucifer.guardian.no>#1/1

[tzs_at_halcyon.com (Tim Smith)]
|
| Benjamin Redelings I <bredelin_at_ucsd.edu> wrote:
| > However, why Oracle? I'm not really a transaction-oriented-database
|
| Oracle (the company) does not like Microsoft. Therefore, at least
| the way some Linux users think, Oracle's products must be cool and
| they want them on Linux.

I think this is a oversimplified view of the situation. sure, Larry spends a lot of time bashing Microsoft and it is good that someone tries to fight the beast in Redmond, but that's not really the issue.

the issue is that the world has changed a lot lately (last 3-4 years) with the Internet boom and the need for systems that can glue other systems together has risen. Windows does not provide the flexibility needed and the traditional UNIX vendors persist in delivering limited and expensive operating systems and hardware with pityful bang/buck ratios. thus operating systems like Linux and FreeBSD have become more common in professional applications because they are _good_ operating systems that are easy to use, easy to adapt and easy to set up. (give me a few thousand dollars around 0900 in the morning and before lunch I can have a webserver, name-server, FTP-server and mail-server up and running before lunch.)

the point is; there is a HUGE market for applications that are ideal to run off a Linux or FreeBSD box so it would be very neat to be able to develop and run things like Oracle on Linux. most projects I've encountered the last 2 years have had relatively moderate database needs where there is no need for the more advanced features of Oracle, BUT: many organization wish to stick to only ONE database, and if that database is Oracle it usually means that our options are gravely limited. instead of adding cheap Intel-muscle to do things like front-end processing we have to spend 3-10 times as much money on buying hardware that performs about the same -- and where the money just isn't available you have to either accept poor performance or create not so neat workarounds.

Linux _is_ a professional platform and the reason why people want to run Oracle on it is because Oracle is widely used. it has nothing to do with Larry's childish name-calling war with Microsoft. leave the kid-stuff to the kids.

-Bjørn

-- 
 Bjørn Borud <borud_at_guardian.no>       | "The Net interprets censorship 
 <URL:http://www.pvv.unit.no/~borud/>  | as damage and routes around it."
 UNIX person, one of "them"            |         - John Gilmore
Received on Mon Jan 05 1998 - 00:00:00 CST

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