Re: Incompetent Oracle Support
Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 09:39:26 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <3d56bd77-fca4-46f3-a77d-f32f205ad5ef_at_i18g2000pro.googlegroups.com>
On Jul 30, 7:16 am, Serge Rielau <srie..._at_ca.ibm.com> wrote:
> Yes it was meant to be a soccer pun.
> An did don't see where the discrimination lies.
>
> In clear text:
> I was stating that accepting a competitor's API as an industry standard
> is akin of learning another language.
> Adding an API (language) to ones skill set increases ones applicability
> in the market and does not imply a technical (or cultural) defeat as was
> alleged.
It depends. If it is a technological cul-de-sac, it may increase ones applicability in the market negatively. The problem is, one can never tell what will take off and what won't, since success does not come from technological superiority. Some more savvy people/sites realize the positive aspects of having adaptability, a willingness to learn, a range of experience, and/or similar experience, but the more common practical way to get a job is to either have experience in the exact technology, or find a place that has no clue what you do.
Personally, I'm inept at PL, because I first learned it 25 years ago and have hardly ever had to use it beyond the minimal DBA functions. If I ever have to, I'm sure I could get a job and crank it for a year and not be inept anymore. I would recommend that for anyone these days, in fact, and agree that that specifically would help marketability. But there are plenty of more obscure languages that would just limit someone, unless it was part of a concerted effort to learn many languages. Some languages have value in a very limited market, but that can be career limiting. I hear COBOL programmers are in demand these days, though.
>
> I'm sure Rolls Royce did not laugh when Ford and other non British
> companies built their first cars with a steering wheel on the right side.
Why would they even care? At the time, half the world drove on the left and half on the right. In 1909 it varied as to whether some countries even required which side for the steering wheel - Spain and Austria, to name two, varied by region as to which side of the road you drove on. By 1921, some RR's were built in America, anyways. Citing England in this context is very strange, they defined supercilious at that time.
>
> What this does do is acknowledge that there is a major market using the
> API and the clear intent to attack that market.
So how does this add value over, say, Postgres, or some Oracle free thingee?
>
> I'm not even going to comment on this old same-code-base chestnut. It's
> getting truly lame.
Can't disagree with that (even agreeing with Noons), but the larger point of marketing fluff driving purchasing decisions stands.
>
> As far as "dumping" is concerned I think it implies that you are selling
> under production cost. Germany has (had?) a similar law.
> If giving away the initial (as opposed to maintenance!) license of a
> software product would be illegal then presumably there is no legal
> mySQL in Australia or Germany?
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=define%3Adumping
If it is free everywhere, that is a nonsense presumption. There's nothing wrong with freebies, unless they are predatory. I'm sure what's-his-face Widenius would love to destroy competition such as Oracle, but that's as silly as some guy founding his own company using ideas IBM is too lumbering to exploit.
jg
-- _at_home.com is bogus. http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-20012193-92.htmlReceived on Fri Jul 30 2010 - 11:39:26 CDT