Re: Oracle headed for Legal Trouble

enduser_at_enduser.com (EndUser) wrote:
>you miss the point. the vertical packages are not sold
>in pieces. the product you are using is not the oracle database
>or the reportwriter, it is the whole vertical, screens, reports,
>database as an entity.
>
>what you are trying to do is redefine the product. you cant do that
>since a. you didnt create the product, and b. you dont sell the product.
>
>if you are unhappy with the product boundaries, dont buy it.
>it is still your right to not do that, but dont bitch becuse you cant
>buy just the tuner of the tv, or just the refrigeration coils of your
>amana, or just the rear two wheels of your car.
>
>--

This is not quite fair. It is certainly more common to unbundle accounting modules than to unbundle cars or refrigerators. Good pr= ogramming practice requires that modules be as loosely coupled as possible. Presumably Oracle knows this. So why do they force you=  to keep all the modules resident?

Of course you can avoid buying the product -- that is the stated purpose of threads like this one, namely, to get the word out. We = owe it to our clients and employers to warn them that this disadvantage comes with the Oracle product.

>
>In article <4bhg4g$9rv_at_newsbf02.news.aol.com>, jgreene_at_aol.com (Jgreene) wrote:
>
>> Richard Mendoza <rmendoza_at_titan.com> writes
>>
>>
>> > For almost all of the past week I've been going rounds with
>> > Oracle on a subject that might interest some of you. Oracle as
>> > a corporation has taken the position that if you purchase and
>> > install a single financial system (GL) you must also install the
>> > databases and stored procedures for all of there other systems.
>> > I am told by many in Oracle support that, and here's a quote from
>> > at least 4 people in support) 'That's the way it is and there's
>> > nothing you can do about it' (Now there's some good customer
>> > relations).
>> > So in effect what there telling you is Oracle is so big now they
>> > can prevent you from installing third party software and there's
>> > nothing you can do about it.
>> > If Oracle persists on this hardline stance I think the US Attorney
>> > Generals office should be asked to investigate Oracle. These large
>> > software companies cannot be allowed to tell you what you can or
>> > cannot put on your computer systems.
>>
>> I feel very comfortable that Oracle will NOT be investigated by the
>> attorney general over this packaging issue. I have installed these
>> products and asked the same questions that you did about what could I
>> delete to save space on my system. The Oracle engineers did not have any
>> idea. They would have had to go through every line of code, forms,
>> reports, etc. to see what could be deleted and it was not worth it. What
>> we have here is a clear case of bundling unnecessary data tables and
>> stored procedures in with a software system where you might only want one
>> package. It is annoying as hell to DBAs and system administrators who are
>> constantly under pressure for more disk space, but it is not illegal. You
>> can still go out and buy an hundred copies of SAP financials and run it on
>> the same host computer. Our only defense as DBAs, developers, etc. is to
>> make this known on newgroups such as this so that other DBAs who are
>> evaluating financial systems can bring this up when the sales reps call.
>> If enough deals fall through because of packaging that makes life easy for
>> the developers of the installation script but harder for the people who
>> use the system, then the powers that be at Oracle will force their people
>> to build installation scripts that only install what is necessary.
>> Besides, the attorney general is already busy defending herself (as is
>> everyone else in Washington) from all sorts of charges, so there is
>> probably no time to go on the offensive against Oracle.
Received on Tue Dec 26 1995 - 00:00:00 CET