The long reach of Oracle

[blu-Z8efaSeK1ezqlBn2x/YWAg at public.gmane.org (Edward Ned Harvey)]

> From: discuss-bounces-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org [mailto:discuss-bounces-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org] On
> Behalf Of Rich Braun
> 
> Having recently seen what happened to SSL Explorer which forked into
> Adito and
> then quietly died as the sole open-source SSL VPN (at the hands of
> proprietary
> Barracuda Networks), 

Are you discounting openvpn for some reason?  pfSense?  m0n0wall?

I have been using pfsense, openvpn, ssl VPN for home... for about 3 years
now.  Just this morning, I was thinking the laptop that runs this for me
must be getting old, and maybe it's time for me to upgrade.


> into Foswiki, it seems to me that a relatively brief campaign of FUD
> (fear/uncertainty/doubt) by the marketing execs at Oracle can undermine
> the
> entire current direction of open-source as we understand it.

Let's name some open source products that oracle suppoted before acquiring
sun.
BTRFS, bdb, innodb, php, eclipse, python, ruby, glassfish, xen.

Let's name some more they acquired with sun.
mysql, java, sge, opensolaris, zfs...


> Will they?  What's in their best interest?  And how would the community
> respond if Oracle's words quoted above turn out to ring hollow?

I'm not sure what you're afraid of.  But if you think oracle is unfriendly
to open source, think again.