[Discuss] Oracle Linux, going after CentOs

[richard.pieri at gmail.com (Richard Pieri)]

On 7/24/2012 10:08 AM, Matthew Gillen wrote:
> They're not really building their own distro.  They are doing what
> CentOS does, namely distributing a rebranded RHEL.

Oracle is selling support for a rebranded RHEL.

Everything Oracle does has one purpose: to generate revenue for Oracle. 
  Larry Ellison couldn't care less about CentOS shops because they're 
not going to pay Oracle or Red Hat or Novell anything anyway.

The real target is Red Hat shops that use CentOS for systems that don't 
require service contracts.  If you run a hybrid shop, using CentOS for 
development and testing and RHEL for production, chances are you keep 
your RHEL boxes back until CentOS releases their updates.  If you don't 
then you risk conflicts and breakage.  Or you compile and push the 
updates yourself and pray that something doesn't go wrong.

What Oracle is saying is if you switch to Oracle Linux then you won't 
have to hold back your production boxes for CentOS and you won't have to 
build patches yourself.  Run Oracle Linux everywhere.  Get Oracle's 
updates automatically for everything at the same time.  Only pay support 
for the systems that need it just like you do now.

It's a compelling pitch.

-- 
Rich P.