[Discuss] Oracle Linux, going after CentOs

[gaf at blu.org (Jerry Feldman)]

On 07/26/2012 01:25 PM, Richard Pieri wrote:
> On 7/26/2012 11:55 AM, Martin Owens wrote:
>> Linux, like so many commons, has just becomes a part of everything. The
>> economic value of it is so staggering that you would not and possibly
>> could not pay out it's true economic impact. Thankfully we don't pay
>> what the value of things to us, we hope to pay a bit less than that.
>
> As of March this year, Red Hat developers have contributed 11.9% of
> the code in the Linux kernel with 10.7% of the code since 2.6.36.  Red
> Hat is the most significant contributor of code to the Linux kernel in
> the world.  IBM is number two at around 7.5%.  This is just kernel
> code.  It doesn't include other code and tools like RPM and Anaconda.
>
> Seen in that light, a $500 per annum Red Hat support contract is a
> bargain.
>
Economically, the price a company charges for a service is up to the
market. The RedHat model is that you buy a license. Much of the software
you get is FOSS, but there are some things on the system that are not,
but you also get a certain amount of stability along with a certain
amount of trust. Ubuntu uses a different model. It all comes down to
"someone is going to make money or go out of business". What Red Hat and
IBM contributed to Linux have nothing to do with the price charged for
the service. In a way of looking at things it is what the market will
bear, but it all comes down to what the perceived value is. What would
it take to convert a Red Hat client to an Ubuntu client. Or, what would
it take to convert a Red Hat client to a Oracle client.  What is the
benefit of an Oracle distro to a business in contrast to a Red Hat
distro. Basically, it is more than just price.

Back many years my company was a Burroughs shop. Dollar for dollar the
Burroughs mainframes were technically much better and faster than the
equivalent IBM mainframe. With IBM, when something broke, we got a
qualified person in the door. With Burroughs we may get a phone call or
someone who is not qualified.

So, Oracle or Canonical would have to be able to convince management
that their support (such as updates, stability, access to engineers) is
equivalent to what they currently get from Red Hat.

-- 
Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org>
Boston Linux and Unix
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