# Oracle is brain f***ed



## graudeejs (Apr 21, 2010)

It makes me real mad:
http://www.osnews.com/story/23181/Oracle_Starts_Charging_90_USD_Per_User_for_ODF_Plugin

https://shop.oracle.com/pls/ostore/...69190131631757316,Application User,_Perpetual

can't we just sue it? lol


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## vermaden (Apr 21, 2010)

I would care for OpenSolaris more then for that, but that also sucks.

IMHO OpenSolaris can stay free without a problem (fork) and still use CDDL, but would they survive like BSDs without a company to fund all that development?


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## saxon3049 (Apr 21, 2010)

I doubt it the BSD family where the unix of choice before Linux back without direct company funding like Solaris, I doubt it would have the user base although I know one company hat uses solaris 10 quite heavily and it could move over to BSD without much of a learning curve.

But back to the main point of this thread, this news sucks for people who use this plugin and the cost is some what on the retarded side, and I could see use of Open Office drop because of it and to be frank that would be a killer to sun in the work place, but ODF is by it's very name "open" so people in my mind are free to reverse engineer it and do as they wish because if you call yourself open you better bloody had be.


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## graudeejs (Apr 21, 2010)

While personal y for me this doesn't matter much, I think this will strengthen M$ position.
WHY?
well because *.doc is unofficial standard. Sux to say, that, but that's how it is. at least at this time in Latvia. Even with the fact that Even here (in Latvia) standard for document exchange is ODT and PDF, I still have to submit many works in doc format, to teachers....
Not only that, but all material I get from University is either in PDF or some sort of MS Office format.

As I see it, people you simply: Why the hell do I have to mess with that.... everyone is using MS office. f*** it, I'll save it *.doc...

Well that's how I feel


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## vermaden (Apr 21, 2010)

All this _'pay for ODF plugin'_ case reminds me the audio/video codecs problem on OpenSolaris, almost none codecs are provided in the base install, the only _free_ plugins is the MP3 one: http://fluendo.com/shop/product/fluendo-mp3-decoder/

If you need all the codecs, the you will have to pay *28 EUR* for them:
http://fluendo.com/shop/product/complete-set-of-playback-plugins/

In FreeBSD or Linux (and even Windows), there is no such problem, you just download needed codecs and you are done, here, you have to pay, its also one of the reason that puched me away from OpenSolaris.

Its of course GStreamer shit which I do not use anyway, but it still stinks.


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## saxon3049 (Apr 21, 2010)

killasmurf86 said:
			
		

> While personal y for me this doesn't matter much, I think this will strengthen M$ position.
> WHY?
> well because *.doc is unofficial standard. Sux to say, that, but that's how it is. at least at this time in Latvia. Even with the fact that Even here (in Latvia) standard for document exchange is ODT and PDF, I still have to submit many works in doc format, to teachers....
> Not only that, but all material I get from University is either in PDF or some sort of MS Office format.
> ...



You are right there, .doc is almost a defacto standard I just looked at my purchasing inbox and out of the last 20 or so invoices they are of 3 file types .doc .pdf and .xls i know odt wasn't that much of a standard but it was nice to have it supported. 
Then again the pdf is now a standard, then again the standard is so generic my cup of coffee could be called a valid pdf document.


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## f-andrey (Apr 21, 2010)

vermaden said:
			
		

> In FreeBSD or Linux (and even Windows), there is no such problem, you just download needed codecs and you are done, here, you have to pay, its also one of the reason that puched me away from OpenSolaris.



Lack of mp3 codec is the problem of the use of patents :stud
This repo Opensolaris with multimedia  http://ips.homeunix.com/


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## vermaden (Apr 21, 2010)

f-andrey said:
			
		

> Lack of mp3 codec is the problem of the use of patents :stud
> This repo OpenSolaris with multimedia  http://ips.homeunix.com/



Probably they created that repository after I abandoned any effort on OpenSolaris, but in the end, the same 'patents' are obligatory to other operating systems.


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## darkshadow (Apr 21, 2010)

*strange*

strange . why oracle goes n that direction , but really I feel that they have the right to sell there own goods ? and I hope company would change to freebsd when they start sell solaris not linux case freebsd has somthing realted to open solaris which is zfs .:\


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## aragon (Apr 21, 2010)

What a reckless move by Oracle.  That plugin was the only hope of ODF having much staying power in a sea of microsoft office.  I think the only alternative remotely similar in function is read-only.

Way to go Oracle.  Seems almost... intentional.


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## anomie (Apr 21, 2010)

In my humble (and completely unofficial) opinion, they're some reckless blokes for sure. I am all for entrepreneurship and making $$, but greed can make one act in ways that provide short-term gain and bring long-term pain.


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## respite (Apr 21, 2010)

There are a few more reason why oracle is brain damaged.

Is opensolaris at risk?
Question to prove open source can equal profit.

Also, they have moved the acquired sun products to the same quarterly patch cycle their database products have been on. Any critical security flaws revealed today would most likely remain open until their next patch release in July.
Critical Updates


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## gpatrick (Apr 22, 2010)

Solaris 10 is now only a 90-day evaluation and the ODF plugin must be purchased.  Security patches are no longer available for download.  Those don't really don't bode well for OpenSolaris. 

If Oracle is charging for everything else, why will they continue to pour money into OpenSolaris?  I still can't fathom Oracle spending millions to develop Solaris/SPARC while also spending millions to develop OpenSolaris, especially since OpenSolaris isn't a revenue generator.  Oracle has already stated there will be features of Solaris 10 that won't be in OpenSolaris; that statement to me reads there will be Solaris 10 development independent of OpenSolaris, again pointing to OpenSolaris only costing them money with no return.

Don't mention that in the OpenSolaris forums though, or you'll have pitchforks thrown at you.


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## kpedersen (Apr 22, 2010)

gpatrick said:
			
		

> Don't mention that in the OpenSolaris forums though, or you'll have pitchforks thrown at you.



Only once you have paid Oracle for the pitchforks 

Tbh, and tell me if I am wrong, but Sun has been leaking money for a while now. I think that the mecenary nature of Oracle could do Solaris (and certainly SPARC) some good. I think Oracle is going to push both technologies much harder.

Who knows, perhaps businesses will be more attracted to Solaris 10 now that they know that they have to pay for it? Businesses are odd that way...

As for OpenSolaris, I am just glad Sun made it opensource before Oracle got its hands on it. (Perhaps this was done due to very good foresight on behalf of Sun) Now it can never truely die, unlike "sniff" Win9x and nt4 lol


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## Beastie (Apr 22, 2010)

gpatrick said:
			
		

> If Oracle is charging for everything else, why will they continue to pour money into OpenSolaris?


I may be wrong, but maybe it's because they still need the "community" working on it, so they can integrate some code back into Solaris proper.


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## darkshadow (Apr 22, 2010)

dont forget that oracle is the second software company after Microsoft if I where them I make solaria close source , then I make 40 developer working on it(dedicated  professional) or even more  with specific plan and mythology , the result will be more feature and quality solid system ....
even I will go more than that I replace the stupid kernal/user land with bsd one ... and the winning card will be dropping  Oracle database support  for linux and improve solaria to better integrate oracle/sun solution (mysql , Oracle 11i , java)


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## swirling_vortex (Apr 22, 2010)

kpedersen said:
			
		

> Tbh, and tell me if I am wrong, but Sun has been leaking money for a while now. I think that the mecenary nature of Oracle could do Solaris (and certainly SPARC) some good. I think Oracle is going to push both technologies much harder.


I think this is something that needs to be recognized more. Sun as a company was a little bit too generous with some of its products. It was a failing company. Oracle, however evil they may be, has been around for a long time and they know how to reach out to the deep pockets. 

However, this seems a bit extreme. What's next, am I going to have to pay for the JDK and Netbeans? Will the MySQL community edition end up like crippleware comparable to Oracle XE? I'm just not getting a good vibe from all of this.


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## danger@ (Apr 22, 2010)

I'm just looking forward for the time when Oracle closes the source of the MySQL and start asking for $$


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## User23 (Apr 22, 2010)

danger@ said:
			
		

> I'm just looking forward for the time when Oracle closes the source of the MySQL and start asking for $$



Wherefrom you know there wet dreams? :e


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## oliverh (Apr 23, 2010)

killasmurf86 said:
			
		

> It makes me real mad:
> http://www.osnews.com/story/23181/Oracle_Starts_Charging_90_USD_Per_User_for_ODF_Plugin
> 
> https://shop.oracle.com/pls/ostore/...69190131631757316,Application User,_Perpetual
> ...



http://www.c0t0d0s0.org/archives/6514-About-this-ODF-for-MS-Office-plugin-discussion.html



> It isn't the way, that Openoffice and MS Office aren't capable to exchange data without this plugin. Office 2007 SP2 is capable to write ODF 1.0 documents without further additions. Openoffice is capable to create files that can be read by Microsoft Office and vice versa. Openoffice 3.0 is capable to read .docx directly.
> 
> Is the normal household user really the targeted userbase for this module? Don't think so. When one of both office packages is available for free, it's reasonable to assume that people will have both office packages on their sytems. I think it's more tailored for large installations of older Office versions that doesn't want to install a second Office packages on their installation system to generate ODF files. So it ends up at: "You can migrate to Office 2007 SP2 or you can use the plugin." I will get to the costs later.


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## fronclynne (Apr 23, 2010)

Oracle has always been a bit braindead, but any large organization naturally becomes so.  Just a quick glance at Parkinson's Law and a conversational tidbit I picked up years ago, to wit: "All large organizations follow three rules:  First, survive.  Second: grow.  Third (and least important): do what you were founded to accomplish."


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## DutchDaemon (Apr 24, 2010)

fronclynne said:
			
		

> "All large organizations follow three rules:  First, survive.  Second: grow.  Third (and least important): do what you were founded to accomplish."



Sounds like The Iron Law of Institutions to me, a staple of PolSci.


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## carlton_draught (Apr 24, 2010)

killasmurf86 said:
			
		

> It makes me real mad:
> <snip>
> 
> can't we just sue it? lol


This is exactly the reason why I chose to go with FreeBSD rather Oracle for ZFS. I decided I needed ZFS, and my only options were Oracle or FreeBSD. My hunch was that Open Solaris would be shut down, and the open source community will get what has been developed to date on ZFS, and should thank their lucky stars for it. Hopefully it is enough. Really, the current feature set is awesome, even what is in FreeBSD to date. I would not be surprised if FreeBSD starts growing exponentially as of release 8.0 (first production ready ZFS) because of that very fact.

I suspect that something similar will happen with Org. But it's also at a high quality state. I even found Base to be usable last time I played around with it. I have no idea what Oracle is going to do with it, but I expect the worst. I also thank my lucky stars that it is as featureful as it is.

My gut feeling is that unless Oracle can see some sort of realistic way to use whatever odds and sods Sun possessed to generate an income stream or be used in conjunction to do that, I think they will be jettisoned.


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## oliverh (Apr 24, 2010)

DutchDaemon said:
			
		

> Sounds like The Iron Law of Institutions to me, a staple of PolSci.



PolSci?


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## Beastie (Apr 24, 2010)

Political science.


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## oliverh (Apr 24, 2010)

I see, thanks


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## darkshadow (Apr 25, 2010)

**

you are welcom any time my friend


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## graudeejs (May 4, 2010)

hey guys, check this out:
https://shop.oracle.com/pls/ostore/product?p1=oracleoffice&sc=ocom_openoffice
https://shop.oracle.com/pls/ostore/...3760861034291631761751,3760753060221631798889

are you thinking what I'm thinking?
They tell it's a StarOffice, but I'm almost ready to bet it's OpenOffice under the hood....
Was StarOffice supported on WIndows, Linux, Solaris and MacOS?


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## cajunman4life (May 4, 2010)

killasmurf86 said:
			
		

> Was StarOffice supported on WIndows, Linux, Solaris and MacOS?



I know StarOffice was supported on Windows and Solaris. I think they had a Linux version as well. Not too sure about OSX.


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## fronclynne (May 5, 2010)

killasmurf86 said:
			
		

> hey guys, check this out:
> https://shop.oracle.com/pls/ostore/product?p1=oracleoffice&sc=ocom_openoffice
> https://shop.oracle.com/pls/ostore/...3760861034291631761751,3760753060221631798889
> 
> ...



I tried StarOffice, lo! many years ago, on FreeBSD, it worked okay*.  Then they bodged it into a giant monster, opensourced the lot and called it openorfice.  I'm pretty sure there's a raught of staroffice names still in the OO sources. I'm [cmd=""]tar -jxvf[/cmd]-ing the lot right now.


*it didn't work very well, but MSorfice under wine worked less well.


Below resides the output of [cmd=""]find /home/tmpbuild -type f -iname "*staroff*"[/cmd] in case you were wondering.


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## phoenix (May 5, 2010)

You do realise that StarOffice is the original source of the OpenOffice.org code, and that all subsequent releases of StarOffice were based on OpenOffice.org code, right?

Thus, there's nothing untoward going on here, other than renaming StarOffice to Oracle Open Office.

StarOffice is to OpenOffice.org what RHEL is to Fedora.


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## graudeejs (May 5, 2010)

I now, that, I thought it was unmaintained for years


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## phoenix (May 5, 2010)

Nope, there's been several releases of StarOffice since it was open-sourced as OpenOffice.org.


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