Oracle Open World

[Mel Thompson]

I've yet to get down to installing Oracle's "Unbreakable Linux. But I did clip their large ad out of the paper which gave the bearer a free registration to the otherwise $125 convention in downtown San Francisco.

It was fun to see what Oracle was up to and to hang out at the Sun booths and talk about Open Solaris.

A lot of displays involving hardware were wide open and covered with glass, so, as the representative was explaining the product, he could point to the actual insides being discussed. Two exhibits that really did this well were the Texas Memory Company, not associated with Texas Instruments. (Their new solid state hard drives without mechanical parts were just fantastic.) And also, honestly, Intel did a great job of showing off their 80-core chips. (There are probably a few small countries that could manage their affairs from one of those chips.)

The convention was so big that it took up all of Moscone Center's buildings, and in addition required the taking over of Howard Street itself, which was covered in massive convention tent buildings, creating a seamless flow from the two largest of the convention buildings.

Spirits were high and the smell of the future was palpable. Sorry to say it, but Microsoft just looked so much more like a dinosaur in this environment. So many massive displays, so many billions of dollars, and much of it not going to Microsoft. What, on the very face of it, could be more utopian?

In addition, there was a solid stream of cookies, tea and coffee flowing about for free, (which was even better if one got in free), and yes, even free beer at certain places. (Was that actually heaven, or what?) I also scored three shopping bags, two or three tee shirts, several demo software packets, and, most excellently, an open version of Oracle Linux, which I plan to experiment with soon. There was a notable shortage of red hats at the Red Hat booth, but only because the product and the brand image is so beloved. I managed to get one, even though there were people ahead of me vying anxiously for the one or two that remained. I simply let out a squeal of neediness, which prompted the representative to hand the last red hat to me. (I'm still psyched about that.) By the way, Intel gave you a shirt if only you agreed to write suggestions on a large glass board, which I happily did. Also note: Their massive green servers seem like the eco-wave of the future, by maxing out the possible use of DC over whacked-out AC.)

Quest Software has to be commended for their brilliant $10,000 give away, which included two $2,500 prizes and one $5,000 grand prize. By a miracle, incidentally, I scored a $50 American Express gift card from a company I had never heard of before and still can't remember the name of. (I ate at nice French restaurant after called Joan D' Arc in Union Square with the proceeds from that card.) Who says Linux doesn't pay?

Eternal Newbie.

[Roxoff]

lol, it really was free (as in beer) then...

It's nice to see Oracle wading into the Linux market. I really hope the dont try to compete against RedHat, SuSE, Mandriva, etc., 'cos the real competition comes from Microsoft.

Oracle are a large wealthy company, and if they can use their wealth to leverage Linux into Microsoft's server space, and hopefully across the Microsoft Desktop, it'll produce a better, more open, more interoperable and more free world for us all.

[carlosponti]

we dropped our windows for oracle linux. mainly because oracle's database support is much better on unix or linux. I wanted to go to oracle world but couldnt get the chance to go. one of my co-workers went though and watched the Larry Ellison key note address. It seems they are breaking away from vmware as a partner and writing their own virtualization technology.

[techieMoe]

My department at work dropped our last Oracle database a couple of years ago. We're an all IBM DB2 shop now. The thing that killed it for us was licensing costs.

[carlosponti]

yeah licensing is pretty bad with oracle. you also have to pretty much need to be a lawyer to understand it.