Unlovable Linux?

At the time, most of us thought Oracle undercutting Red Hat’s Linux business with its Unbreakable Linux was a big deal. Would customers flock to Oracle’s cut-rate version of RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux)? Would Red Hat be pounded by Larry Ellison’s minions?

After a few months, the answers appear to be: No, it wasn’t a big deal; and no; and no.

I was reminded of Oracle’s move into Linux this week when I started getting calls from financial analysis firms. They wanted to know if I, as someone who follows Linux closely, had heard of any company actually using or trying out Oracle’s Unbreakable Linux in a pilot program.

My answer? No. I didn’t know of a single company that was even testing Unbreakable Linux seriously, much less deploying it in a trial program.

It turns out that the analysts who called me didn’t know of any businesses taking Unbreakable Linux seriously, either. So, we agreed to check into it further and compare notes if we found anyone.

We didn’t find anyone.

Maybe this isn’t too surprising. Both before, and after, Oracle’s move into Linux, I said Oracle getting into the Linux distribution business was dumb. It turns out a lot of people seem to agree with me.

Read the full story on Linux-Watch: Unlovable Linux?

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