Oracle Inc... Spreading Goodwill
Whatever (and if) you may have thought about Sun Microsystems, I never met anyone who hated them. They were always a hardware company, making microcomputer servers that drove the fledgling Net from its humble beginnings. The best thing about them, historically, is that they would develop software to do basic tasks... manage large numbers of networked computers (NIS, etc.,) securely run untrusted programs over the net (Java) or have an office productivity package that wasn't married to a particular vendor's OS (StarOffice which became OpenOffice.) Once they had this, they realized that the best way to make sure people used them was to give them away. And they did. We are all richer for the software projects underwritten by Sun and given to us all.
They and all the wonderful things they made now belong to Oracle. And now... I hate them so hard. I wanted to download an update of the boot PROM for my decade-old workstation. Essentially what they use in place of a BIOS chip... it loads the OS and does some other stuff like testing drives etc. This is a file that can't run on any other computer, was last updated in 2001, and under Sun, would have been free for me to download since I own the machine and letting me download what amounts to a driver update costs them NOTHING. Turns out that now, Oracle wants me to have a service contract just to download firmware updates for a hardware product I own. What the fuck? Seriously?
Turns out that a 1 year support contract is $250, except that my computer is in a state they call 'end of life' so you can't get support contracts for it. So... Can't download file for old computer without contract, can't get contract because computer is old... Really? I mean... REALLY? I bought the whole computer for $150 including shipping and upgrades.
I have developed, as a result, a very nuanced opinion of Oracle Inc... FUCK ORACLE.
At some point, I will probably be in a position to specify what a large company purchases. It will not be Oracle.
They and all the wonderful things they made now belong to Oracle. And now... I hate them so hard. I wanted to download an update of the boot PROM for my decade-old workstation. Essentially what they use in place of a BIOS chip... it loads the OS and does some other stuff like testing drives etc. This is a file that can't run on any other computer, was last updated in 2001, and under Sun, would have been free for me to download since I own the machine and letting me download what amounts to a driver update costs them NOTHING. Turns out that now, Oracle wants me to have a service contract just to download firmware updates for a hardware product I own. What the fuck? Seriously?
Turns out that a 1 year support contract is $250, except that my computer is in a state they call 'end of life' so you can't get support contracts for it. So... Can't download file for old computer without contract, can't get contract because computer is old... Really? I mean... REALLY? I bought the whole computer for $150 including shipping and upgrades.
I have developed, as a result, a very nuanced opinion of Oracle Inc... FUCK ORACLE.
At some point, I will probably be in a position to specify what a large company purchases. It will not be Oracle.