Larry Ellison and the business of social production
Originally published at ~n0mer. You can comment here or there.
Yesterday, Ellison announced that his company, Oracle, fully intends to eat the fruits of the labor of Red Hat, the leading for-profit supplier of the open-source Linux operating system. Oracle is taking the version of Linux developed by Red Hat and distributing it under its own brand, as “Unbreakable Linux.” And, in a stab at Red Hat’s very heart, Ellison claims that Oracle will substantially undercut the open-source firm’s prices for supporting the software. It seems like a claim that shouldn’t be hard to fulfill. After all, Oracle doesn’t have to pay those labor costs.
Once open source became a business, rather than a movement, the rules changed. Larry Ellison, whos’s nothing if not a non-sentimentalist, understands that, and he doesn’t particularly care what “the community” thinks. His attack on Red Hat would never be called neighborly, but it is, as Business Week’s Steve Hamm puts it, “a ruthless and brilliant act of capitalism.”
Red Hat was perhaps fantasizing that only piddly little players would engage in the undercutting game, and “respectable” big ones won’t. Well, Larry Ellison, being God, is above all such considerations.
Comment by SidneyV:This is the kind of unexpected chess move that defines grand masters. Larry is a genius chess player.
Rough Type: Nicholas Carr’s Blog: Larry Ellison and the business of social production