The big news this week is that Oracle has decided that they’re really that pissed off with Redhat. They’re going to take RHEL and create their own version of it. Then, they’re going to support it for longer, and cheaper, than Redhat apparently supports RHEL.

The database giant claims that Red Hat only provides bug fixes for the latest version of its software. Thus, Oracle executives say, this often requires customers to upgrade to a new version of Linux software to get a bug fixed. Oracle’s new Unbreakable Linux program, on the other hand, will provide bug fixes to future, current, and back releases of Linux. In other words, Oracle will provide the same level of enterprise support for Linux as is available for other operating systems.

Additionally, Oracle is offering its Unbreakable Linux program for substantially less than Red Hat currently charges for its best support.

“We believe that better support and lower support prices will speed the adoption of Linux, and we are working closely with our partners to make that happen,” Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said. “Intel is a development partner. Dell and HP are resellers and support partners. Many others are signed up to help us move Linux up to mission critical status in the data center.”

Oracle adopts Red Hat Linux as its own – Linux-Watch

Now, theres nothing wrong with this on the face of it. Everyone is allowed to do this. This is part of what Linux is about. However, the Oracle reasons for doing this, and the attitude they’re going into this with are just totally foul. I have a peg on my nose to block the stench.

However, quite aside from their attitude in this whole business, suddenly Oracle has entered into the Operating System market. No longer are they a middleware or a database or a CRM/ERP company. Now they’re squarely firing a shot across the bows of not only Redhat, but also Microsoft, HP, IBM, Sun Micro, Novell and more.

Tell me, if you were an Oracle partner and Oracle suddenly did this in your market, would you start to re-evaluate your partnership with them?

I don’t think Oracle has spent too much effort thinking about this. In fact, I’m pretty sure they haven’t. They really have put themselves in a rather precarious position, all because they’re pissed off with Redhat.

Its one thing to be annoyed with someone, its another to steal their business model out from under them just because you can. Redhat will survive this. Of that there is no doubt. And the only ones that will really even consider this new Oracle Linux are going to be those that are looking for a supported OS to run their Oracle 9i or 11i or whatever platform on.

But heres the kicker. Oracle says they’ll support all previous versions, all current versions and all future versions of their new Unbreakable Linux, for as long as there are people using them.

Really? :-)