Oracle Forks Linux With Unbreakable Linux Kernel
In what I believe to be one of the biggest announcements from Oracle’s Open World this year, Oracle has announced they will be forking Linux into their own kernel. Called the Unbreakable Linux Kernel, Oracle’s intention is to “speed up the deployment of enhancements into Linux”. Read here, the deployment of enhancements to Linux that just happen to coincide the needs of Oracle software.
I can see Oracle’s reasoning pretty clearly here. Red Hat tends to be a mite bit slow with major upgrades (4 years behind, according to Uncle Larry). This is a good thing, as changes to an OS need to go as slowly as fixes to the foundation of a house. And Oracle is making a pretty strong stand here, claiming “The Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel is now the only Linux kernel Oracle recommends for use with Oracle software.”
The main problem I see resulting from this announcement for Oracle is the further dissolving of credibility, support and good will amongst the Open Source community for anything Oracle does. The progression is roughly like this:
- Buying Sun (which brought with it MySQL and Java) agitated the community (abbreviated OSC going forwards) with general anti-capitalist sentiments.
- Oracle files suit against Google over Java. Parts of the OSC go ballistic, saying this validates their fears as to what Oracle was going to do.
- Oracle forks Linux, after claiming for years they were not doing so.
At this point, I rather doubt there’s anyone left in the OSC who’s going to give Oracle the benefit of the doubt. Not that Oracle’s going to loose a lot of sleep over the folks who aren’t writing them license checks…
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