Leaving Oracle

http://dtrace.org/blogs/ahl/2010/08/18/leaving_oracle/

by kmavm • 16 years ago

64 23 16 years ago

dtrace.org

sgt• 16 years ago

Speaking of Oracle, that easily leads me to the discussion of OpenSolaris (RIP). Check out www.illumos.org

It's is starting to get quite interesting, also check out #illumos on freenode.

piaskal• 16 years ago

I wonder how many patents Oracle has on this one.

DrJokepu• 16 years ago

I seriously wonder what the Oracle upper management thinks about the recent exodus of their (actually, Sun's) top talent. Do they even notice it? Do they consider it as a problem, or just "getting rid of them ballerinas"? Or maybe they think that they are easily replaceable?

wmf• 16 years ago

If Oracle is seriously planning to "spend more on Solaris than Sun did", they have a lot of hiring to do... just to get back up to parity.

At least in Austin it's rumored that Oracle has a net influx of chip designers.

KaeseEs• 16 years ago

Sun had a ton of chip designers, I'm skeptical quantity was the problem with respect to their SPARC development.

hga3• 16 years ago

Someone reliable said that one of the things happening is that a lot of Sun software engineers had their salaries significantly reduced in the transition. This would suggest that either Oracle plans on having different people work on Solaris (and as you note many of them) or they were lying through their teeth.

etherael• 16 years ago

Well see, you can spend money on engineers to improve the product, or you can spend money on strippers and steaks to sell the product.

Technically, both are "money spent on the product" in some way, shape or form. Oracle are just more likely to throw money at the latter class rather than the former class.

steve192• 16 years ago

Why does Oracle want to be in the chip design business?

mustpax• 16 years ago

This has been said before but it's worth repeating, Oracle is not an engineering company. They are giant sales organization with an engineering department tacked on.

They probably considered Sun's workforce before the acquisition as a liability instead of as an asset. The assets were in Sun's products, patents and customers. In that calculus, the people who quit willingly just represent severance checks Oracle doesn't have to write.

tlack2• 16 years ago

But won't the products suffer severely once the brains behind them leave? No organization as old and large as Oracle can discount that.

cturner• 16 years ago

    They are giant sales organization with an engineering
    department tacked on.

Years ago we had oracle sales present to our office. During questions I asked what was being done to make sqlplus feature competitive against the free software consoles like psql, mysql on basic features (e.g. browsable command-line history). The presenter was surprised I had complaints about it. He fired it up on his laptop on the projector. It crashed during startup. Laughs all-round and beyond that the Oracle reps didn't even pretend to be interested. I'm not sure who they thought they were selling to.

I came to the same conclusion as you.

yock• 16 years ago

Adam is a seriously talented developer. I had the privilege of meeting him, as I'm sure many have over the last several years, at a Linux conference in Los Angeles a few years ago. His dtrace presentation still sticks out in my mind as a superior demonstration of superior software. Whomever ends up with him on their staff will be better off for it.

SkyMarshal• 16 years ago

It looks like the Valley is about to get a serious influx of unburdened creativity and talent able to get working on the next big thing. Oracle's loss may well be lots of other companies' (and FOSS in general I hope)'s gain.

nanairo• 16 years ago

I would imagine (or at least I hope) that Oracle was fully aware when they bought Sun that their company philosophy was going to clash with Sun's and they would have lost a lot of bright people. It's a pity, but I don't think it came as a surprise to them.

steve192• 16 years ago

I think they were well aware of this. The goal of the management is to remove the sun culture and replace it with Oracle culture as soon as possible.

The hardcore believers who are leaving simply helps Oracle.

jacquesm• 16 years ago

The curious part of me was hoping for a reason.

sprout• 16 years ago

I can't imagine what reason there could possibly be.

Leaving Oracle

Related Stories