What I don't understand is why anyone with half a brain would even venture to touch Oracle with a ten foot pole given that they've had this reputation for at least the last 25 years.
As someone who's had to use the Oracle database and also Oracle Linux on servers, beats me. Also stuff like Oracle ADF and JDeveloper and JBoss/WildFly, no thank you.
I seriously hope someone got bribed to choose Oracle cause it doesn't make sense otherwise, at least then they would have gotten something good out of it.
The closest thing to an actual argument I've heard was wanting paid support - in which case let me introduce to KronisCo (which will be registered shortly) and if you only give me fat coffeurs of money, I will provide similar support for PostgreSQL with the added benefits of your developers not wanting to retire at 30. Like why would anyone pay for Oracle in the first place, when they can just collect that cheque themselves and freeload on battle-tested FOSS (or contribute back)? Seeing a software dev org just pass those sums to Oracle from their clients without trying to capture that seemed wild.
And it's not even an Oracle product. If you want that from them you need WebLogic.
To be fair, recent versions of JBoss/Wildfly removed a lot of the bloat and boot within seconds. Startup time is mostly due to application frameworks nowadays.
This conversation just dug some old nightmares out.
In a past life, I used to be almost ecstatic when a client would choose Tomcat over WebLogic or WebSphere, or whatever abomination of an app server they standardized on.
This is why corporate procurement in a large enterprise is so bureaucratic. If you have 20 layers of approval that's 20 people that need cocaine and prostitutes yet could blow the whistle.
One of the worst side-effects of corruption and cronyism isn't even the corruption part, it's the insane administrative cost it inevitably breeds in process in order to try to fix.
This is largely why the US government is so inefficient. Our government agencies have been trained to outsource absolutely everything. A static site? No, you couldn't possibly hire one or two engineers to do that, you need a multi-million dollar contract! Well, when you do that, the corruption risk is through the roof. Now we mitigate with anti-corruption, anti-fraud checks out the fucking wazoo. That's expensive. And we're putting that expense ON TOP of the exorbitant contract fees.
You've clearly never purchased enterprise software at scale before. Oracle doesn't do anything that everyone else isn't already doing.
Dinners, drinks, bottles of scotch, tickets to baseball and football games, plane tickets to attend training sessions in conference rooms attached to nice beachside hotels, business lunches at strip clubs, Superbowl tickets, cruise tickets, wristwatches...
Not to mention mugs, tshirts, water bottles and stickers.
Our company has a strict gift giving and no-bribes policy. Everyone needs to sign that they have read it. It is even more extensive for the sales/procurement teams.
Of course, I signed many such agreements. I've also turned down a ton of "gifts" such as these.
But oftentimes they are not clearly gifts or bribes. For example, inviting you or your team out for dinner and drinks can be harmless.
It's not unusual to take clients out, even to sporting events. As long as the host party is present, and there is intent to network or discuss business, it usually qualifies as "corporate hospitality" -- even the strip club!
All expensed and paid for out of the marketing budget. A far cry from gifts or bribes, apparently!
There is a scene in a French documentary in which a former Dassault boss displays his vintage wine collection as one of his many tools to ease arms supply deals with various nations. When the journalist asked him if it really works like this he responded, “Of course, because men are pigs!”
Not sure why you're surprised. That's just how business/networking/capitalism works everywhere on earth and it's been like that since the dawn of civilization. And why would Congress stop is since they're all getting the same benefits and don't even hide it?
Your naivete is refreshing, but not particularly useful.
Your senators and house reps are the beneficiary of various forms of largesse from political donors.
"Billionaire ** and her *** ** *** are among the most prolific megadonors in modern American political history,
funneling hundreds of millions of dollars overwhelmingly to ***, ****"
How is paying for someone to have fun with the intention that they will then do business with you not a kickback? Just because you're not getting cash doesn't mean it's not a bribe.
It's a meeting, a sales pitch, that takes place on a golf course. No different than over a meal, or at a sporting event. A kickback, by definition, only happens after the deal is closed, the recipient of the funds "kicks back" some of the revenue (or his commission) to the decision maker. If hasn't progressed beyond "the intention that they will do business with you" then it can't be a kickback.
What happens here is that the buyer "kicks back" a fat contract to their sales buddy who took them to that great golf resort. Or, if the terminology is wrong, you can just say that the sales agent bribed the buyer with a golf trip in order to get the contract on better terms, to the detriment of they buyer's company. Either way, golf games paid for by people trying to sell something are obviously morally and ethically wrong, and would be extremely illegal if they happened with a government employee.
What happens when two salesmen both take the guy out for golf? Someone's getting stiffed, right?
And it happens with government employees all the time, just a bit differently. The lobbyist is a member at Shinnecock Hills or some other private, prestigious golf course that costs $100,000+ to join. Then he invites the senator out, the "guest fee" is a nominal amount like $120, which he happily pays to play a round on a US Open quality course. Of course the senator charges his transportation and hotel to his office, paid out of campaign funds or something. Shit like this happens every single day, stop pretending to be so shocked or morally righteous.
Is this how you operate? You just make nonsensical blanket statements to latch on to some anti-capitalist cred? Please tell me how Burlington Coat Factory, or J.B. Hunt, or Ulta Beauty are ruining lives. And these are not billion-dollar companies, but 10+ billion. And then, please - with a straight face - explain how their choice of Oracle ERP vs SAP vs Workday vs ServiceNow "ruins" someone's life comparable to being raped or murdered.
You managed to pick three companies with documented histories involving violations or enforcement actions concerning workers’ schedules and safety, religious & racial discrimination, hazardous waste, and multimillion-dollar wage disputes. Burlington is particularly funny as an example because the government was literally ordering it to return more than $1.3 million to workers just last year.
So fundamentally, your argument is that employing people ruins their lives. $1.3 million across how many hundreds or thousands of employees is not all that much each. Yes - they have every right to justice and to pursue what they were owed. And the company should be penalized. But still, they collected what, 97 or 98% of their rightful wage? And contributions to Social Security, and most likely some healthcare benefits. Would they have better off not being employed at all? Or work somewhere else for less money?
How on earth did you get there? My argument is that corporations should operate in the framework of the law (though evidently that is pretty fungible in the US). Are you saying you’re OK with your employer cropping 2-3% of your paycheck? The Social Security and healthcare point is even more bizarre. You make it sound like a charitable donation. That the victims of wage theft had to put up an exorbitant legal battle to collect…well, most of of what they were owed could probably be called “life-changing” for some of the victims.
You’re partially right though, a couple mil here and there is a drop in the bucket against most corporate earnings. Sort of makes you wonder if the system is operating like that purposefully, as in, a systemic attribute.
You didn’t even attempt to touch Ulta’s toxic waste problem lol
The same reason why most huge enterprises buy insane support contracts for every other piece of shitty software: support, and someone to blame when production goes pear-shaped. Because there’s no real management left anywhere, there’s no time to grow expertise internally and everyone just needs that hit of Risk Management (tm), they’ll go to whatever lengths to get it. Oracle is like the ultimate warm, fuzzy blanket where that fuzz is actually mold, it delivers the scared-shitless enterprises from having to think for themselves.
I have mentally trained myself to do a text substitution, whenever I see "Oracle" in a forum on the Internet, such as here, I try to substitute it with "Larry Ellison Needs A Bigger Yacht".
because the people that make these decisions receive kickbacks from them, obviously. Their whole philosophy revolves around introducing these trojan horses in orgs. Explains why it's mostly government orgs.
Oracle products (including VirtualBox and MySQL) are banned in our workplace as well. We do not want to deal with licensing nightmares because someone accidentally downloaded the JDK or the E1000 drivers for VBox.
I would too and I have declined jobs everywhere they used their tech and it was not because they had to. And even then, unless it’s like Google and such I am very reluctant.
Why, people?