Oracle encouraging Linux software developers

For those not interested in marketing news, I would suggest skipping this message.

>From a Computerworld article

http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/linux/story/0,10801,79730,00. html
Oracle ups Linux efforts with ISV program By James Niccolai, IDG News Service
MARCH 26, 2003 Oracle Corp. is shelling out US$150 million to encourage its software partners to develop for Linux (two US$ for every US$ spent be the vendor.)

Some other interesting tidbits from the article: "Separately, engineers at Oracle are working on the Linux kernel, the code at the heart of all Linux distributions, to make it more suitable for Oracle's software. The company plans to submit its work to Linus Torvalds, who oversees changes made to the Linux kernel, with the hope its work will be incorporated ... Among those efforts ... increase the amount of physical memory that can be addressed by 32-bit Intel servers running Linux. Oracle also hopes that a version of the clustered file system that it released for Linux customers last year will become part of the kernel."

Why would Oracle give money to people to develop on Linux? Is it only to help bring down Microsoft?

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Author: Jacques Kilchoer
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