Re: Call for Oracle Licensing reform

From: Paresh Yadav <yparesh_at_gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 01:33:46 -0500
Message-ID: <CAPXEL0+sAY+=z0OmvS-8trN6pfR5NZAeeYMeXmGjq_JS6DuLfg_at_mail.gmail.com>

It is interesting that you mention Oracle SE and I agree that there are times when SE is all one needs. Cost of migrating away from Oracle might be high but cost of starting with alternatives is not that high if one knows what they need.

You are missing the NoSQL bandwagon as there are many applications where ACID compliance and other bells and whistles available with Oracle database is simply not needed.

Thanks
Paresh
416-688-1003

On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 1:25 AM, xxxxxxxx wrote:

> There is no need for confrontation. I have simply made a statement of
> fact. "Audit" and "License" are not synonyms.
>
> As for how long I have been involved in licensing Oracle's products?
> Well, I have never been an employee of Oracle, nor have I actually
> *written* one of their license agreements. I have, however, been *using*
> Oracle databases for close to 20 years, and reading the license agreements
> and advising customers on how to (correctly) comply with their licenses for
> much of that time. I am not a lawyer, but I am fairly widely perceived as
> "quite knowledgeable" on this subject. (Sadly, though, much of that
> perception may be due to the fact that few others actually *read*
> Oracle's license agreements, as I do.)
>
> In any case, modifying "audit" policy is not in any way equivalent to
> modifying a license agreement. Oracle could cease auditing entirely, and
> it would have NO AFFECT on licensing. (It may, however, have an affect on
> Oracle's revenue.) A license is a binding contract between two parties.
> "Audit" is simply one of several means of ensuring that one or the other
> party complies with that contract. Changing the way you audit does NOT
> change the contract. Changing the CONTRACT is the way you change the
> contract.
>
> Its funny that you mention "alternatives" in this discussion. There are
> -- of course -- many. My favorite by far, happens to be Oracle. Oracle
> Standard Edition, that is.
>
> Under the current licensing terms, Oracle Standard Edition (One) can cost
> 1/50th as much as Oracle Enterprise Edition, or less, if you happen to use
> Named User licenses. Every time processor vendors increase core counts,
> this cost factor increases. In just a few years, I expect the *minimum*
> cost for an Oracle EE database server will be 100x to 250x the cost of an
> Oracle SE database server.
>
> When you consider the cost of migrating applications from one database to
> another, the very modest price of Oracle SE-One can compete very
> effectively even with "free" products like MySQL. As a rule, the effort
> for migrating applications from Oracle to MySQL is usually far from "free".
>
> On Wed, Jan 7, 2015 at 10:33 PM, Paresh Yadav <yparesh_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> xxxxxx,
>> I don't like to take a confrontational stance so pardon my position here.
>> How long have you been involved with licensing Oracle products?
>>
>> On the audit side, whenever you play a game ( let us say Monopoly as most
>> of us should have played it at some point time or a close clone in
>> disguise) there are rules and there are strategies. Audit is the strategy
>> to make licensing rules work. Nothing wrong or illegal on Oracle's part but
>> I hope they realize that brute force licensing is hearting Oracle's long
>> term prospects ( who in corporate world cares for longterm prospects when
>> exec bonuses and stock price depends on next quarter numbers). I am sure
>> Oracle has gurus doing number crunching and may be using predictive
>> analysis to determine the equilibrium point or point of diminishing returns
>> as they say in economics and trying to stay in optimal zone when it comes
>> to squeezing all possible revenues. My empirical observations in last 5
>> years say not only startups but even fortune 100 orgs flush with cash have
>> shunned Oracle over other alternatives.
>>
>> I love Oracle database tech and consider it one of the best creations in
>> software enginnering even though bugs galore. But now there are
>> alternatives that can meet the need at fraction of the Oracle database
>> licensing costs and even the 'no body gets fired for buying Oracle' crowd
>> is using alternatives in the prod as IT becomes commoditized and is being
>> looked as a cost centre more than competitive advantage.
>>
>> Amen!
>>
>> Paresh
>>
>>
>> On Wednesday, January 7, 2015, xxxxxxxx wrote:
>>
>>> No. The audit process is how the existing licensing system is
>>> *enforced*.
>>>
>>> Reforming the audit process has no actual effect on the terms and
>>> conditions of the license agreement -- it would affect only how and when
>>> that agreement is enforced and how people feel about that enforcement after
>>> the fact. The article provided suggest that there is a great deal of room
>>> for improvement in these things -- especially "how people feel", but no
>>> amount of change or improvement to the audit process in any way changes the
>>> license. Even if Oracle announced that they would NEVER audit any customer
>>> EVER again (which would certainly avoid lots of hurt feelings) honest
>>> customers who choose to honour the license agreement (and this is probably
>>> the vast majority) would still have the same terms to comply with.
>>>
>>> The last time Oracle made any sort of major reforms to the license
>>> agreement, they removed outdated metrics like "Power Unit" (number of CPUs
>>> times clock rate) that forced exponential cost increases on customers
>>> (because clock rates were doubling every 18 months, even though actual
>>> performance was not keeping pace) and other metrics like "Concurrent
>>> Users" which were next to impossible to measure and validate. (That is,
>>> LMS probably found "concurrent users" hard to count, while customers found
>>> it almost equally difficult to demonstrate their compliance.)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Jan 7, 2015 at 2:05 PM, Paresh Yadav <yparesh_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Audit process is actually licensing process in disguise.
>>>> Those who day dream about getting it reformed -
>>>> http://shortstoriesshort.com/story/who-will-bell-the-cat/ :).
>>>>
>>>> Thanks
>>>> Paresh
>>>> 416-688-1003
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Jan 7, 2015 at 1:56 PM, MARK BRINSMEAD <
>>>> mark.brinsmead_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Indeed.
>>>>>
>>>>> Actually, the article seems to be mainly calling for Oracle to reform
>>>>> its *audit* practices.
>>>>>
>>>>> Personally, I have been curious -- for a very long time now -- as to
>>>>> how long it will take Oracle to revise its license metrics. Now that
>>>>> processor designers are scaling performance by increasing core counts
>>>>> rather than clock rates, the cost Oracle database servers is growing at
>>>>> (what is likely to be) an exponential rate. Likewise, the price gulf
>>>>> between EE and SE products is also growing at the same sort of rate.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, Jan 7, 2015 at 1:49 PM, Hans Forbrich <
>>>>> fuzzy.graybeard_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> While interesting .... "be careful what you wish for"
>>>>>>
>>>>>> /Hans
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 07/01/2015 11:39 AM, Dennis Williams wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> List,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This is an interesting article on how Oracle needs to reform its
>>>>>> licensing practices:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://www.informationweek.com/software/enterprise-applications/oracle-must-reform-says-software-licensing-group/d/d-id/1318492?_mc=NL_IWK_EDT_IWK_daily_20150107&cid=NL_IWK_EDT_IWK_daily_20150107&elq=9333c72ed91c4c87b4aef8a2fceeadf4&elqCampaignId=11918
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Dennis Williams
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>> Thanks
>> Paresh Yadav
>> 416-688-1003
>>
>
>

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Received on Thu Jan 08 2015 - 07:33:46 CET