Re: LSB and Debian, Commercial perspective

["Jason Lim" <maillist@jasonlim.com>]

also sprach Jason Lim <maillist@jasonlim.com> [2002.10.10.1948 +0200]:
> Well, some of us do need Oracle for business reasons.  And while I'm an
> opensource advocate and choose opensource technology whenever it makes
> sense, Oracle is a darned good database, with fairly good support. (if
> you can afford it)

I principally always just tell them I run RedHat and do some
background translation to and fro. Sure, got to know RedHat, but it's
not too hard... you can always gain time by hiding behind the stupid
user... ;^>

> Now, back on topic, I'm pretty sure that Oracle's unspoken policy is
> that if you have Oracle on Debian (a non-certified platform
> according to them) your support contract is still good up to
> a point.  As soon as you run into anything that might be
> distribution-related Oracle Support will bill you T&M to resolve the
> issue.

I don't know about Oracle, but companies like Check Point, Dell and
various others basically tell you to hang up or they will as soon as
you tell them you aren't running Red Hat or Windoze.

This makes me think: Can't we have a special list 'debian-commercial'
(or a better name) for exactly these types of problems - getting
commercial software to run on Debian? If not officially, I'd be happy
to host it.

---------------------------------------------
Jason Lim in reply:

This is exactly why I brought this up in Debian-ISP. I presume most of us
here are running Debian in commercial environments, either for our own
servers, or for clients.

I find the trend that the large players are only supporting a few Distros
(and those few Distros are getting certified) disturbing. Debian will
basically NEVER become "mainstream" to the point Redhat or such do, for
numerous reasons (advertising, "tech support", etc.). However, my hope is
that Debian can ride off the success/partnerships/support of the other
distros by at least JOINING with them in various certifications, thus
indirectly gaining support from vendors/companies for Debian.

Does this make sense?