Ellison's Elision

[Andy Green]

'' I'm here at Oracle "Open" World, and am a bit shocked by what I'm 
seeing. Oracle, longtime partner to Red Hat, is rolling out the next 
phase of its Unbreakable Linux program, designed to kill Red Hat and 
Novell. With partners like Oracle, who needs competitors?
Now, Oracle will say that it's offering a level of support unmatched by 
Red Hat, and it will also say that it's not designed to kill Red Hat. 
But when you roll out an equivalent or better offering at 40% of the 
cost...that's not a partner-y thing to do.
...''

http://weblog.infoworld.com/openresource/archives/2006/10/with_friends_li.html

(also: http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2006/10/25/oracle_red_hat_support/ )

 From what I could understand, Oracle is doing a CentOS but with paid 
support and IP indemnity.  Some say this is payback because Oracle 
wanted JBoss:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1918413,00.asp

But Redhat ended up with them:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1948150,00.asp

However... if I had to choose between giving Oracle or Redhat money, my 
thoughts turn to the great benefits I have had from RHAT on Fedora 
compared to some bloke boasting about the size of his yacht.

-Andy