This feels correct. Their business model is squeezing anyone who can't migrate off their properties and suing the rest.

Why would go $58B in debt to support a new feature that no one will want after alienating everyone above?

toomuchtodo 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

> Why would go $58B in debt to support a new feature that no one will want after alienating everyone above?

Short term shareholder equity gains during an over exuberant hype cycle you do not know when might repeat.

"As long as the music is playing, you've got to get up and dance." -- Citigroup CEO Chuck Prince (symbolizing Wall Street's reckless persistence in risky lending despite signs of a market downturn)

The Overvaluation Trap - https://hbr.org/2015/12/the-overvaluation-trap - December 2015

> The trap is an almost inevitable consequence of what many managers might regard as a blessing, because it occurs when the capital markets overvalue a company’s equity—and especially when stock overvaluation is common in a particular sector. In the following pages, we’ll describe the trap, show how it has played out in various industries, and suggest where it may be playing out once again.

"If you're playing a poker game and you look around the table and and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you." -- Paul Newman

Edit: tsunamifury wrote a prescient comment a decade ago, referencing the same hrb piece: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10851527

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jollymonATX 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They have not pulled the pin on the ZFS grenade yet, but I expect at some point it happens.

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riffraff 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

but what would be the blast radius for ZFS?

Most enterprises don't seem to be running ZFS with Linux, and the only large target using FreeBSD I can think of is Netflix, but AFAIR they don't use ZFS either.

Oracle sues when there's $$$ to make, but I don't think ZFS would warrant them much.

	▲	toast0 3 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> the only large target using FreeBSD I can think of is Netflix, but AFAIR they don't use ZFS either. I can't quite remember, but I think they might have mentioned using ZFS rather than UFS for the OS, but I'm pretty sure they're not using it for the CDN data partitions. I love ZFS, but for CDN nodes, I think it would be more harmful than helpful; especially how ARC is separate from the FreeBSD 'Unified Buffer Cache', and how much work Netflix has done to reduce the number of times data hits RAM on the way from disk to the user. > Oracle sues when there's $$$ to make, but I don't think ZFS would warrant them much. (Agreeing with you), if they are using ZFS for the OS and Oracle makes ZFS toxic, it shouldn't take long to ditch it.
	▲	3 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[deleted]

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kstrauser 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It’s why I run btrfs on my lab machines. I’ve used ZFS for, looks at calendar oh, wow, literally decades now. It’s fantastic. But the miasma of Oracle’s infection keeps me from recommending it for anything commercial.

ZFS, in a vacuum is fantastic. But it’s not in a vacuum.

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uberduper 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There's no zfs grenade. It's CDDL, feel free to use it wherever you want. Oracle can't come after you for violating the gpl even if somehow using zfs on linux violates the gpl.

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jollymonATX 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Everything I have read is that the cddl is not compatible with binary deployments of zfs on linux so actually wouldnt that mean yes they could press that if you bundled it with gpl? Actual lawyers have said yes it could which is what I am refering to, however I think the actual answer is that Oracle has created a latch by inaction on this subject for so long now.

	▲	uberduper 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		CDDL is more permissive than gpl. It's not a violation of cddl to intermingle with code under a different license. GPL is the issue and it's the individual contributors to linux that _could_ sue.

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mort96 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'm not a lawyer. I don't k is what Oracle's lawyers can and can't do. Even if I'm legally in the right, Oracle's lawyers could break me if they wanted. I can't know if there is a ZFS grenade, and neither can you. But we can choose to not deal with Oracle.

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bombcar 3 days ago | parent [-]

At that point, if they wanted to, they could sue mort96 for saying something bad about Oracle. It's unlikely they'll do that and perhaps a bit less unlikely they'll sue over ZFS.

Most of their legal shenanigans appear to be restricted to companies that already license some software from them.

	▲	mort96 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		We have pretty good laws and systems protecting our right to say something bad about companies. I trust that to protect me. We have less good laws and systems protecting our right to use software in ways which Oracle considers breach of license.

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imglorp 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

They can sue for a variety of reasons from trade secret to trademark.

It doesn't mean they'll win anything in court but they'll ruin you long before they notice the spend.

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nubinetwork 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I'm not sure Larry would be interested in suing Matt Ahrens (one of the original designers), or a handful of LLNL employees (ie the US government).

	▲	scentoni 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		The present US government would delight in finding a new way to funnel more yachtloads of cash to Larry Ellison, legally or otherwise, as long as someone in the regime gets something out of it.

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onlyrealcuzzo 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Because you can get the government to buy it via corruption?