Observers Mull Impact Of Oracle's Unbreakable Linux 2.0

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Oracle's Unbreakable Linux 2.0 likely won't fragment the Linux distribution business out of the gate, but the long-term impact on Red Hat, Novell and the operating system market remains unclear, industry observers say.

Oracle on Wednesday unveiled plans to provide full enterprise support for a derivative of Red Hat Linux. The Redwood Shores, Calif.-based software giant also said it would release internally developed bug fixes and libraries to optimize Linux performance on its database and entire application suite.

Oracle's hybrid Linux offering, which combines full technical support and the development of Linux code, constitutes the company's first step into the Linux distribution business, according to observers. The tighter coupling of applications with the open-source operating system also could further commoditize the OS and accelerate the uptake of OS appliances, they said.

Oracle said it will strip out of the code any trademarked reference to Red Hat, develop its own private fixes and add-ons for customers, and release the derivative code to the market. That plan makes Oracle a bona fide rival to Red Hat, Novell and Microsoft -- at least on paper, according to Al Gillen, an OS software analyst at research firm IDC.

"This does put Oracle into the Linux distribution business," Gillen said. "It will likely have a small impact on the Linux market over the first 12 months, since the most likely customers up front will be existing Oracle customers using Oracle database software on Linux or Oracle application software on Linux."

Oracle's program isn't like other Red Hat clones, such as CentOS and rPath, because Oracle's Unbreakable Linux 2.0 will be a commercially supported Linux distribution. "You won't see anybody getting an rPath distribution for general use," Gillen said. "By comparison, you can potentially get a copy of Oracle Linux for general-purpose use."

Others dismissed Oracle's Linux announcement as a swipe at Red Hat for acquiring middleware rival JBoss, or possibly an attempt to undermine Red Hat's stock price and prime it for a hostile takeover by Oracle.

But Oracle may have something else in mind besides killing Red Hat and irritating Microsoft, observers noted. Like many other application vendors caught in the crossfire of the virtualization software craze, Oracle could be trying to gain control over how its applications are deployed and paid for in the virtual era. Red Hat's next Linux distribution will contain the Xen hypervisor.

"ISVs need to control their application destiny as virtualization accelerates. They have to control what OS components are installed with their application in the virtual container because of efficiency and supportability," said one high-tech venture capitalist, who declined to be named. "ISVs need to control their own stack, and it becomes increasingly important as virtualization comes to fruition."

The competitive dynamics are more acute for Oracle, since its two key competitors in the middleware market -- Red Hat and Microsoft -- own the operating system and will have virtualization hypervisors in their respective platforms.

Oracle's moves could spur other ISVs, application vendors and even OEMs to build, bundle and support their own custom Linux derivatives with their applications, which would have a profound impact on the entire OS landscape, observers said.

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