

Oracle Buys Ksplice - Erwin
http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/435791

======
tzs
The old Unix hacker in me likes Ksplice, from a hacker point of view.

However, I wouldn't use it, except in exceptional circumstances (e.g., there
is a patch we have to apply _now_ but we can't do scheduled down time). I want
to reboot after an update--even an update that does not technically require it
--because I want to _know_ my system is in a state that _can_ boot.

It is very annoying to do some update, not reboot, and then a couple of months
later a power failure takes down your systems and when power is restored you
get some kind of boot error and you are wondering what in the last several
months you did that broke it.

A few minutes planned downtime now in much better than hours of unplanned
downtime at some indeterminate future time.

~~~
Dobbs
This is why I can't stand Gentoo. We had a dude who was the Sysadmin before me
who loved it. He upgraded the kernel deleted the old one and didn't reboot.
Several months later the server had to be shutdown and didn't come backup. I
spent several hours fighting to get the machine to a point where I could
rebuild a working kernel.

Within a week I prepared and migrated the system to something more reasonable.

~~~
mjdwitt
It seems to me that your kernel issues are more related to your predecessor's
failures as an admin than to Gentoo. Nothing you can do on Gentoo can't be
done on most distributions, including poorly-done kernel upgrades.

~~~
prolepunk
Nah, it's gentoo that sucks. I don't see anything like that happening in
binary distributions, or assembling anything from ports in FreeBSD.

I've administered a few gentoo machines a few years ago and can attest that
it's a major PIA. Or let me elaborate a bit, system failures that happened on
gentoo didn't seem to happen on other systems, system failures that also
happened on other system took significantly more time to resolve and required
much deeper knowledge of system internals than debian, centos or whatnot.

When I finally moved everything to debian and my time spent on system
administration tasks went down dramatically.

~~~
mjdwitt
I know exactly what you mean about time spent on admin tasks in Gentoo; I
myself experienced the same when I switched my personal dev machine from
Gentoo to ArchLinux. I still wouldn't blame Gentoo for the kernel issues,
however.

It seems to me that Dobb's predecessor failed to understand what he was doing
and therefore failed as an admin. If Gentoo required a level of understanding
which he did not have, then he should not have been using Gentoo. That is
exactly the reason I switched; I realized that I needed to spend time with
other distributions learning more basic elements of Linux systems before I
would be capable of adeptly administering a Gentoo system. In the hands of
those more experienced, however, distributions such as Gentoo (or Slackware)
are powerful tools.

------
VanL
Given Oracle's recent activities, I would guess that Ksplice's patent
applications are the real prize. There are two that are published:

The first is "Method of finding a safe time to modify code of a running
computer program": <http://bit.ly/ksplice-1>

The second is "Method of determining which computer program functions are
changed by an arbitrary source code modification": <http://bit.ly/ksplice-2>

These are just applications for now, so there is no telling exactly what the
claims will look like when they finally leave the patent office. Nevertheless,
you can assume that Oracle will keep these alive so that they can address
every possible way in which these can be applied to patching running programs.

~~~
6ren
> Given Oracle's recent activities

What do you mean? Sure, Oracle is an aggressive company, but they are clearly
doing business, and not a non-practicing patent troll. Even in suing Google
over Java in Android, they not only use Java but are the center of its
development. Sun itself sued [Microsoft] over Java.

This acquisition makes sense to them, since linux is a key part of their
vertical offering. If no one else can offer it (because patented), it makes
even more sense.

I agree that their IP department would analyze the patent for value in other
areas - but how could that be the "real prize", when its final form and very
existence is unknown?

That said, hot swapping code has been around for a while e.g. a PhD supervisor
of mine had another student working in it around 2005, and these are dated
2009. They might very well have a new technique, applied in a specific area,
but would be necessarily limited by prior art.

\---

QUESTION: how much value would this patent application be worth as part of
this acquisition?

Clearly, it depends on the base value of the company; the contribution of the
technology (e.g. acquisitions also acquire customers and talent); the
competitive advantage of blocking it (e.g. do customers care about this - is
it an important factor in purchasing decisions?); how well this patent blocks
it; and how likely it is to be granted in a useful form.

~~~
VanL
Oracle is extremely aggressive about IP enforcement - and just because you
haven't heard about it in court, doesn't mean that it isn't happening. Ninety-
nine percent of these issues are settled quietly. I have been on the other
side of licensing discussions twice this year alone.

It is not just patents - they are actively trying to monetize their IP,
including changing license terms (see the evolution of the license for the
JDK/JRE download, particularly the "Definitions" and "Commercial Features"
sections), modifying support structures (see the modification of MySQL or
OpenSolaris support prices and terms) to drive more revenue from what they
bought from Sun.

I understand why they are doing this - Larry Ellison being a billionaire and
all - and I am not calling them a troll (unlike, say, Intellectual Ventures).

Nevertheless, I would not shake Larry Ellison's hand without checking my
pockets afterward to see if I had just incurred a licensing fee.

As to your question: There is a substantial difference in value between a
patent family that is closed and a patent family that is open. An open family
can have continuations that contain claims specifically modified to read on
work-arounds, whereas a closed family can only be interpreted to read on work-
arounds through broader claim interpretation or the doctrine of equivalents.

~~~
6ren
Thanks. "Recent activities" sounded like you were referring to something
public (e.g. there'd been recent stories on HN about it) - but now it sounds
private.

We may differ in the following, but I think it's reasonable to enforce your IP
if you created it and use it. As an uISV, it's important to me that customers
pay for it (although I'd find it unpleasant to pursue infringing customers).
Changing the license terms for future versions seems reasonable. And changing
support terms even more so since it's a contractual agreement. Everybody
complains about Oracle licensing terms (of their own products, eg RDB), but
everybody pays. I think they must be getting value for money.

Personally, I was (and am) unhappy with what Oracle is doing to Java - but I
think it's reasonable. It was inevitable that they'd alter licensing terms in
accordance with profitability. Oracle is a software company, unlike Sun which
was a hardware company. And perhaps, pragmatically, that's for the best: Sun
never made money from Java's success; now they are gone. Oracle's stewardship
might be more realistic and sustainable. And a corporate steward seems
important for mainstream adoption (though python, ruby etc seem to be doing OK
without it).

Thanks for answer on continuations. I'd heard of them used for _submarine
patents_ , to defer issuance, but I'm shocked that the US allows new subject
matter to be added and get the benefit of the original priority date! That
should be a separate invention IMHO
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuing_patent_application#C...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuing_patent_application#Continuation-
in-part)

------
Erwin
Due to some strange kernel driver for an attached storage device requiring
multiple reboots and whatnot, kernel updates have always been a pain for me
requiring an hour of downtime -- until I found Ksplice.

From the text of the email I got however, it seems like they do not intend to
make the service available outside of Oracle's own Linux variant:

    
    
        > The Ksplice Uptrack service is planned to be included 
        > as a standard part of Oracle Linux Premier Support, 
        > and we will no longer be selling the service 
        > separately to new customers moving forward. 
        > As an existing Ksplice customer,  
        > you may continue to renew your subscriptions 
        > and add additional systems to your account as before
    
    

Same can be implied from
[http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/Acquisitions/ksplice/gene...](http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/Acquisitions/ksplice/general-
presentation-430138.pdf) which says:

    
    
        >  Oracle is expected to be the only enterprise
        > Linux vendor that can offer zero downtime update

------
KonradKlause
Time to fork it!

[http://knoppix.mirrors.tds.net/pub/linux/frugalware/frugalwa...](http://knoppix.mirrors.tds.net/pub/linux/frugalware/frugalware-1.4/source/apps-
extra/ksplice/ksplice-0.9.9-src.tar.gz)

~~~
Erwin
The big value of Ksplice for me is that I'm paying a few $/server/month for a
service that writes, tests and distributes those live binary kernel patches
when the exploits come out. So it can't be just some volunteer OS work, there
also needs to be a support organization.

------
davidbalbert
Looks like their blog is down too (<http://blog.ksplice.com>). This was by far
one of my favorite blogs. Good, long, articles about kernel hacking. I hope it
comes back up soon and isn't gone for good.

~~~
signa11
[http://web.archive.org/web/20101213212354/http://blog.ksplic...](http://web.archive.org/web/20101213212354/http://blog.ksplice.com/)
this is the last snap-shot (i think) from internet-archive of the above set of
pages. not sure how large the delta is. but anyways.

------
mother
I love this service.

And now, Oracle has immediately dropped support for RHEL. For shame, Oracle.

~~~
jamespo
How ironic considering Oracle's Linux is a Red Hat rip off

------
rwmj
If your servers can't ever be rebooted, I think you have problems.

~~~
soult
From what I have heard, ksplice is pretty popular with VPS (virtual private
server) providers. When there is an exploitable bug, they have to announce the
planned upgrade to their customers and wait for a few days until they can run
the upgrade. Even worse, they basically announce that there is a hole in their
system to the very people that already have elevated access to that system.
(Even non-remotly-exploitable bugs are a problem here.) Ksplice allows for an
upgrade as soon as the bug is found/fixed in source code without tipping off
potential attackers that could exploit the bug.

~~~
rwmj
They should be able to migrate the VMs off to another box, allowing the first
one to be upgraded and rebooted. The additional benefit is that this tests a
migration path that ought to exist in case of hardware failures.

------
DEinspanjer
Yeah, this pretty much sucks for their existing customers. Even if they aren't
immediately shutting down everything, I don't feel very safe trusting them to
do the same thorough job preparing patches for Ubuntu and RHEL when the press
release makes it rather clear that Oracle is only interested in servicing
their own distro. :/

I have to say that I am considering terminating my service with them.

------
cpeterso
Ksplice Inc. must have some unique patents. I wonder if Oracle will merge this
technology into Solaris.

~~~
koenigdavidmj
I wonder whether Microsoft thinks it falls under
[http://www.google.com/patents?id=cVyWAAAAEBAJ&dq=hotpatc...](http://www.google.com/patents?id=cVyWAAAAEBAJ&dq=hotpatching)
.

------
postfuturist
Your server configuration should tolerate nodes going down, so patching a
kernel and rebooting your servers one at a time should be no big deal.

~~~
dave1010uk
If you have many servers (whether physical or virtual), yes, but if you only
have 1 or 2 then downtime is a big deal.

