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.
> A few minutes planned downtime now in much better than hours of unplanned downtime at some indeterminate future time.
This reminds me of something that OpenSolaris did that I really liked. When you updated packages, it would take a ZFS snapshot. It only took up space for the changed bits, and happened almost instantly. If things stopped working after the reboot, then you could select a GRUB menu option to boot into the old snapshot again and everything would work.
1. You upgrade postgres, and the new on-disk format isn't compatible with the old one.
2. You upgrade mysql, and the new on-disk format IS compatible with the old one, but the new version has a bug that you keep hitting. You want to downgrade without losing all the transactions that you've accrued since the upgrade.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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...
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.