Oracle removed public downloads of pretty much everything except the initial releases of some products. Patches for Solaris, Sun Studio, etc., all require paid support ("entitlement" in Oracle speak). So if you had a Solaris installation and hit some bugs, your only choice is to re-install using the latest release, provided it is available. For Sun Studio the situation is even more insane: traditionally the initial releases of their C/C++ compiler were always so buggy that it required immediate patching to make them usable. And since Sun historically does not release updates for their compilers (unlike Solaris), this makes Sun Studio pretty much useless unless you have paid for support.

The firmware story is hilarious. You should go read some comments on Sun's website. People bought Sun hardware and when they went to download drivers to make that hardware work with their OS, they were told they needed to pay for "software support" to get them. What they got with hardware was apparently "hardware support" and it doesn't cover drivers/firmware. One word: insane.

> when they went to download drivers to make that hardware work with their OS, they were told they needed to pay for "software support"

I smell a class action lawsuit if that's true. It's one thing to make obtaining the drivers more difficult, but completely something else to remove access to something already offered and available to users when they paid for hardware. (PS3 otheros comes to mind now...)

Huh. I guess that after recent changes (Solaris downloads, etc.), most people will find alternative vendors in both hardware and software arena.

It's not like there's no competition anyways. It is funny though, that a company like Sun, after acquisition by Oracle is deploying procedures we more commonly associate with IBM, HP, and other behemoths of the IT world.

Wait - you don't associate Oracle with a behemoth? You know they target large corporations and will happily recommend you to buy a cluster of 64GB 8+ core machines, right? Have a look at validated configurations... I can think of only one larger database company, but they design stuff for you from scratch.

heh, I do actually, maybe I should have phrased it better ;).

My point was, Sun was trying to be a hip and modern company, open sourcing a lot of their work, and then Oracle bought them and in the best impersonation of Eric Cartman, just said "you damn hippies" :), and fucked all that effort up.

I did expect it to happen, but I'm still sad it did happen.

If they force me to pay for the JRE, I will switch to Python subito.

Once Python becomes fast with unladen-swallow then I don't think I would bother with Java :)

I'm starting to worry about the future of clojure, given that it's based on the JVM.

You can use the OpenJDK to host Clojure.

At least until Oracle decides they want to collect some money for all Sun patents they bought with the package.

Oh boy... This is getting really nasty real quick.

Oracle is definitely showing itself to be a bunch of scumbags, but I'm not sure they're quite that stupid. Attempting to squeeze OpenJDK would almost certainly call off the long-held truce with IBM, who has their own (admittedly unpopular, relative to Sun's) Java implementation.

Starting a patent war with IBM is like starting a land war against Russia; you might be able to hurt them, but in the end they will destroy you.

Yes, there's OpenJDK, but I'm a bit suspicious over whether enough of a community has built up around OpenJDK to continue development without Sun support.

I'd be delighted to be proved wrong, of course.

Me too. I really don't like Java the language, but the JVM is a really cool platform to host your code on.

WRT patents, let's not borrow trouble, there's no sign that Oracle will get ugly in that way and they have a lot to lose if they start a patent war with the open software world.

Agreed. They haven't mentioned that, but it appears some mid-level execs are all too eager to hit their targets, sacrificing long-term viability for their yearly bonuses.

We can make them behave by showing they have more to lose than us.

Clojure on .NET CLR is coming along nicely. and if you want bare-metal, you can always switch to Common Lisp.

I am not sure I would like to be vulnerable to the whims of Microsoft.

Clojure in Clojure is something that Rich has started thinking about. Turtle Clojure ("It's turtles all the way down") to bare-metal as it counts for this (Linux, Xen, whatever) will follow that.

CL and Clojure are very different Lisps.

In my (inexperienced, non-lisp-coding) book, Clojure looks really cool and the sort of thing I can see myself using a lot.

CL looks old and painful to deal with, although it does have all the lisp goodness in there somewhere.

Nothing to see here. Oracle want its own, totally controlled market, with their hardware and their software, like that IBM have.

You want support - pay us. You want updates - pay us. You want JRE - pay us (coming soon =)

I could understand such system for new downloads... but this just seems insane. They had to implement a new system, change the old one, retrain the phone monkeys and then waste time of both the support guys and their managers, because the issue is not easy to resolve. They might potentially gain some new annoyed support customers, but the rest will not be likely to go for Sun hardware in the future if they have a choice.

Is alienating customers ever a good choice? Apple's new rules, Facebook privacy, now Oracle... who's next?

It seems like the easiest way to make money in the post-opensource era - pay a small sum for your each move. =)

I think the sum will have to be fairly substantial. The cost of involving support, or any kind of human contact, in the chain between needing a download and getting it is likely tens of thousands times more expensive than maintaining a self-service system.

It's the enterprise sales model, where software contracts are measured in megabucks, because to do anything cheaper would be more expensive than the cost of sales. I think relying on anything from Sun that Oracle can likely find a way to charge for would be foolish, unless you're big enough to afford those kinds of costs.

Well, if they're sane enough to fix this (not requiring the opening of a "formal service case") for all hardware bought before March 16th....

I suppose we will be able to judge the likelihood of their success by if, how and how quickly they fix this.

Yet, right now, you can go to technet.oracle.com and download Oracle's flagship product for free, and it's always been thus.