Is Oracle Forking Red Hat Linux? - Page 2

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Oracle has said the approach means it can work on enhancing Linux without creating its own version of the OS. The only issue, though, is that not everything that Oracle gets into the mainline Linux kernel is actually used by all the distribution vendors, including Red Hat.

OCFS

One example of how Oracle's supported version of Linux differs from Red Hat has to do with the Oracle Cluster File System (OCFS), which has been part of the mainline Linux kernel since the Linux 2.6.16 release in 2006.

Though it's part of the mainline Linux kernel, it is not included in Red Hat's Enterprise Linux, where it would compete against Red Hat's own Global File System (GFS).

Oracle, however, provides support for OCFS and offers it to its customers.

"Since Red Hat compiles OCFS out of its kernel, we actually build the modules that you can download separately," Coekaerts explained. "So, we don't have to recompile the kernel. On our Linux server, we add the OCFS [packages], so you can pull in the extra packages and they will work on both RHEL and Oracle Enterprise Linux the same."

Coekaerts added that Oracle fully supports OCFS, and argued that a good number of customers came to Oracle for Linux support because they want to use OCFS.

He noted that OCFS support is not an extra cost to Oracle subscribers, and in his view, it does not affect Oracle's compatibility or certification with Red Hat.

Red Hat, however, doesn't see a similar need for OCFS.

Nick Carr, Red Hat's marketing director, said that there are a number of shared disk file systems for Linux, and that Red Hat has been delivering GFS for several years.

"It is included in the upstream kernel and is integrated with storage virtualization technologies," Carr told InternetNews.com.

"At this time, Red Hat has received minimal customer demand for OCFS," he added. "However, we regularly evaluate all the available Linux file systems as part of our strategy to deliver best-of-breed solutions to our customers. As of today, we believe that GFS is the best shared disk file system for our customers."

Xen vs. KVM

Another area where Red Hat and Oracle differ is on their view of virtualization technology. Currently, both Red Hat and Oracle use the Xen open source virtualization technology, though Red Hat has publicly stated its intentions to move to the rival KVM virtualization technology.

Red Hat bought out KVM vendor Qumranet in 2008 for $107 million.

Oracle has its own flavor of Xen, called OracleVM, and it's not something that it plans on moving away from anytime soon.

"OracleVM is our product, so we're not dependent on Red Hat's choice, and whether they use KVM or Xen doesn't affect us," Coekaerts said. "We're happy with the solution we have, and going forward, we know that it will work really well for Oracle."