Irreperable damage to Oracle's Rep
Is that actually possible?
Oracle has won a permanent injunction against Rimini Street, banning it from controversial support practices that have been ruled a violation of copyright laws. The injunction (PDF), issued yesterday, means that the Nevada-based support biz can’t reproduce, prepare derivative works from, or distribute any of Oracle’s software …
You mean the one where their software maintenance is famously expensive, even compared to other enterprise software firms? Or perhaps the reputation they have for trying passing up on cloud-based applications, because those threatened Oracle's maintenance gravy train??
I don't back Rimini Street in unlicensed use/theft of Oracle's IP, but I can see why Oracle customers would be very interested in a 3rd party software maintenance solution.
I'm no friend to Oracle, but if Oracle software maintenance is so expensive, it should be possible to compete with it without infringing copyright, no?
In fact, the people most harmed by Rimini may well be other 3rd parties who are trying to offer alternatives to Oracle support but couldn't match Rimini's prices because they are doing it the legitimate way. And ultimately, that harms Oracle customers because it reduces their choice of alternatives to Oracle.
Rimini could have managed to provide support services legally however they would have had to set up contracts with each customer which allowed Rimini techs access to my each clients My_Oracle_Support Page and remote admin access to database instances. this would then have let them download updates and patches plus use the Oracle knowledge base on that customers behalf. Of course that would have necessitated frequent logging in and out of different portal accounts many times a day and resources downloaded for one customer would need to be quarantined in a way they were not visible when working on another customer account.
All of this is do-able and may be what other 3rd party support companies do but its a lot more expensive that just downloading the contents of the oracle knowledge base and copies of all active products and sticking them in a file share. Maybe if they had spent the £ 5million building the right infratrcuture they wouldn't be in this pickle now. There would have been a risk that Oracle would then have changed licencing rules to prevent 3rd party staff accessing my_oracle_support but I can't see how that would have stood up in court.
AC because I manage a lot of Oracle projects.
"In that judgment, Judge Hicks notes that up until the trial, Rimini Street denied any infringement and specifically the charge of cross-use of the software. At the trial Ravin admitted that there had been occasions of cross-use"
Looks like the game here is to steal what you can while you can and disburse as much of the proceeds to yourself before the law shuts it down -- but don't risk putting yourself behind bars. Sounds like a real stand-up guy.