Comment by not_kurt_godel
1 day ago
For those who might not know the reference: https://simonwillison.net/2024/Sep/17/bryan-cantrill/:
> Do not fall into the trap of anthropomorphizing Larry Ellison. You need to think of Larry Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower. You don’t anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn - you stick your hand in there and it’ll chop it off, the end. You don’t think "oh, the lawnmower hates me" – lawnmower doesn’t give a shit about you, lawnmower can’t hate you. Don’t anthropomorphize the lawnmower. Don’t fall into that trap about Oracle.
> — Bryan Cantrill
You have no idea how thankful that you explained that. I watched the Cantrill video. As somebody that dealt this Oracle, it struck home.
404 on that link.
A more direct source (possibly the original source?) I know of is a YouTube video entitled "LISA11 - Fork Yeah! The Rise and Development of illumos" which detailed how the Solaris operating system got freed from Oracle after the Sun acquisition.
The whole hour talk is worth a watch, even when passively doing other stuff. It is a neat history of Solaris and its toolchain mixed with the inter-organizational politics.
YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc
Direct link to lawnmower quotes (~38.5 minute mark): https://youtu.be/-zRN7XLCRhc&t=2307
Works fine for me but maybe try https://web.archive.org/web/20260426213142/https://simonwill...