Second thoughts on Oracle?

I had lunch with some friends from Oracle the other day. It was a highly interesting and, at least for me, informative session. I learned, for example, that over 50% of Oracle's business today comes from support. I was also reminded that Oracle provides Level 3 support for Linux (and, unless I'm misremembering or misheard, for Apache).

So what? Well, clearly Oracle knows how to support open source projects/products. Also, Oracle's business model already looks a lot like an open source company (except that the support they earn is in the billions, to the tune of $7 billion).

See where I'm going? Maybe the (alleged) JBoss acquisition actually makes sense. Maybe, just maybe, Oracle is the new SpikeSource, SourceLabs, BitRock, OpenLogic, etc. That is, maybe Oracle's future is in providing a supported, certified open source stack.

This is easier said than done, of course. I learned at Novell that the shift to an open source-friendly culture and business model is non-trivial. It will not come easily to Oracle (or any traditional software company), $7B in incentive dollars or not. But I think I see the potential in the (alleged) deal now, whereas before I only saw a threat.

So, when's it going to be, Larry?