back to article Oracle smacks JD Edwards help site with cease and desist order

A JD Edwards technical reference and help site has been forced to close after being sent a cease-and-desist letter from Oracle. The JDEREF.com site's UK-based webmaster recently revealed that a legal representative from Oracle, which acquired JD Edwards' owner PeopleSoft in 2005, sent the cease-and-desist letter requesting the …

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  1. NoneSuch Silver badge

    Oracle. Expanding the closed garden mentality of the 21st Century.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "The Oracle legal letter argued that by providing information about JD Edwards' software schemas, the site was infringing on Oracle as a rights holder."

    Yes, because reading schemas might actually diminish the need for their technical support costing £££ and taking forever to return your call.

    1. Down not across

      "Yes, because reading schemas might actually diminish the need for their technical support costing £££ and taking forever to return your call."

      Return your call?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Been using JDE for 12 years and can say...

      I've seen the product through JDEdwards, PeopleSoft and finally Oracle. O's support is total sh*t when it comes down to the tough stuff. Can't remember a single time we didn't have to sort out crap by ourselves. Hello Oracle, this is a PRODUCTION system, and no I can't wait for a month to sort out the problem....

  3. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

    When will companies realise that a healthy customer community enhances their product, and lawyer letters just serve to nark customers off.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "lawyer letters just serve to nark customers off"

      But also to help earn the fat margins that enable Ellison to wank around with big ocean going racing yachts.

      1. Tom 13

        Re: the fat margins that enable

        I doubt that. I suspect more of the little sites would generate even bigger gross profits.

  4. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    track record

    "Look at that track record – when people are worried about what we will do with Sun hardware and MySQL. We have a bit of a track record."

    Oracle *does* have a track record with purchased product lines -- make sure to get license fees whenever and wherever possible, and eliminate support options that are not through Oracle (for a fee of course.)

  5. Ian Michael Gumby

    You are looking at it from the wrong perspective....

    The issue isn't so much JD Edwards... but that if they let the site exist, it weakens the argument that they are using in their lawsuit. So the have to take an even heavy hand to all perceived threats to IP.

    After all, there is a lot... a really big pot of money on the table.

    The license fee argument would be Oracle going after chump change.

    1. Anonymous Dutch Coward

      Re: You are looking at it from the wrong perspective....

      "but that if they let the site exist, it weakens"

      Are you perchance confusing patent enforcement with copyright enforcement?

      1. Ian Michael Gumby

        @Dutch Re: You are looking at it from the wrong perspective....

        Not confusing anything. Oracle is making both arguments in their cases. Not to mention that they have sued to shut down other support sites.

        I'm not judging Oracle only saying is that their actions may not be 'evil' but more than likely guided by the bigger picture.

  6. bigtimehustler

    Is documenting a schema really protectable? I mean, using it might be, but explaining it? I am not so sure, especially within the market he operates the website.

    1. Anonymous Dutch Coward

      Documenting schema protectable?

      @bigtimehustler: exactly. And even if it would fall under copyright, there's exceptions for interoperability in at least US and European law. DB schemata would be prime examples of details needed for interoperability.

    2. Tom 13

      re: documenting a schema really protectable?

      Depends on how Oracle documented it and JD Edwards got the information.

      If the information is circulated as an unpublished but copyrighted trade secret, and JDE got it that way, then certainly. I use to work for a company that did just that. Weird shit, but legal.

      Did make it a bit of a bear trying to take samples for my next job though. I think we only had one document I produced that was published. Ironically it was laid out entirely as tables, which was what caught my next employer's eye as tables were their biggest challenge in their publishing environment. I was more proud of the other stuff, but...

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yet another reason to not use MySQL.

  8. Mage Silver badge

    Ego wins out over common sense.

    No surprise.

    Open Office

    Java

    MySQL

    Hudson

    Solaris

    Sun Sparc

    Oracle has form.

    1. vagabondo

      Re: Ego wins out over common sense.

      I worry about the future of VirtualBox.

      1. MadMike

        Re: Ego wins out over common sense.

        Virtualbox is open sourced. No problems, just fork it. Just like OpenSolaris, Oracle closed the source, but it has been forked. There are now several OpenSolaris distros out there, for isntance, Nexenta storage servers, Tegile, OpenIndiana, SmartOS, OmniOS, etc. Lot of Solaris tech has been ported or cloned to other OSes: ZFS, DTrace, SMF (systemd), Crossbow (vOpen Switch), etc.

  9. Gil Grissum

    Way to go, Oracle.

    Was this bloke making money from supporting your product with a website that provided helpful information for JDE users? Nothing I've seen, indicates that he was charging for access to his website. So why dump this legal grap on him, when all he was really doing, was giving Oracle customers a reason to keep doing business with them? Ridiculous heavy handed nonsense!!

  10. Confuciousmobil

    I was using the site when it was taken down.

    A great loss :(

    He provided a great service, I can get the information other ways but none so continent as this site.

    I have, of course, written to Oracle but, surprise, suprise, no reply.

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