Red Hat vs Oracle (Business Models)

Having worked for both Red Hat and Oracle around its middleware products, I will try to cover the differences between both companies.

This post covers the few questions that always come up when you first get in touch with Oracle or Red Hat.


Oracle:

1. Source code:
   Closed (but Oracle products that are based on Java code are not obfuscated, decompilation is possible)
   Open   (Java)
   
2. Main Revenues: License and support
3. Software downloads (no liscense key is necessary; some software is free : JDeveloper, database Oracle XE)

Red Hat:

1. Source code: Open (all code comes well selected from open source community projects like jboss.org, fedora.org, ...)
2. Main Revenues: Subscriptions (that is the Red Hat name for : the right to download a supported version + support)
3. Software downlods (you'll need to create a Red Hat login and get a subscription for the wanted software)