The value of an independent Linux
A thought struck me this morning: would you really want your database/application server/office productivity suite/etc. developer to also be the author of your operating system? On one level, the answer is an easy 'yes': tighter integration between the OS and the applications that run on it is a good thing.
On the other side of this coin, however, is the reality that today's integration is tomorrow's barrier to entry against all other applications. Take Microsoft, for example.
Microsoft has arguably done a very good job of encouraging third-party applications on its Windows platforms. But Microsoft has done less well once it starts to compete in a given application market against its partners. Even where the company has a financial incentive to boost the partner, it has a competing incentive to boost itself.
Of course, Microsoft is hardly alone in this. Oracle, IBM and others all face the same challenge: how to cooperate when you've grown so big and diverse in your product offerings that you can't help but compete?
Back to Linux/the OS question. Some Oracle customers are likely happy to have Oracle serve as Linux and application/database vendor to them. They like the integrated approach, just as many plug into the Microsoft ecosystem as a way to improve integration and (hopefully) reduce complexity. And some of us hope that Red Hat expands beyond its OS roots to move higher up the software stack.
But should we? One of the great things about Linux is that no company owns it. It's a common platform that is neutral in terms of the applications that it supports. Linus Torvalds is not making tweaks here and there to privilege his friends at SAP. He's working with the kernel development community to create the best OS, period.
Isn't this what we want? Aren't we better off having the OS vendor separate from the application vendor separate from the database vendor? Do we really want our consolidating, integrating industry to leave us with fewer choices, not more?
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
Basically, as long as the choices don't make my workday much more difficult or frustrating, I'm all for them.
If a tight integration between software and OS is what you want, a solution like Oracle Linux (I prefer RedHat personally), that certifies that the OS will work today AND TOMORROW with their software.
Running Linux can be frustrating at times, especially if the OS is constantly changing and updating itself. For this reason I would never run a production database system on something like Gentoo Linux. It's always being updated, changing and is very bleeding edge. I want something boring, stable and maintained with my production goals in mind. Even Ubuntu the darling-child of the distribution world would probably not be my second or third choice for a database or web server.
It seems that when VARs package and sell linux along with their software, it's a situation where you get all the upside of a tightly integrated os/software package without the downside. (Vendor lock-in, closed source no-option, etc). If you really want to go in and rebuild your kernel or update core system libraries, you can do so. I don't have the luxury of rebuilding my NT kernel if my specific needs require it.