
Larry Ellison allegedly tried to have a professor fired for benchmarking Oracle - pavel_lishin
https://danluu.com/anon-benchmark/
======
whack
> _If we look at major commercial databases today, two out of the three big
> names in commericial databases forbid publishing benchmarks._

I see many people bashing Oracle/Ellison, but they are not alone in this. MS
does the same thing as well. The really worrying thing is that such practices
are deemed to be legal. The entire principle of Free Markets is underpinned by
consumers having accurate information about the goods they are purchasing.
Having licensing agreements that are expressly designed to prevent the
dissemination of product-information, goes against everything that Capitalism
and Free-Markets stand for.

The fact that there are no government regulations against such behavior, is
precisely what leads people to think that we are living in a Corporatocracy,
and not a Free Market.

~~~
CalChris
> The entire principle of Free Markets is underpinned by consumers having
> accurate information about the goods they are purchasing. Having licensing
> agreements that are expressly designed to prevent the dissemination of
> product-information, goes against everything that Capitalism and Free-
> Markets stand for.

I agree with where you are going but I entirely disagree with your description
of Free Markets and Capitalism.

free market - _an economic system in which prices are determined by
unrestricted competition between privately owned businesses_

There's _nothing_ in there about _consumers having accurate information_. If
anything, _caveat emptor_. Moreover, if you are a free market entrepreneur
then the absolute last thing you want is fairness to your competition or
fairness to your consumer. Those are costs of doing business, to be avoided if
possible. Naturally, Larry is only trying to avoid them.

That's why we have regulation. That's why civilization has evolved to have
government. That's why Libertaristan isn't on any maps. That's why _The
Fountainhead_ is such a misguided fantasy where entrepreneurs can do anything
and it's always better and governments can do nothing and it's always worse.

Free Markets and Capitalism don't _stand_ for anything. That's not even a
criticism of them either. Civilization might stand for something although that
something is a provisional something at best but then that provisional
something is better than nothing.

The requirement for _consumers having accurate information_ is a government
regulation. In the United States, it's enforced by the Consumer Protection
Agency. It isn't a free market requirement.

~~~
akira2501
> There's nothing in there about consumers having accurate information.

Yes, but practice has taught us that it is an important part of any
functioning market.

> the absolute last thing you want is fairness to your competition or fairness
> to your consumer.

I completely disagree with your assertion here. I want an advantage over my
competition, sure.. but I still want it to be fair. An unfair market is a
fickle and unreliable one. That's not good for anyone.

Further, if my consumer walks away from the deal feeling that it was unfair
then I've really done myself a disservice in the long term. It's a reason why
"Goodwill and Brand Awareness" are line items in the world of corporate
accounting.

> Free Markets and Capitalism don't stand for anything.

They stand for the implicit agreement that we are all created equal.

~~~
badestrand
>> the absolute last thing you want is fairness to your competition or
fairness to your consumer.

> I completely disagree with your assertion here. I want an advantage over my
> competition, sure.. but I still want it to be fair.

Thank you for that. I really dislike the common model of capitalism where the
entrepreneur is viewed as a robot whose only goal is to maximize profit with
the law being the only boundary.

In my social bubble the landlords that I know care about their renters'
wellbeing even if it costs them a bit. I only know a handful of entrepreneurs
personally but for all of them fairness and dignity have greater value than
profit. Also the millions of small shops in cities around the world that are
content just selling enough every month to make a comfortable living with no
goal of maximizing anything.

Yes, huge cooperations are different than the guy selling Kebab at the corner.
But still I would appreciate if people would see entrepreneurship and
businesses not so statically as money-maximizers.

~~~
viraptor
> I really dislike the common model of capitalism where the entrepreneur is
> viewed as a robot whose only goal is to maximize profit with the law being
> the only boundary.

It's something you can do if you want to. Nobody will stop you as long as it's
legal, so there will be a non-trivial amount of companies doing just that. It
doesn't matter that the guy on the cornerr is trying to be fair. At some point
he'll be screwed by a kebab chain which pays the minimum wage and can use the
economy of scale in deliveries.

And that's even before we talk about companies that go for risk*penalty<gain
situations where they can ignore the law.

------
mgerdts
I took a databases course under Professor DeWitt - it was one of the most
rewarding and memorable classes that I took at UW Madison. Many years later I
heard Larry warmly refer to David DeWitt. I forget whether that was at an all-
hands meeting or a conference keynote.

On an unrelated topic, I was taking the course while US v. Microsoft was
proceeding. DeWitt kept getting called as an expert witness. At one point he
noticed someone wearing a suit in the classroom. He interrupted the class and
asked the guy to hand over the subpoena so that he could continue on without
being distracted. It turns out that the overdressed student was just prepared
for an interview that was happening after the class.

------
moyix
DeWitt clauses have spread outside of databases too, unfortunately. John
Regehr got a nastygram from Coverity/Synopsys when he tried to post static
analyzer benchmarks (not even his own; the benchmarks were done by researchers
at the Toyota InfoTechnology Center):

[https://blog.regehr.org/archives/1217](https://blog.regehr.org/archives/1217)

This has effectively dissuaded me from trying to perform benchmarks of
Coverity and other commercial tools using LAVA [1], so I can attest to its
chilling effect.

[1]
[https://seclab.ccs.neu.edu/static/publications/sp2016lava.pd...](https://seclab.ccs.neu.edu/static/publications/sp2016lava.pdf)

~~~
userbinator
That sounds like something SciHub would be very useful for --- "the benchmarks
they don't want you to know."

~~~
moyix
Sure, someone could post a paper like this anonymously. But anonymous papers
don't benefit from all the incentives of the standard academic publishing
system.

As a fun aside, here's an example of one of the few fully anonymous papers I
know of:

[http://census2012.sourceforge.net/paper.html](http://census2012.sourceforge.net/paper.html)

------
thebeardedone
I did not know that there is a clause in the license agreement about not being
allowed to disclose benchmarks of databases.

Recently I came into discussion regarding why someone chose to use Oracle
instead of Postgres; the argument that someone brought up was that they did
not know how Postgres scaled. After pointing out that the data that will be
stored will be most likely be a few hundred GB (in an exaggerated worst case
scenario) and that Postgres is said to handle 100's of TB of data, they
capitulated and said that customers trust Oracle (even though they never see
or touch the database).

Personally I would be very interested in seeing comparisons between PG, Oracle
and MSSQL as well for different data-sets/use-case scenarios. This would
really help as a reference in the future when someone else is making critical
decisions which might not appear to make sense.

EDIT: This sounds like a very shady clause; anyone with law insights know
whether this would be enforceable in the EU?

~~~
user5994461
Postgre doesn't handle hundreds of TB of data.

~~~
nl
10 years ago it could handle 2PB.
[https://www.computerworld.com/article/2535825/business-
intel...](https://www.computerworld.com/article/2535825/business-
intelligence/size-matters--yahoo-claims-2-petabyte-database-is-world-s-biggest
--busiest.html)

------
paultopia
Law professor here again.

For those who are interested in the legal and policy aspects of this, I highly
recommend a book called Boilerplate by Margaret Radin. This is just one of
many examples of comically abusive and bizarre contract terms that companies
impose by imaginary consent.

~~~
scarlac
How are clauses like this even legal? One could argue they limit people's
personal freedom and is essentially an anti-competition clause without an
upside. Legitimate question, as I am finding it hard that a court would allow
this.

~~~
DesiLurker
whenever I encounter a deep gray area contract like this my first thought is
that its a play on cost of discovery. so long as it is ambiguous enough it
just boils down to who can afford how much legal expense. when comparing deep
pockets like oracle and some random reviewer/blogger its a done deal.

~~~
paultopia
Yes. This is often true of all kinds of legally shady behavior, not just
contracts. This is why things like class action litigation can be important,
and other aggregation mechanisms. (There might be something to crowdfunding
challenges in cases like this)

------
kevin_thibedeau
This isn't limited to commercial software. Until its recent relicensing, GPL
FreeRTOS had this turd:

Clause 2:

FreeRTOS may not be used for any competitive or comparative purpose, including
the publication of any form of run time or compile time metric, without the
express permission of Real Time Engineers Ltd. (this is the norm within the
industry and is intended to ensure information accuracy).

~~~
dangerbird2
Wouldn't a major usage restriction that make it incompatable with other GPL
software (and possibly make it tagged as non-free by FSF and OSI)?

~~~
fulafel
I suspect this makes it incompatible with FreeRTOS itself too, as the GPL
allows redistribution only if no additional restrictions are stipulated. So
there was legal way to redistribute it.

------
krylon
Somebody who apparently had to deal with the company once told me that Oracle
is really an acronym for "One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison".

------
mcv
I'm surprised these clauses manage to prevent benchmarks. Surely someone with
no Oracle contract can still publish them? Leak a benchmark, benchmark on
someone else's system, whatever. It shouldn't be too hard to publish a
benchmark for which this clause can't be enforced.

~~~
chubot
How would they get the software legally?

Oracle would probably sue them for piracy or something. If you bought it, they
would probably say you violated the agreement and no longer have a valid
license.

Not saying it's right, but since it's commercial software, they can probably
play some tricks. It's one of among many reasons to use commerical software
where possible.

~~~
userbinator
You can legally get Oracle DB completely free, for "development":

[http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/indexes/downloads/index.ht...](http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/indexes/downloads/index.html)

[http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/licenses/standard-
license-...](http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/licenses/standard-
license-152015.html)

Of course there's the anti-benchmarking clause, but other than that, they
offer the downloads free (as in beer).

~~~
emmelaich
But you have to register.

If you publish the benchmark, Oracle will sue you for obtaining the software
illegitimately or sue you for not conforming to the license.

------
kinkrtyavimoodh
Can someone explain how this agreement can be binding? For instance, if I buy
their DB, then publish benchmarks, at best they can deactivate my license or
something right? So if I am willing to forego the cost of the license, I can
do whatever benchmarking I want, publish it, and say goodbye to the DB?

~~~
user5994461
If you publish a benchmark, you risk a lawsuit. That will be time consuming
and expensive. It may result in fines and having to take off the benchmark
from the internet.

------
cpitman
This has often been abused by these companies to attack open source software
that allows benchmarking (because what kind of open source license would ban
that?). The company can perform a "benchmark" of their product and the open
source product. They'll then release the results as a whitepaper. Even if they
perform the benchmark correctly, they can always choose which results to
actually publish.

But since the proprietary software has a "no benchmarking" clause, open source
projects cannot respond to the whitepaper by performing their own
benchmarking. They would need the permission of the proprietary vendor!

For example, here is an IBM blog post comparing the performance of IBM MQ and
Apache ActiveMQ ([https://webspherecompetition.wordpress.com/2015/03/12/ibm-
mq...](https://webspherecompetition.wordpress.com/2015/03/12/ibm-mq-vs-apache-
activemq-performance-comparison-update/)). I've tried to find a copy of the
IBM MQ EULA to link, but cannot find one anywhere. But last time I reviewed it
(several years ago) I believe it also had a "no benchmark" clause.

~~~
yuhong
The blog post says in the end that IBM does allow benchmarks.

~~~
cpitman
I don't see that. It has tools for running the benchmarks yourself, but that
doesn't give you permission to publish benchmark results. And even if it did,
a blog post from an employee cannot give you permission to do something that
the EULA takes away.

~~~
theptip
From the OP:

> IBM is notable for actually allowing benchmarks: > Licensee may disclose the
> results of any benchmark test of the Program or its subcomponents to any
> third party provided that …

~~~
cpitman
Oh geez, thanks both for pointing that out.

------
boodewittclause
(edit: congress forbid review gag clauses last year)

I've pointed this:

[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/11/congress-
passes-...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/11/congress-passes-law-
protecting-right-to-post-negative-online-reviews/)

out to my employer's lawyers, who responded with "well, yes, but we'd still
get sued, by Oracle, so... no."

~~~
dwheeler
These evil clauses are called Dewitt Clauses, since the original purpose was
to attack DeWitt.

Unfortunately, the law that protects reviewers does not protect people who
publish benchmarks in software. These DeWitt clauses should be illegal in the
United States on First Amendment grounds, but the problem is that to get
software at all you have to agree to the license, and the licenses often have
these nasty things. I think these Clauses should be straight up illegal, but
very few people have enough money to pursue this in court.

~~~
anarazel
> Unfortunately, the law that protects reviewers does not protect people who
> publish benchmarks in software.

I'm not convinced that's generally true. The form contracts language [1]
clearly talks about individuals, but at least one of the DB vendor license
agreements allows for individuals.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15888236](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15888236)

If an individual were to decide to do such a benchmark, I don't immediately
see how the DeWitt clause would be still valid. Not many people are going to
risk that obviously.

> hese DeWitt clauses should be illegal in the United States on First
> Amendment ground

I agree that they shouldn't be allowed, I however fail to see how 1A applies.
You willingly enter into a contract with a private entity. That contract has
rules, and there are some consequences for breaking them.

I think the government has an important, and imo somewhat neglected, role in
providing rules around valid contracts, but that's not 1A.

------
trgv
Can Oracle/Microsoft actually enforce "no benchmark clauses," as in could they
take you to court and win?

~~~
pimmen
I suspect not, you should be covered by the first amendment. However, I don't
think most people have the money to find out. The ones that do seem keen on
following Ellison's example.

~~~
anon62343
The first amendment doesn't apply to contracts between private entities. The
government cannot forbid you to publish benchmarks. However, it can also not
prevent you from signing away your first amendment rights in most
circumstances.

------
marcoperaza
The one time such a clause was challenged in court it was struck down, but on
narrower grounds related to the specifics of the particular case. The actual
issue of whether such a clause is enforceable was not answered by the court.
[https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28511/has-
the-d...](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28511/has-the-dewitt-
clause-which-prevents-researchers-for-publishing-db-benchmarks-e)

------
jstewartmobile
Standard "enterprise software" company operating procedure. I think VMware is
equally jealous of their benchmarks.

It could be worse though. Cisco pressed _criminal_ charges against this guy[0]
for wanting to 3rd-party-service their equipment.

Happy 2017, peasants!

[0-0]
[http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Cisco+deceived+Canadian+cou...](http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Cisco+deceived+Canadian+courts+audacious+ploy+jail+executive+judge+finds/4884794/story.html)

[0-1] [https://www.computerworld.com/article/2507735/cybercrime-
hac...](https://www.computerworld.com/article/2507735/cybercrime-
hacking/former-engineer-who-sued-cisco-now-faces-criminal-charges.html)

------
thisisit
For a time I really idolised Larry Ellison. Then I saw a documentary on Oracle
early years and someone said - "There was no Oralce v1, as Ellison, "knew no
one would want to buy version 1". This sounded both stupid and an urban
legend. Till I checked the Wikipedia entry:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_Database#Releases_and...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_Database#Releases_and_versions)

It not only changed my perspective of the man but also the company. One can
know a lot about a company's practices from the way it was founded. Now there
is nothing about Oracle which surprises me any more.

~~~
smitherfield
_> There was no Oralce v1, as Ellison, "knew no one would want to buy version
1"_

Of the "bad Larry Ellison" anecdotes ITT, most of which do paint him in a very
bad light, this one doesn't offend me at all; more like smart marketing advice
you can use.

~~~
gkya
That's a very bad marketing advice. In case someone finds out what you've
done, it's a red cross mark on your brand.

~~~
smitherfield
It's no different from pricing your product at $9.99/month instead of
$10/month, or $9.99/month instead of $119.88/year. Or more pertinent,
marketing Java 1.8 as Java 8, selling products with random alphanumeric names
like "A-Series 7340X", retroactively renumbering previous software versions,
or going straight from Windows 8 to Windows 10.

Software version schemes are often started at 0, or other times 1, so why not
any other integer? I don't expect software version numbers to mean anything
except that higher is (probably) chronologically later. That said I would
probably still start numbering internal/beta versions at 1 or 0 and use 2 for
the first release.

It's not even in the same league of dishonesty as ubiquitous practices by
blue-chip tech companies such as using trial pricing in advertisements,
selling "new versions" of software with only trivial changes, selling
"extended warranties" on hardware that don't cover the most common causes of
breakage, or claiming customers have access to "expertise" developing
intelligent zero-downtime SaaS solutions on the blockchain with the deep
learning algorithms powering our global AR/VR-enabled IoT cloud.

------
jedberg
I'm more interested in which cloud provider doesn't allow benchmarks.

~~~
username223
Given his employment history, I'm guessing MS:
[https://twitter.com/danluu](https://twitter.com/danluu)

~~~
sulam
Not sure that's true, given easy-to-find examples of Azure benchmarks (and it
doesn't even do well in this one):

[http://www.acmebenchmarking.com/2015/11/benchmarking-
cloud-p...](http://www.acmebenchmarking.com/2015/11/benchmarking-cloud-
provider-performance.html)

------
rasz
Eulas are toiled paper in EU, so just benchmark here. You can even buy the
software second hand and avoid touching EULA completely. Oracle learned this
the hard way, losing the lawsuit.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UsedSoft#ECJ_ruling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UsedSoft#ECJ_ruling)

------
drawkbox
Larry Ellison long ago was an engineer, he turned to the dark side a long time
ago in a galaxy far, far away.

There are reasons for companies not wanting benchmarks public i.e. unequal or
fixed results. But ultimately one can no longer be an engineer if you are
excluding metrics from software for business/legal reasons.

I have had to run many systems on Oracle and the developer is not their
customer, it is a painful experience in Oracle enterprise. The extent of it is
they have Ask Tom fill in the gaps. Luckily most of the Oracle work was moving
systems from massive Oracle setups to swifter (and hundreds of thousands of
dollars cheaper) architecture on MSSQL, PostgreSQL and MySQL (until Oracle
bought them) now MariaDB.

I like platforms that put the developer and their workflow as a top priority,
not how many rounds of golf you play with the C level execs. Oracle would be
the latter type of "enterprise" company.

------
batbomb
Alright, this isn’t news. It’s pretty well known you can benchmark Oracle,
it’s just always referred to as Database X in the literature (Sometimes MSSQL
gets this treatment too)

~~~
viraptor
Got any examples? Googling for benchmark enterprise database X doesn't give
anything useful.

~~~
batbomb
[http://db.cs.yale.edu/hadoopdb/hadoopdb.pdf](http://db.cs.yale.edu/hadoopdb/hadoopdb.pdf)

Sorry, it’s actually “DBMS-X”

------
tomjen3
Why would you have that clause? If you believe in your product you _want_ me
to benchmark it, and if you don't believe in your own product, why should I?

~~~
stonemetal
They don't want MS to pay an "independent" 3rd party to poorly configure their
database then publish benchmarks that show them in a negative light. Therefor
if you want to publish benchmarks you have to (pay to) keep Oracle in the loop
so that they make sure you don't screw it up.

You see this all the time with Mysql and Postgresql benchmarks. Typically when
I see the two compared it is by someone with a decade of experience with one
of the systems, and none with the other one. They use a workload that is
optimized for their usual system. They also don't have a clue how to create a
high performance version for the competitor, nor do they know how to configure
it.

~~~
user5994461
Most of the benchmarks are done by competing companies with competing
products, not by a random engineer. They make sure the benchmark put their own
products in a good light.

It's also true that the testers usually don't configure all the products
equivalently. It's usually not (only) incompetence, they are pushing an agenda
for their product or consulting services.

------
michaelbuckbee
Buried quite a ways down in the article is an interesting concept of using
semi anonymous markets to distribute and pay for benchmarking.

------
harry8
Why don't the competing proprietary databases go right at Oracle in their ads
to business class at airports.

"Oracle won't let you read or publish benchmarks, maybe too many of their
customers would get fired if they did...?" Or variants on the "why do they
need to hide?"

Haven't seen a case where going with postgres up front on pure prejudice has
backfired. Maybe there are times, it would be interesting to know what and
when.

------
dsacco
Does anyone here have direct experience with being sued for releasing a
benchmark online? I’m interested in seeing how common (and enforceable) it
really is.

~~~
tlogan
As far as I know, it is very easily enforceable and quite common for
enterprise software.

In certain countries that is even illegal to publish "benchmarks" like this
one. I remember that there was a law like that in Germany - not sure whether
it has changed with EU.

~~~
kstrauser
> In certain countries that is even illegal to publish "benchmarks" like this
> one.

My understanding is that in some places it's illegal for companies to publish
benchmarks "proving" that their software is better than their competitors',
the idea being that you're unlikely to show a fair comparison. I've not heard
of it being illegal for a third party to post such a thing, though. Do you
have a link? (I'm genuinely curious.)

------
mnemotronic
We don't do benchmarks. Our network security team verifies VPN transaction
performance and ensures packet security using general purpose scripts that,
strangely, look like they're doing basic db operations on different servers
and systems. The unfortunate side effect are numbers related to network
latency and, I suppose, system performance. But of course we don't care about
that.

------
aloknnikhil
Meanwhile, Aurora on AWS has an explicit performance assessment guide

[https://d0.awsstatic.com/product-
marketing/Aurora/RDS_Aurora...](https://d0.awsstatic.com/product-
marketing/Aurora/RDS_Aurora_Performance_Assessment_Benchmarking_v1-2.pdf)

With Oracle going all in on cloud, this mindset of Larry surely doesn't bode
well?

------
askvictor
Wouldn't it be relatively trivial to create a set of data and code, plus a
deployment script to spin up some DBs on a cloud service and compare the
results? If you're doing it in house without publishing the results so that
you can determine the best db for your needs, would it run foul of the TOC?
Would the vendors even know you're doing it?

------
madengr
I guess I have never read the EULA, as I have benchmarked the speed vs
accuracy of EM simulators and published the results online.

------
atesti
So how good does Oracle perform im comparison to mssql and postgres? For
example with just INSERTs and SELECTs?

------
znpy
I hadn't a chance to read Oracle's or SQL Server's license, but one thing is
not clear to me: is the used forbidden from _performing_ benchmarks or from
_publishing_ them?

------
nicodjimenez
Maybe it's time to start shorting Oracle stock. In the age of AWS and Azure, I
don't see their 10 year prospects as being very good.

~~~
scarmig
Oracle Cloud!

It's not in the Azure/GCP tier, but they're investing a ton in it (seven
figure offers) to pull in engineering talent from AWS/Azure/GCP. And Oracle
does have some definite ... "structural" advantages.

------
jondubois
Everyone knows that Oracle products are poor quality. They were never about
the product... Always about sales and litigation.

Oracle has firmly established its reputation and I'm confident that someday
they'll pay for it.

~~~
JetSpiegel
> someday they'll pay for it

I'm not holding my breath though. Maybe my grandchildren will live to see
Oracle bought as a Kickstarter project started by Postgres devs.

------
thecompilr
Are there really no anonymous benchmarks in the wild?

~~~
ghaff
Probably, but non-trivial comparative benchmarks of many types of commercial
software, performed using well thought out methodologies, are neither easy nor
cheap to run.

Furthermore, an anonymous benchmark (like many other anonymous product
comparisons) is going to make many people suspect that it's a fraudulent
result. Imagine there's an anonymous benchmark that isn't simple to replicate
because of software and/or hardware costs that shows some proprietary software
whipping an open source project on some dimensions or other. How many people
here are going to immediately jump to the conclusion that it's the proprietary
vendor planting false information?

~~~
user5994461
Anonymous benchmarks are usually affiliated to at least one of the products
being benchmarked. It's usually not hard to figure out which one.

Either way I wouldn't expect a real world benchmark to be reproducible, it's
too hard to reproduce and takes too much resources.

------
metaphor
This should be marked (2014).

------
masklinn
And remember,

> Do not fall into the trap of anthropomorphising 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. — Brian Cantrill
> ([https://youtu.be/-zRN7XLCRhc?t=33m1s](https://youtu.be/-zRN7XLCRhc?t=33m1s))

And

> I actually think that it does a dis-service to _not_ go to Nazi allegory
> because if I don't use Nazi allegory when referring to Oracle there's some
> critical understanding that I have left on the table […] in fact as I have
> said before I emphatically believe that if you _have_ to explain the Nazis
> to someone who had never heard of World War 2 but was an Oracle customer
> there's a very good chance that you would explain the Nazis in Oracle
> allegory. — also Brian Cantrill
> ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79fvDDPaIoY&t=24m](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79fvDDPaIoY&t=24m))

~~~
userbinator
The other memorable quote I've heard is "Oracle is an acronym for One Rich
Asshole Called Larry Ellison".

~~~
DonbunEf7
"Oregon Ripped-off, America's Cup, Larry Ellison."

~~~
lostlogin
It probably worked better when Oracle was the race winner.

------
titanix2
How can database vendors make benchmarking illegal? Saying "we don’t allow
benchmarking" in their EULA don’t make it illegal if the clause is abusive.
Maybe it can work in some juridictions but I don’t think it is enforceable
worldwide.

~~~
markbnj
I'm not a lawyer so I don't really have any clue :). But I suspect the defense
would be that it's an agreement between two parties: you want to use their
shit you agree to use it by their terms. The debate around these things has
always been more or less centered on what it meant to agree, i.e. did I agree
when I opened the shrinkwrap on a box? But with Oracle licenses there is not
much doubt about what it means to agree, there being reams of paper evidence
that you agreed, and large checks written to make that agreement concrete.

~~~
Asooka
I suppose you could also go at it from the angle that it's an anti-competitive
practice and no license should be able to restrict you from publishing
truthful benchmarks.

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drb91
You could knowingly publish incorrect, fictional, or fabricated results. When
they sue, you won’t have violated any license. But at least oracle will look
terrible.

~~~
vijayr
This sounds like a terrible idea. Maybe if one is a 15 year old kid, sure, for
shits and giggles. Why would a researcher do this, damaging their reputation
in the process? And what good does it serve anyone?

~~~
drb91
Mostly because it’s a better world than one where Oracle can control the image
of their shitty db.

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tlogan
I was under impression that "no benchmark clauses" is many ToS and license
terms. Are there any enterprise software which allows that?

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jpalomaki
Could it be that these provisions are there mainly to prevent other companies
from publishing misleading benchmarks? Instead of fighting in the court if the
benchmarks are done properly and give correct picture, maybe it is just easier
to outright ban them.

