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Comment by anoncoward111 | Hacker News Reader

As a former Oracle employee, it's easy to see Oracle's shitty business model--

"Extort everyone for obscene license fees because we currently can, and force them to buy cloud credits they'll never use because Amazon."

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I hate tech companies that turn into law firms. Many companies (Oracle, Qualcomm, etc.) have chosen this path and I avoid all of them like the plague if I can. I'm hoping we as a society can ensure this is a ruinous path for said companies, but it seems like my two aforementioned examples are still going strong in terms of their market stranglehold/extortion/rent-seeking practices.

Oracle consultant here.

There's nothing more disheartening then digging into an issue on a new site and realizing someone checked (or didn't uncheck) a box during install years ago and the system is not complying with its licensing.

The licence fees for small features you might not even know your using can be pretty brutal.

Reminds of those "free" software install dialogs that did everything they could to trick you into installing extra spam-ware using double negatives: "Do you not want to skip installing the Great Deals browser tool-bar?"

Microsoft got into similar hot water tricking people into installing Windows 10 via confusing dialog boxes.

I won't not never uncheck a box that isn't unlike that one.

I think what you were meaning to say is that you won't never not uncheck said boxes.

Why not have licenses as code / configuration? this would probably be safer for all parties. Unless, of course, companies like Oracle want the user make these tiny but espensive mistakes?

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