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Comment by prepend | Hacker News Reader

I get an email about once a year claiming I use mongodb and am not paying license fees. It’s really weird because they’ll say stuff like a system I designed is based on mongodb and they have “evidence” from project staff. It’s such a strange claim and I guess they don’t know I made the system.

It’s also strange because they keep demanding license fees and asking to audit and I just deny and tell them to buzz off.

They remind me of Oracle. It also makes me wonder if there’s some legal compulsion that could force them to do discovery. Based on their behavior I would not use mongodb.

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I wonder if it's a use case to sue them. Such things can be disruptive to business and is no different from someone calling a bomb hoax.

It’s the same playbook. They hire ultra aggressive folks to sell because it’s hard to rip out.

Oracle eventually faded in relevance similar to IBM. So will Mongo. It will be around as a relic living by auditing the installed base.

Oracle's doom is a tricky one to predict, they have been around for a long time. Can they survive Larry Ellison's retirement? Who can tell?

But IBM? You are having a laugh. IBM was there at the start of the computer industry and they have survived every single generation of change since, getting stronger each time.

Saying IBM has faded in relevance is absolutely farcical.

IBM’s stock price is roughly flat over the past 5 years. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/IBM/

The S and P is up 50%. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EGSPC/

Go back 10 years and IBM is down roughly a third while the S and P has almost tripled. This is while IBM has been doing massive buybacks to raise the price.

Is that farcical?

What’s interesting is a Mongo employee looking at IBM as a role model. This confirms the “get in and then and then squeeze your customers” strategy.

Just be careful. As an employee, the endgame isn’t pretty when the company realizes that young auditors are cheaper than old salespeople and engineers.

I don't think I mentioned role model. We most definitely don't model ourselves on IBM. I was just pointing out their longevity which is impressive to me.

Do you have recent data on this auditing stuff you're referencing? MongoDB is growing much faster than Oracle, so maybe it won't fade...

If you want to ping me an email at Joe.Drumgoole@mongodb.com I can get that fixed pretty quickly.

Looks like an automated email.

It seems like it’s from a human. It’s from the same person and it is worded differently each time with oddly specific claims. They also email other people in my org asking to connect with me because they think I’m misusing licenses.

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