The blog post doesn't make me think of license-agreements-as-a-weapon. Oracle's position is probably the strictest I've seen anyone be in favor of software IP

The blog post doesn't make me think of license-agreements-as-a-weapon. Oracle's position is probably the strictest I've seen anyone be in favor of software IP protection. They are not adversarial, they are supremely protectionist (presumably because they think their software is so great that other people want to copy it). That protection (possibly over-protection) is the core of the disagreement, and the source of the article's tone and inherent frustration on both sides. Oracle thinks it is self-evident that protection of their source code is paramount (i.e. as closed source as possible), other people disagree both with their priorities and the very idea of absolutely forbidding any deep analysis of any kind outside of Oracle itself. It still seems like a debate about the degree to which the source code is "closed." For Oracle, it is absolutely closed, while many of their competitors are more lenient (i.e. slightly less "closed".) To be clear, I think Oracle is being silly with their over-sanitized and idealistic views regarding their intellectual property. The other companies you mentioned (Microsoft et al) have much more reasonable approaches and agreements.