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How is Oracle predatory? PostgreSQL is great for web developers and small businesses but in terms of support, security, and enterprise features I think Oracle h

How is Oracle predatory? PostgreSQL is great for web developers and small businesses but in terms of support, security, and enterprise features I think Oracle has PostgreSQL beat. I have been an Oracle database developer for the last five years, they have a great database, not sure what all the hate on HN is about.

Ensorceled 7y ago
It's not about Oracle the db product, it's about Oracle the company. Why did you think everyone was saying the "Oracle database is predatory", that makes no sense.
- JacKTrocinskI 7y ago
  That is fair, when I enter an HN post I automatically think of HN as hosting technical discussions, not business, and that is why I decided to look at the technical side.
  - bdcravens 7y ago
    Looking at the front page now (and virtually any time), there's quite a few articles that are more of a business or a political bend than technical. A quick search of "Oracle" from the homepage search (only in the last year, since your account isn't much older than that), shows most articles are non-technical in nature. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=true&query=oracle&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=tru...
- czep 7y ago
  > Why did you think everyone was saying the "Oracle database is predatory", that makes no sense. A case could be made that the database itself is predatory, insofar as Oracle encourages use of non-standard functions that make migration to an alternative very difficult. 10 years ago (at Amazon in fact) was the last time I used Oracle and I've never felt any desire to use it again. I wasted far too much of my working life fixing queries that used the silly outer join operator (+) or debugging proprietary functions that already had a perfectly good ANSI alternative.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    Every database has non standard functions, syntax, and behaviors.
NikolaNovak 7y ago
I believe the "HN hate" is more on the accounting/contract side, rather than strict technology side. It's the canonical enterprise vendor on the database side (DB2 has far smaller market share, and SQL Server market play is slightly different), so it's the poster child for anything from no two customers paying the same price for same metrics, to opaqueness and perceived unfairness of the contracts, to seemingly predatory fees, to ambiguous and frequently awful licensing on virtual CPUs, to the various shakedowns and so on. I'm not saying others in the same market are markedly different; but just like IBM is the HN poster child for a "no longer relevant tech dinosaur", Oracle is the HN poster child for "predatory licensing & fees". (* Note/disclosure, I have the distinct privilege of being happily employed by one to reasonably happily work on the products of the other :-D )
privateSFacct 7y ago
They constantly sue their own customers - why in the world would you want to do business with someone who will then sue you?
rhinoceraptor 7y ago
We hate Oracle because they're a deeply unethical rent-seeking company.
- xchaotic 7y ago
  As opposed to which Silicon Valley company? Rent seeking is the holy grail of every SaaS company and even the large faangs and Uber and WeWork etc.
  - rhinoceraptor 7y ago
    Those other companies at least serve some other nominal, societally engaged goal, besides making money.
AtlasBarfed 7y ago
I'm sorry your comment has been blasted to oblivion. There really is that level of Oracle hate out there. There's no way my top level comment should be 100+ upvotes, it's a pretty vanilla opinion. But man people hate oracle... In reality, your experience as a dev might not be that bad from within the ecosystem. But take the hate for what it is: learn portable tooling, be aware of the proprietary bindings, and architect to be more database agnostic. It may save your job if the budget cuts are between ludicrous oracle licensing and auditing costs, or your salary.

Ensorceled 7y ago

It's not about Oracle the db product, it's about Oracle the company. Why did you think everyone was saying the "Oracle database is predatory", that makes no sense.

JacKTrocinskI 7y ago
That is fair, when I enter an HN post I automatically think of HN as hosting technical discussions, not business, and that is why I decided to look at the technical side.
- bdcravens 7y ago
  Looking at the front page now (and virtually any time), there's quite a few articles that are more of a business or a political bend than technical. A quick search of "Oracle" from the homepage search (only in the last year, since your account isn't much older than that), shows most articles are non-technical in nature. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=true&query=oracle&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=tru...
czep 7y ago
> Why did you think everyone was saying the "Oracle database is predatory", that makes no sense. A case could be made that the database itself is predatory, insofar as Oracle encourages use of non-standard functions that make migration to an alternative very difficult. 10 years ago (at Amazon in fact) was the last time I used Oracle and I've never felt any desire to use it again. I wasted far too much of my working life fixing queries that used the silly outer join operator (+) or debugging proprietary functions that already had a perfectly good ANSI alternative.
- scarface74 7y ago
  Every database has non standard functions, syntax, and behaviors.

NikolaNovak 7y ago

I believe the "HN hate" is more on the accounting/contract side, rather than strict technology side. It's the canonical enterprise vendor on the database side (DB2 has far smaller market share, and SQL Server market play is slightly different), so it's the poster child for anything from no two customers paying the same price for same metrics, to opaqueness and perceived unfairness of the contracts, to seemingly predatory fees, to ambiguous and frequently awful licensing on virtual CPUs, to the various shakedowns and so on. I'm not saying others in the same market are markedly different; but just like IBM is the HN poster child for a "no longer relevant tech dinosaur", Oracle is the HN poster child for "predatory licensing & fees". (* Note/disclosure, I have the distinct privilege of being happily employed by one to reasonably happily work on the products of the other :-D )

privateSFacct 7y ago

They constantly sue their own customers - why in the world would you want to do business with someone who will then sue you?

rhinoceraptor 7y ago

We hate Oracle because they're a deeply unethical rent-seeking company.

xchaotic 7y ago
As opposed to which Silicon Valley company? Rent seeking is the holy grail of every SaaS company and even the large faangs and Uber and WeWork etc.
- rhinoceraptor 7y ago
  Those other companies at least serve some other nominal, societally engaged goal, besides making money.

AtlasBarfed 7y ago

I'm sorry your comment has been blasted to oblivion. There really is that level of Oracle hate out there. There's no way my top level comment should be 100+ upvotes, it's a pretty vanilla opinion. But man people hate oracle... In reality, your experience as a dev might not be that bad from within the ecosystem. But take the hate for what it is: learn portable tooling, be aware of the proprietary bindings, and architect to be more database agnostic. It may save your job if the budget cuts are between ludicrous oracle licensing and auditing costs, or your salary.