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A comment on We only hire the best means we only hire the trendiest (2016). Parent comment

Re:We only hire the best means we only hire the trendiest (2... by wenc on Tuesday October 31, 2017 @12:25PM (#15594420)
Forgive my sloppy phrasing, I should be clear: Oracle's license terms prohibit public disclosure of any benchmarks without their consent.

So technically you can benchmark in-house, but you can't publish those results without written permission.

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Re:We only hire the best means we only hire the trendiest (2... by DarronWyke on Tuesday October 31, 2017 @04:51PM (#15596427)
That's a lot worse. It's not just prohibition, it's a way to filter out anything negative through license enforcement.
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Re:We only hire the best means we only hire the trendiest (2... by wenc on Wednesday November 01, 2017 @01:56PM (#15603772)
Yes. SQL Server and others used to have the same terms but was later removed.

The original intent was to prevent non-neutral third-party benchmarking by biased agents that sought to discredit their products through contrived setups (which admittedly can be a problem for any product), but to enforce it through licensing seems a bit heavy handed. Oracle does allow benchmarks that are favorable to them (see TPC-C benchmarks).

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