> In 1983 David DeWitt (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_DeWitt) published benchmarking results showing poor performance for Oracle databases. Larry Ellison wasn't happy with the results and it's said that he tried to have DeWitt fired.
> Given how difficult it is to fire professors when there's actual misconduct, the probability of Ellison sucessfully getting someone fired for doing legitimate research in their field was pretty much zero. It's also said that, after DeWitt's non-firing,
> Larry banned Oracle from hiring Wisconsin grads and Oracle added a term to their EULA forbidding the publication of benchmarks. Over the years, many major commercial database vendors added a license clause that made benchmarking their database illegal.
> Given how difficult it is to fire professors when there's actual misconduct, the probability of Ellison sucessfully getting someone fired for doing legitimate research in their field was pretty much zero. It's also said that, after DeWitt's non-firing,
> Larry banned Oracle from hiring Wisconsin grads and Oracle added a term to their EULA forbidding the publication of benchmarks. Over the years, many major commercial database vendors added a license clause that made benchmarking their database illegal.
See also: https://web.archive.org/web/20160719145221/http://sqlmag.com...