Would You Pay Extra?

I was thinking about buying a car the other day. I went into the dealer and looked at some convertibles because I’m getting old and I’ve never owned a convertible and I want my kids to have a fun car when they are old enough to drive in the next ten years. Anyway, the dealer and I were talking about cost and everything seemed to go OK until I heard him mention something fairly casually. He told me that the price he was giving me for the car didn’t include me taking the car for service anywhere else. In fact, I was not allowed to look under the hood for any reason. If I did perform such actions I would be charged extra. So, if I was planning on taking the car somewhere to have the oil changed, or if I even just wanted to change the oil myself, then I needed to pay either up front or I would be billed later.

I thought that was the craziest thing I had heard and I walked away from that dealer thinking he had gone mad. After all, who would buy something with such restrictions? Why would anyone make such a purchase? Who did this guy think he was, the cable company or some other type of utility that gets to set rates without any warning from one bill to the next?

I didn’t buy the car and came home to do some reading up on Oracle, since my job requires me to be able to support multiple database platforms now. I decided to dive into the Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM), the Tuning Pack, and something called the Diagnostics Pack. I was in the middle of reviewing the PDFs when something caught my eye:

Licensing
These features may be accessible through Oracle Enterprise Manager , Oracle SQL Developer and APIs provided with Oracle Database software. The use of these and other features described in the product licensing documentation requires licensing of the Oracle Diagnostic Pack regardless of the access mechanism.

OK, so the diagnostic pack requires me to pay more money on top of the Oracle licensing I have already paid? Larry Ellison didn’t get enough dollars the first time around, so now he gets to charge a few dollars more if I want to know what is going on under the hood?

Digging around to find some additional licensing information and I found this nugget:

Note:
The Tuning Pack for Oracle Database requires a Diagnostics Pack for Oracle Database license. Therefore, customers interested in using any of the Tuning Pack functionality must license both of these packs.
Any and all methods of accessing pack functionality — whether through the Enterprise Manager Console, Desktop Widgets, command-line APIs, or direct access to the underlying data — require the Pack license.

Wow. So if I bought a 3rd party tool that monitors my Oracle instances using a command-line API, I will get charged an extra licensing fee by Oracle, not to mention the money I spent on the monitoring tool itself? Unbelievable.

Can you imagine paying extra for the privilege to using SQL Trace? Neither can I. How about if you run a query against a DMV? How much extra would you pay then?

I have no idea at what point Oracle became as big and as strong as a utility company, but it is clearly the case. And some may argue that the tiered pricing is perfect for customers that install Oracle only to run some application and they rely on the application vendor for support anyway (if ever), but I’m not listening to that argument. I think that I am most concerned at this point for the fact that Microsoft is looking to get into the utility game by offering us the Azure platform. They already have the complicated billing process nailed down perfectly.

It just makes no sense. If I buy the car, I should be able to pop the hood from time to time and not be forced to pay extra.

Unless, of course, you have something to hide.

sqlrockstar Musings 9

http://www.bobpusateri.com Bob Pusateri

Excellent point – seems kinda shady to me. Then again, a lot of the finer points of software licensing can get suspicious…
Brian Kallion

How on earth would they enforce that? Put warranty-voiding tape on the side of the hood? That’s beyond bizarre.

Thomas LaRock

Brian,

Exactly, that’s why it makes no sense for any car dealer to think about doing such a thing. You buy it, you own it, go ahead and dig through it as much as you want.

Oracle, on the other hand, has a way to enforce this, and they do so. I simply cannot imagine being the project manager that decides to buy Oracle only to find out that I need to fork over additional money after the purchase simply because I queried a few system tables. It’s just as bizarre to me as trying to buy a car from a dealer that wants to enforce the same restriction.

Then again, I am used to having Microsoft help me do things for little to no cost, I suppose.

http://blog.sydoracle.com Gary

Worse is that the Pack *requires* Enterprise Edition, so if you dare to query those tables in a Standard Edition database, you are liable for the upgrade to Enterprise Edition plus the Pack license.

It was raised a few years back.
http://www.pythian.com/news/526/an-open-letter-to-larry-ellison-on-awr-and-ash-licensing/
cold_ronald in Cleveland

Would you buy a car that would potentially only run for 90 days ?
You do when you buy Microsoft products.

“Microsoft warrants that the Software will perform
substantially in accordance with the accompanying materials
for a period of ninety (90) days from the date of receipt”.

Would you buy a car that possibly could not perform like a car as expected? You do when you buy Microsoft products.

“Microsoft and its suppliers provide the Software and support
services (if any) AS IS AND WITH ALL FAULTS, and hereby disclaim all other warranties and
conditions, whether express, implied or statutory,
including, but not limited to, any (if any) implied
warranties, duties or conditions of merchantability, of
fitness for a particular purpose, …”.

Talk about shady.

Thomas LaRock

@cold_ronald i’m not sure i was knocking the quality of the product, just the fact that it costs more and then on top of that they throw additional costs your way. that doesn’t seem right to me. The warranty language you chopped out is fairly standard wording that can be found in Oracle products as well as just about any software product.

save your hate for me and put it towards Ellison, he’s the one stealing your money, not me.

http://sqlblog.com/blogs/jonathan_kehayias Jonathan Kehayias

@cold_ronald,

That warranty by Microsoft is no different than the 3 year 36,000 mile warranty that you get with a new car. Its funny how you pick and choose your statements and leave out the meat that provides the appropriate context. I could do the same thing with Oracles license agreement as well:

“Oracle Corporation and its affiliates disclaim any liability for any damages caused by use of
this software…”

Same thing as the Microsoft statement basically. What’s really interesting in the Oracle licensing is all the third-party and opensource addons that ship with their product that have licenses similar to:

“THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS “AS IS” AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR Third-Party Product Licensing for Oracle Database A-2 Oracle Database Licensing Information CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.”

Would you buy a car that cost as much as a Bentley that had more bolt on’s than a redneck’s pickup in the backwoods of lower Alabama? I sure as hell wouldn’t.
cold_ronald in Cleveland

I’m not picking on MS. I hate all s/w equally. You’ve heard the analogy – if your car “performed” like computer s/w you would be up in arms about it. The tolerance we have for “solutions” delivered by warm chunks of silicon I often find incredulous. Sorry, I’m off topic. And off to fix the next computer generated ERROR …

I do enjoy your blog and your sense of irreverance Thomas.

Thomas LaRock

thanks!