It's all about finding the right tool for the job. For most, this audience especially, open source relational databases are the way to go. For a lot of big business and government jobs, Oracle and Microsoft are the way to go and having your preferred ops environment makes a big difference. At my first job we had to maintain an Oracle DB connection to pull data directly from the City of Los Angeles. At the end of the day we were out of business without that so we didn't really debate the merits of using it. That job happened to be a Windows shop anyway (most of the company were CAD artists using Architecture software) so it didn't phase the IT ops team.

On the other hand, at my current job I've been in charge of some search tech that's Windows only and being the lone Windows user has been a bit painful. We liked the results it gave us but recently developed our own algorithms on top of ElasticSearch so we didn't have to deal with Windows anymore. The Dev work to switch was more than the cost saved on the license for the old software, so this wasn't a case of open source saving is money on the solution implementation. We really just didn't want to focus on Windows Dev ops. I think this is the concern the SQL Server team had and why they're supporting Linux, especially in Microsoft's increasingly Azure focused world.

Paying for a tool that does the job is one thing. But SQL Server's licensing scheme is so fucked up that I see companies building custom servers for the sole purpose of gaming it (extremely low core count and high clock rates). That shouldn't be the goal of software licensing

I don't think that's really gaming the license. If a fast two core system fits your needs then you only need the two core license. MS is happy to sell those to you all day long. If you have a serious load and SQL Server is key to your business you're likely to have better things to do than try to micromanage your server architecture to save a few dollars. If you're in a position where SQL Server, Oracle, or any other specialized commercial DB is a major cost and you're not seeing a positive ROI, messing with core counts v.s. clock speed is probably a poorer use of time than switching to Postgres or MySQL.

In this niche Oracle occupies the "ridiculously expensive" position.

And somehow simultaneously occupies the "I wouldn't use it if it was free" position.

I wonder if you believe people send Larry Ellison money because of his likeability.

No, it's because the people who pay for it aren't the people who have to use it.

Enterprise software shares this in common with Duplo. The purchaser is often more excited than the user.

I used oracle a lot a few years ago... When I was getting used to it I would compare it to a neighbor that is usually really helpful, but on occasion when you asked to borrow something would hit you with a bat first...

I'm all for paying for great software (whether it's open source or not) I prefer open source however. I love how fast development is moving on Postgres lately.

Good plan. Luckily MOST software, even advanced stuff, can run easily on free database engines. They really are CRUD for the most part.

My income depends on SS but it saddens me when I think of how much is spent on it by applications which could so easily run on something that is free.

Could have said the same thing about releasing on Linux as well :D