zlacker

>>pavel_+(OP)
This has often been abused by these companies to attack open source software that allows benchmarking (because what kind of open source license would ban that?). The company can perform a "benchmark" of their product and the open source product. They'll then release the results as a whitepaper. Even if they perform the benchmark correctly, they can always choose which results to actually publish.

But since the proprietary software has a "no benchmarking" clause, open source projects cannot respond to the whitepaper by performing their own benchmarking. They would need the permission of the proprietary vendor!

For example, here is an IBM blog post comparing the performance of IBM MQ and Apache ActiveMQ (https://webspherecompetition.wordpress.com/2015/03/12/ibm-mq...). I've tried to find a copy of the IBM MQ EULA to link, but cannot find one anywhere. But last time I reviewed it (several years ago) I believe it also had a "no benchmark" clause.

>>cpitma+MB
The blog post says in the end that IBM does allow benchmarks.

>>yuhong+hJ
I don't see that. It has tools for running the benchmarks yourself, but that doesn't give you permission to publish benchmark results. And even if it did, a blog post from an employee cannot give you permission to do something that the EULA takes away.

>>cpitma+2R
From the OP:

> IBM is notable for actually allowing benchmarks: > Licensee may disclose the results of any benchmark test of the Program or its subcomponents to any third party provided that …

>>thepti+5Y
Oh geez, thanks both for pointing that out.