Oracle sponsors our university to teach their flavour of SQL (Oracle SQL, not MySQL) with their management software rather than any of the competitors, free or otherwise. One of the DBA teachers once told me that there are enough differences between Oracle and other flavours that the knowledge isn't immediately transferrable, so when students graduate, all they know is Oracle, and they perpetuate the cycle.

This is obviously an unfair anti-competitive practice, but crimes are only illegal if someone enforces the law.

[–] trxxruraxvr@lemmy.world 42 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Microsoft has similar practices, and I would be very surprised if other business software companies like IBM or SAP don't do the same wherever possible.

[–] phailhaus@piefed.social 12 points 21 hours ago

That strategy is very common. Canva gives students free access and focuses on being student-friendly so that they won't bother to use any of the tools used in the real world. Now, those students tell their managers about how much easier it is (it just has less options and looks shinier) and how they can't understand anything else and companies start paying for licenses.