I think that there is a difference between saying "That's how software works" and "it's prevalent in my experience". If your only example is Oracle, and that's where you worked, then your experience is probably strongly biased. Oracle is not really a good representative of the population, anyway.

Me, I'd like to believe that free competition tends to drive out such nuttiness--and that's been my experience--but I'm always looking for examples to the contrary.