I know the code "as presented" does not mention signals but the code it uses under the hood does. I think you'll find Oracle's instant client library changes the disposition of some signals and as Perl backticks uses system (which relies on SIGCHLD) it is relevant to the post and probably the answer.

In reply to Re^4: Strange behaviour with DBD::Oracle by mje
in thread Strange behaviour with DBD::Oracle by Fairchild

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