Bonum Certa Men Certa

Oracle Likely to Own MySQL Shortly, European Commission's Credibility at Stake

“As if you could kill a dolphin by swallowing the ocean…”

--Marten Mickos, CEO of MySQL



Larry Ellison eats dolphin



Summary: Oracle commits to swallowing but not devouring the dolphin, whereas the creator of MySQL database, who is now with Microsoft's CodePlex Foundation, lobbies with Microsoft against it

WE HAVE mostly abstained from saying whether MySQL should or should not be acquired by Oracle. Sun is at stake too, along with projects like Java and OpenOffice.org, so it's a tough situation. Either way, based on reports, there is at least a promise from Oracle, which means that pressure from the European Commission paid off in some way.



A pledge in Oracle's commitments to European regulators would continue to license MySQL, a key Web site software, for five years after Sun is acquired


An approval for Oracle is foreseen despite all the lobbying from Microsoft and SAP. Groklaw points out that Microsoft has just acquired the Toronto-based Opalis, which is a MySQL partner. Could this be strategic and intentional in some way? Who knows, but Groklaw found that important enough to mention.

“Monty could have changed the license prior to selling it to Sun, and he didn't, so it's a bit late now to worry about who owns it.”
      --Pamela Jones
Now that Michael Widenius is lobbying to block the acquisition, Groklaw's Pamela Jones also writes: "I'm a MySQL user on Groklaw, and I think he's serving up baloney, and definitely not anything to do with Open Source, since he's suggesting the license on MySQL be changed to one that allows him proprietary possibilities. Monty could have changed the license prior to selling it to Sun, and he didn't, so it's a bit late now to worry about who owns it. I doubt the EU Commission will care about emails like this, but there's no reason why people can't send emails if they so choose. If so, it's to comp-merger-registry@ec.europa.eu and mine, if I wrote one, would say, I see nothing wrong with Oracle buying MySQL.The GPL rights are irrevocable, so it doesn't matter who owns the copyrights."

Here are some opinions that Groklaw cites for support:

But the Oracle filing quotes several customers who said practically the opposite in response to the EU's market survey. Vodafone Group PLC said it "does not consider that Oracle's database offerings constitute direct substitutes to Sun's offerings." McAfee Inc. also said the two don't "constitute direct substitutes." As did General Electric Co., which added that while "both parties' offerings may on the face of it share some functionality, they are qualitatively different." Said Fujitsu Services Ltd.: "They operate in different markets."


Widenius has said that Oracle's promise is useless, but Jones disagrees when she writes: "If he claims the promises are empty, I'd not call that a success. If it is a success, then the promises must not be empty."

What do our readers think? Is the European Commission doing the right thing by obstructing Sun (and Oracle)? Is it defending MySQL from a hostile takeover? We lost a great deal of confidence in the European Commission when Steve Ballmer met Neelie Kroes and bamboozled her until she accepted software patents. The president of the FFII wrote a few hours ago: "Nellie Kroes in bed with Microsoft for protecting their soft patents, commercial software redefined, champagne in Redmond!"

This was indeed a disappointment which we wrote about yesterday and also covered in [1, 2, 3]. Initially, the Commission caved and obeyed Microsoft lobbyists, later inviting Microsoft again. With several Microsoft cronies inside the Commission, this might not be entirely shocking. As someone who maintains about 20 MySQL databases, I'd appreciate input from readers. Who's "right" and who's "wrong"?

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims or says can be trusted
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
 
Links 04/10/2025: "Privacy Harm Is Harm", Criticism Outlawed in US
Links for the day
Garmin Uses Linux for Some of the Garmin Products, Now It's Sued by Strava Using Software Patents
Software patents should never have been granted in the first place
Richard Stallman Will Give a Talk in Sweden in 6 Days
Dr. Stallman, despite his battle with cancer is still alive and mentally sharp
FSF Turns 40
We'll be focusing on patent-related topics this weekend
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 03, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 03, 2025
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Distro Hopping and "Part Time"
Links for the day
We Are Turning 19 in One Month, FSF Turns 40 in 3 Hours (CET)
For our anniversary next month we still have no concrete plans
Patent Docs (or PatentDocs) Learned the Wrong Lessons From the Death of TypePad
Had they gone ahead with an SSG, they'd become a lot more future-proof
USPTO Patent Bubble Already Imploding, After Decades of Artificial Inflation, Entire Offices Close for Good
we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
Social control media isn't "fun and games"; it's a digital weapon that lets hostile groups or nations infiltrate others, then turn them against themselves
Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
Links for the day
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day