EU and the Oracle Sun merger

Image via Wikipedia

The US press seems to be baffled why the the European Commission would be more concerned about open source effect on the Oracle purchase of Sun than the US Justice Department. Well that is simple, Europe has more readily adopted the use of open source. And oh yes, were did MySQL get its start? Sweden.

Yesterday (Sept 21) The EU asked Oracle competitors in the 10-page questionnaire to what extent the company could “influence/control/steer the reaction and development of the MySQL community” as the owner of a proprietary version of the software.

Oracle is the world’s largest maker of database software. MySQL is the most popular open-source database, meaning its software is freely available as a download to customers.

The questionnaire is part of the commission’s in-depth review of the deal that began on Sept. 3. Oracle Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison said yesterday that Sun is losing about $100 million a month as the transaction is delayed by the EU probe. Mr Ellison said that Oracle and MySQL did not compete against each other, and said he would not sell off MySQL to get the deal approved.

Not compete? How many trade studies for which data base to use have I done? More than I can possibly remember. So they all went like this. Will the end costumer except open source, then are they an DB2 (IBM) or Oracle DB. ... And then why the opposition to sell?

And why else would the EC care? And readers of this article. Open source software development is relevant to investment research because it reduces the research and development expense of the publicly traded companies that make use of it. Companies in the EU are much more invested in such technologies, and would be hit harder if it disappears from the market.

And then there is java, Glassfish, Open ESB (open source equivalent to the recently acquired BEA) ..., but MySQL would be a bit more obvious competition to understand.