EU about to say 'yes' to Oracle?

David Heath
Friday, 18 December 2009 05:19

IT Policy - Regulation

According to reports, the MySQL public statement by Oracle has swayed the EU to approve the merger. Monty Widenius, creator of MySQL doesn't like the deal.

A day or so ago, the NY Post reported that the open letter from Oracle was just the tipping point needed to sway the Commissioners to approve the Oracle-Sun merger.

The letter outlined what Oracle claimed were self-binding promises that guaranteed the future of MySQL as an open source solution.

MySQL creator Monty Widenius is far less sure of the deal.

In a recent blog entry, Widenius offers a step-by-step analysis of the Oracle offer.  Now, I'm not about to detail all of his points; readers are welcome to follow the link and read for themselves; however a few points are salient.  First of all is the 5 year limit on the deal.  After December 10th 2014, all bets are off.  Oracle has reserved for itself total control of MySQL.

Next, we should realise that this is simply a public statement.  It was NOT presented to the EU as a binding agreement of any kind.

Widenius concludes with this (somewhat angry) statement: "From this I conclude that Oracle CANNOT be trusted as an owner of MySQL and we have to continue our battle against the MySQL part of the merger to ensure that MySQL will continue to be free and available for all, forever, on a reliable basis and with real innovation happening!"

Widenius is exhorting friends of MySQL to continue to petition the EU to stop the merger – this deal is not in the interests of MySQL, its users or its developer community.