back to article Oracle fails to convince MySQL doubters

Oracle has failed to persuade the European Commission that it will provide a safe home for MySQL. The Commission is currently looking at Oracle's takeover of Sun, and has previously said it is especially worried about the fate of free database MySQL. A spokesman for Competition Commissioner 'Steelie' Neelie Kroes said the …

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  1. Gaius
    FAIL

    Thanks for that Monty

    I'm assuming you'll be giving back the $1Bn Sun paid you for the ownership of MySQL?

  2. Macka
    Pirate

    Keeping MySQL down

    Larry E has stated that he doesn't see a an issue because MySQL doesn't compete in the same space as Oracle's own products. The problem with that statement is that if Oracle own the copyright to MySQL and the bulk of the development team, then that will ALWAYS be the case. They will never allow MySQL to grow to a point where it cannibalises sales from their core products. So the EU does have something to worry about.

  3. Rob Moir
    Paris Hilton

    Wouldn't they just fork baby's first SQL server anyway?

    Why would stallman oppose this? I thought the whole point of open source software was that you could just fork if something like this happened. Don't tell me that's all a pipe dream.

    Paris, 'cos she's done a lot of forking.

  4. Michael 36
    Headmaster

    Huh?

    How can the EU prevent a US company buying another US company?

  5. Nuno

    RE: Huh?

    They can't really prevent the deal, but they can prevent the resulting company from operating in the EU...

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Larry let the Katz out of the bag

    Larry has said

    - he wants this speed up to save jobs, but he plans to layoff 13K Sun employees as soon as this goes thru

    - MySQL does not plan in the space Oracle sells and he is spending $5B to make sure it does not get to in the future

    - JAVA - Larry wants a dollar for every cell phone with JAVA and will force pulling licenses

    - SAP - Larry now owns something SAP cannot remove from their products

    - SPARC - Larry has not mentioned anything about Fujitsu because he will own Solaris and can force them to do anything as they cannot sell a single SPARC64 without Solaris licenses

    - They have already taken over Sun, the "arms length" went away once the US approved it as they dont care about the EU

    Lounge Lizard Larry

  7. Richard 102
    Pint

    @Michael 36

    "How can the EU prevent a US company from buying a US company?"

    Oh, we're just a colony of Europe, really, when you get down to it, you know that. Besides, they have Oxford and Cambridge and the Sorbonne and beer with twigs in it and make love with their sox on so they MUST be superior.

    Lord, no wonder my ancestors came to this continent.

  8. Paul Uszak

    It's not as bad as it could be...

    One saving grace is that the source code is 'out there'. If Larry does lock down development, all the code showing how to do database things is available, and a forked public project becomes possible.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    EU & @Macka: Keeping MySQL down - never allow MySQL to grow

    --- 'Steelie' Neelie Kroes said the Commissioner had: "expressed disappointment that Oracle had failed to produce, despite repeated requests, either hard evidence that there were no competition problems or, alternatively, proposals for a remedy to the competition problems identified by the Commission"

    If MySQL is really open source, they can produce whatever features they want, and the product can fork.

    I have never seen an enterprise product (BMC Remedy, HP OpenView, SAP, etc.) which uses MySQL or Oracle as it's underlying database.

    Honestly, if the EU Commission was worth their weight in salt (i.e. they really regulated the industry) - they would not have to be asking questions they should already know the anwsers to.

    Postres is a bigger problem for Oracle than MySql since Postgres can actually compete in Oracle's existing customer base.

    FAIL for EU Commission stupidity.

  10. gjw
    Jobs Horns

    Can somebody explain to me...

    why this apparently is a problem in the EU but no problem at all in the US?

    Evil Steve because well...

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Terminator

    Not so much "steelie"

    it's Dutch. So maybe "Failie Neelie?" "Wailie Neelie"?

  12. Victor 2
    Thumb Down

    biased

    Why is it that TheRegister people are biased towards those opposing Oracle?

    Why don't you comment on articles that are pro Oracle's acquisition? You know, like Carlo Piana's blog entry http://www.piana.eu/it/sun_ how has REAL grounds behind his position?

    Would be interesting if the reports were less biased, and more objective.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Only biased because "Oracle has customer's over a barrel"

    http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_38/b4147052120632.htm

    I want Larry putting me over a barrel and going "Deliverance" on my ass

  14. Paul Uszak

    @Anonymous Coward Posted Thursday 22nd October 2009 16:39 GMT

    "I have never seen an enterprise product (BMC Remedy, HP OpenView, SAP, etc.) which uses MySQL or Oracle as it's underlying database"

    Hmm, posted anonymously perhaps as you're from the flat text file school of databases? Some more experience (or reading) might help with this world view. I believe that there are one or two enterprise systems that run on Oracle. Also not sure if youtube, wikipedia and the weather channel count as enterprises but I think they run on MySQL.

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