MySQL founder asks China, Russia to stop Oracle
According to Reuters, MySQL founder Michael "Monty" Widenius is now looking to China and Russia for help in his campaign objecting to the proposed acquisition of Sun Microsystems by Oracle. Previously, Widenius appealed to the European Commission (EC), which initially objected to the takeover, in order to prevent the deal from going through, however, Widenieus believes it now seems clear that the EC will approve the deal. He points to the petition on helpmysql.org, a campaign site set up by Widenius, which he says has over 30,000 "signatures" from MySQL users from around the world.
Widenius now hopes that the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service and the Chinese Ministry of Commerce will take a closer look at the deal and prevent it from going forward. "They are powerful, self-confident and open-source-friendly countries and they have every right and opportunity to do a better job on this than the EU," said Widenius. The Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service opened an investigation (Russian language link) into the acquisition last week.
In mid-December, Oracle made public commitments, which the company said were the result of "constructive discussions with the European Commission", to enhance MySQL under the GPL, rather than force third parties to GPL their storage engines and increase spending on MySQL development. The European Commission is expected to publish its final decision by the 27th of January, 2010.
See also:
- Oracle makes commitments on MySQL, a report from The H.
- Oracle customers and MySQL users speak out, a report from The H.
- Oracle accuses European Commission of partiality in assessment of Sun takeover, a report from The H.
(crve)