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Since the European Commission announced it was opening an in-depth investigation into the proposed takeover of Sun Microsystems by Oracle with a focus on MySQL there has been no shortage of opinion written about Oracle’s impending ownership of MySQL and its impact on MySQL users and commercial partners, as well as MySQL’s business model, dual licensing and the GPL.

In order to try and bring some order to the conversation, we have brought together some of the most referenced blog posts and news stories in chronological order.

Part one took us from the announcement of the EC’s in-depth investigation up to the eve of the communication of the EC’s Statement of Objections.

Part two took us from there to the eve of the announcement of Oracle’s concessions.

We will continue to update part three, below, until either the acquisition or the EC’s investigation closes.

December 14: Oracle - Oracle Makes Commitments to Customers, Developers and Users of MySQL
“Oracle has engaged in constructive discussions with the European Commission regarding the concerns expressed by the Commission about the Oracle/Sun Microsystems transaction, and in particular the maintenance of MySQL as a competitive force in the database market. In order further to reassure the Commission, Oracle hereby publicly commits to the following…”

December 14: Commission welcomes Oracle’s MySQL announcement
“Today’s announcement by Oracle of a series of undertakings to customers, developers and users of MySQL is an important new element to be taken into account in the ongoing proceedings. In particular, Oracle’s binding contractual undertakings to storage engine vendors regarding copyright non-assertion and the extension over a period of up to 5 years of the terms and conditions of existing commercial licenses are significant new facts. In this context, Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes recalls and confirms her statement of 9 December 2009 that she is optimistic that the case will have a satisfactory outcome.”

December 14: Jeremy Zawodny - Trust Oracle? Why?
“Back a few years ago when Oracle dismissing MySQL in public while working hard against it in private, I realized that they were simply trying everything they could to protect their crowned jewels: public denials and classic FUD paired with hush-hugh backroom deals. Nobody has managed to explain, in even a mildly convincing way, what has changed since then. Why should we suddenly trust Oracle? Their crowned jewels are still threatened by MySQL.”

December 14: BusinessWeek - How Oracle Disarmed EU Critics
“The most influential provision in assuaging regulators’ concerns about the proposed acquisition may be one of the least noticed. Amid Oracle’s commitments was a pledge to let other technology vendors continue licensing MySQL for use in their products for another five years.”

December 15: Henrik Ingo - We scared Oracle a little, but their promises for MySQL are mostly an insult to the Commission
“5 years, or any amount of years, as a limit to such assurances is not satisfactory and customers and partners would immediately loose interest in MySQL with this promise. The only workable solution has to be perpetual and irrevocable promises.”

December 15: Stephen O’Grady - Oracle, MySQL and the EU: The Endgame Q&A
“Remember June of 2008? Oracle hiked its prices by 15-20% with no detectible impact to its volume. If MySQL was a real, substantial alternative, wouldn’t we have seen wholesale migrations away from Oracle to MySQL? That we didn’t, and continue not to, tells me they’re two different markets.”

December 16: Sheeri Cabral - A MySQL Community Member Opinion of Oracle Buying Sun
“The FUD about Oracle slowing development MySQL are not valid, and not true. The motivations behind those spreading this FUD are monetary and selfish. As a community member, I have seen Oracle put plenty of time, money and effort into developing InnoDB. I look forward to even more of Oracle’s resources being used to develop MySQL further.”

December 16: Monty Widenius - Oracle gives only empty promises for MySQL
“Oracle is trying to win the case through press releases and public pressure instead of really eliminating the European Commission’s concerns. They show no respect for the European authorities or how we do things here. Oracle just want to dictate their own terms and expect us to accept them on face value.”

December 17: AP - Oracle expects EU to approve Sun deal next month
“Oracle’s president, Safra Catz, said in a statement Thursday that the company now expects that European regulators will “unconditionally” approve the Sun acquisition in January.”

December 28: Monty Widenius - Help keep the Internet free
Monty Widenius launches his petition to help save MySQL by claiming (amongst other things) that “It’s not in the Internet users interest that one key piece of the net would be owned by an entity that has more to gain by severely limiting and in the long run even killing it as an open source product than by keeping it alive.”

December 29: Mark Callaghan - Save MySQL, save the world
“MPAB continues to drive away potential supporters with the tone of their messages, the inclusion of pointless assertions, and the complete lack of references.”

December 29: Sheeri Cabral - Save MySQL by letting Oracle keep it GPL
“I cannot say whether or not Oracle would kill MySQL. However, I have already stated I believe Oracle will not kill MySQL. This is based on the fact that Oracle has had the chance to kill MySQL for several years, by making InnoDB proprietary, and has not.”

January 3: David Nielsen - Why “helping MySQL” reflects poorly on us all
“This has nothing to do with the software’s freedom status and given the FSF’s behavior as well as argumentation throughout recent years, the entirety of the inherent freedoms remain intact even when forking the existing codebase, meaning that this is entirely about the right to make money from proprietary use cases of the code.”

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The latest in the whole Save MySQL campaign: HelpMySQL.org. Monty has a really long blog post on how to help keep the Internet free. When you read that, scroll down towards “Q: How do the proposed remedies benefit your company, Monty Program Ab?” Understand that Monty is doing this for the love of the codebase and the project that is MySQL…

Totally love the copywriting here: Customers pay the bill: Oracle can have Sun but not MySQL. There’s been a lot of FUD in the last few months, but I suggest you read the issues (with an open mind), check out the FAQ, and if you’d like, sign the petition.

For me? Never again, will I recommend software for commercial use that doesn’t have a lively developer community. Sun reductions hitting open source efforts proves why – commercial (only/mostly) backed open source, just seems troublesome, when companies get merged/sold/et al.

OK, back to your regular scheduled programming. I shall enjoy my visit to a rather cold and wet London. Happy New Year!

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MYSQL FOUNDER OUTLINES SOLUTION:
INSTEAD OF LETTING SUN SUFFER,
ORACLE SHOULD SELL MYSQL
(ORCL, JAVA)

Michael 'Monty' Widenius says European Commission is "absolutely right to be concerned" about proposed merger between Oracle Corporation [ORCL] and Sun Microsystems [JAVA], nominates award-winning EU strategist to support the proceeding

Tuusula, Finland, 19 October 2009 -- Michael 'Monty' Widenius, the creator of open source database MySQL and founder of the namesake company later acquired by Sun, today suggested Oracle should resolve antitrust concerns over its US$7.4 billion acquisition of Sun by committing to sell MySQL to a suitable third party. The proposed takeover has not yet been consummated because it is being investigated in depth by the European Commission as well as competition authorities in several other jurisdictions.

Widenius, who posted this press release to his blog, believes the EU's antitrust regulator is "absolutely right to be concerned" and called on Oracle "to be constructive and commit to sell MySQL to a suitable third party, enabling an instant solution instead of letting Sun suffer much longer."

The Finnish software developer and entrepreneur wishes Sun "all the best, but MySQL needs a different home than Oracle, a home where there will be no conflicts of interest concerning how, or if, MySQL should be developed further."

MySQL was the only Sun business unit to be mentioned in the EC's early September announcement of its in-depth investigation into the proposed takeover.

Acquirers commonly resolve regulatory concerns (before, during or after an investigation) by committing to divest problematic assets to a third party. By contrast, Oracle and Sun officials have thus far insisted they continue to seek approval of the entire transaction, irrespectively of Sun currently losing, according to Oracle, $100 million a month.

In order to support the regulators' work on the case, Widenius' new company, Monty Program Ab, works closely with Florian Mueller, a MySQL and EU affairs expert. Widenius said: "Florian gave MySQL strategic advice from 2001 on and was a shareholder until the sale to Sun in 2008, and with our support led an award-winning campaign against a proposed EU law on software patents. In August he helped us to demonstrate to the EC the need to investigate this merger and he is now on board again to meet the information needs of regulators, journalists and analysts."

According to Mueller, "every day that passes without Oracle excluding MySQL from the deal is further evidence that Oracle just wants to get rid of its open source challenger and that the EU's investigation is needed to safeguard innovation and customer choice. This is highly critical because the entire knowledge-based economy is built on databases."

Mueller demands more respect for the EC: "It's inappropriately arrogant for some interested parties to suggest that the EC has yet to understand the case. The EC is really doing a great job under huge time pressure."

In what he calls "a solution-oriented information effort that is now necessary after other parties made public statements on the case in recent weeks", Mueller announced that he will be available to journalists and analysts in Brussels (Wednesday, 21 October), London (Thursday, 22 October) and Silicon Valley (Monday, 26 October) to discuss the case.

In August, Mueller authored a position paper that Monty Program provided to the EC along with several other submissions. The latest version of the document was published today on the Internet.

About Michael 'Monty' Widenius and Monty Program Ab

Michael 'Monty' Widenius is the creator of MySQL, the world's most popular open source database. In 2001, he founded the namesake company that was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 2008 for a total consideration of approximately US$1 billion. The European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (EVCA) named this transaction the "European Venture Capital Deal of the Year 2008". On a previous occasion, Widenius had been named the Finnish Software Entrepreneur of the Year 2003.

A visionary leader of the open source community, Widenius created MySQL's dual-licensing business model together with co-founder David Axmark. MySQL became the first piece of software to be available alternatively under a commercial license or the Free Software Foundation's GPL.

In 2009, Widenius left Sun and created a new company, Monty Program Ab, based in Tuusula (Helsinki area), Finland. Monty Program Ab develops MariaDB and the Maria database storage engine and other MySQL-related technologies. The company is a founding member of the Open Database Alliance.

Monty Program Ab corporate website

Michael Widenius' blog

About Florian Mueller

Florian Mueller is a software industry veteran with 24 years of experience (starting as an author at age 15) as well as an award-winning EU policy strategist. Previously founder and CEO of a startup he sold to the Telefónica group, Mueller became in 2001 an adviser to MySQL's then-CEO on corporate strategy and held shares in the company until its sale.

In 2004, Mueller created a campaign in 17 languages against a proposal for European patent legislation, finally rejected by the European Parliament in a historic decision at the end of a bitterly contested process. The Economist Group's European Voice named Mueller the EU Campaigner of the Year 2005 (a prestigious award that went to Pope John Paul II in 2002 and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2007). Managing Intellectual Property named Mueller to its list of the 50 most influential people in intellectual property (2005 and 2006). In 2005 he also received a CNET UK award (Outstanding Contribution to Software Development) and made it to the list of Silicon.com's 50 "Silicon Agenda Setters".

In 2007, Mueller successfully defended the EU-related interests of Real Madrid CF, the world's most famous soccer club with approximately 200 million fans worldwide.

Contact data

For further information concerning this news release, please contact Florian Mueller (telephone: +49-171-2632226, email: florian.mueller@live.com).
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Dear Commissioner Kroes,

Last week, former MySQL CEO Mårten Mickos wrote you a letter urging approval of Oracle’s takeover of Sun Microsystems¹, asserting that Oracle’s ownership of MySQL (as part of the Sun acquisition) will increase competition in the market.

As a long-time MySQL user, a former MySQL AB staff member² and a participant in a wide range of other open source and free software projects³, I find Mårten’s conclusion to be incorrect as well as unsupported by his arguments.

In making this point, I’ll challenge the three key arguments made by Mårten:

1. MySQL and Oracle do not compete
2. Oracle has as many compelling business reasons to continue the ramp-up of the MySQL business
3. Oracle’s ownership of MySQL will increase competition in the market

Also, please note that I have no financial interest in Oracle or Sun and I haven’t been paid to write this article.⁴

MySQL and Oracle Compete

Oracle’s ownership of MySQL will lead to what the commission fears – greater costs and less choice in the DBMS market.

First, it is very clear that MySQL is a difficult and disruptive competitor for Oracle. Imagine yourself Oracle’s position: most of your present and future customers use MySQL at no cost, and the combination of open source communities and the commercial entities backing MySQL work in a distributed fashion to erode your key advantages and populate many niches in the market.

Oracle’s acquisition of Sun would provide them with a way to control this competition.

We don’t have to rely on  imagination to see the competition between MySQL and Oracle. Even a cursory examination of the market leads one to the same initial conclusion reached by the commission that, “… Oracle databases and Sun’s MySQL compete directly in many sectors of the database market …”⁵

A volume of evidence demonstrating the heated competition between Oracle and MySQL can be found online, including Oracle’s acquisitions of key pieces of  technology licensed to MySQL⁶, benchmarks⁷, case studies⁸, migration toolkits⁹, presentations given by MySQL staff at the MySQL conference¹⁰, attendance of the MySQL User Conference by key Oracle management¹¹, articles in trade publications and recently leaked Sun Microsystems internal documents¹².

Oracle’s Compelling Business Reasons

Mårten wrote that, “Oracle has as many compelling business reasons to continue the ramp-up of the MySQL business as Sun Microsystems and MySQL previously did, or even more”, but did not elaborate on what these business reasons would be.

We know that Oracle will seek to use MySQL to provide maximum value to their shareholders, but this is not the same as a “compelling business reasons to continue the ramp-up of the MySQL business” nor is it the same as, “(increasing) competition in the database market.”

Oracle has a large and successful business. Its net income for the first fiscal quarter of 2009 was reported at 1.1bn USD¹³ The direct commercial value from licensing and services that it would be able to extract from MySQL would be trivial compared to this (and would likely be at a much lower margin than services and licensing it is accustomed to.)

Some reasonable tactics and strategies for an Oracle who has acquired MySQL would include:

• Using MySQL to price-target customers, ensuring that each customer pays as much as possible to Oracle. In the past, Oracle has reduced prices on a case-by-case basis to help retain customers who have “defected” to MySQL. The reduced competition in the marketplace will give Oracle more control, especially over large institutions who currently rely on MySQL Enterprise.
• Using control of the non-software MySQL assets (such as domain names, documentation, trademarks, conferences, …) to  manage competition in the MySQL space.
• Managing the rate of innovation in the MySQL product, so as to ensure that price-targeting can be effective.
• Continued support of the open source version of MySQL, so as to ensure that other open source competitors do not become prominent enough to challenge Oracle’s business.

Oracle will engage in strategies such as these for as long as it has a compelling business reason to do so, but certainly not out of concern for or in service to the market.

Closing

Commissioner Kroes, I won’t presume to advise the commission on the best path forward, however I do hope that you have a clearer view of the facts.

Open source and the market forces that supported MySQL’s rise to prominence and allowed it to compete with Oracle will exist regardless of what the commission chooses to do.

If Oracle acquires MySQL, then the market will be hindered for the next three to five years. Customers will pay higher prices. The open source community will need a few years to route around Oracle’s control. Current MySQL customers will be faced with challenges as they decide whether or not to stay with an aggressive vendor who now has much more control of a database that they often rely on to serve the online market.

If Oracle does not acquire MySQL then it will still have significant influence, as it controls a key MySQL resource in the form of InnoDB. This is something that the open source space is still wrestling with, as various engines and forks attempt to deal with the problem.

If the commission truly wants to foster competition, a middle road would be to allow Oracle to acquire MySQL on the condition that the database, engines and documentation are released under a permissive open source licence, such as the New BSD license¹⁴. This would allow Oracle to make the acquisition that it so desires without having to spin off MySQL and would foster a great deal of competition in the market, as no single party would be able to control the integration of MySQL with other products.

1. via Matt Asay’s CNET Blog – Mickos letter to EU: “Approve Oracle-Sun deal”
2. from 2001 to 2004, I served as MySQL’s community liaison
3. including multiple years serving on Free Software Foundation’s license compliance team, working as a Mozilla Foundation staff member and volunteering for the Open Source Initiative
4. The founders of MySQL and many of the early MySQL staff are friends, which likely influences my thinking. I don’t know what options or financial arrangements friends and former colleagues who have a stake in Oracle or Sun have in place, but I’m sure that some friends will have significant benefit from a sale of Sun to Oracle.
5. EC Press Release: European Commission opens in-depth investigation into proposed takeover of Sun Microsystems by Oracle
6. Oracle acquired Innobase OY in 2005, followed by Sleepycat Software Inc. in 2006. These vendors licensed transactional database engine technology to MySQL that allowed MySQL to more effectively compete in Oracle’s space.
7. MySQL.com: February 2002 eWeek Benchmarks
8. Mysql.com case studies: ThePhoneHouse consolidates its eCommerce Systems on MySQL Enterprise, MySQL.com: Citysearch Saves Over $1 Million Using MySQL (pdf), …
9. MySQL.com: Introduction to the MySQL Migration Toolkit, Oracle.com: Oracle Migration Workbench
10. MySQL User Conference 2005: Migration from Oracle to MySQL, MySQL User Conference 2006: MySQL Migration Toolkit, MySQL User Conference 2007: MySQL for Oracle DBAs and Developers
11. Oracle VP Ken Jacobs has attended and spoken at multiple MySQL User Conferences
12. Wikileaks.org: Sun/Microsystems ‘Project Peter’ targets Oracle to MySQL migrations to boost sales
13. As reported by BusinessWeek: Oracle’s Earnings: Summer Doldrums Set In. Note that this was a rather weak quarter, as previous recent quarters reported nearly twice the income.
14. http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php

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Topics for this podcast:

*EC pauses Oracle-Sun over MySQL
* Open source licenses debated
* Red Hat growth opportunities and Summit roundup
* Reductive Labs seeking cloud role for Puppet software
* VMware-SpringSource analyzed

iTunes or direct download (26:04, 5.9 MB)

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