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EC Formally Objects To Oracle's Purchase of Sun
eldavojohn writes "The EC has presented Oracle and Sun with a statement of objections. Despite the promotion of former MySQL CEO Marten Mickos, the statement seems to focus entirely on
what many have feared: MySQL vs. Oracle databases. From Sun's 8-K SEC filing: 'The Statement of Objections sets out the Commission's preliminary assessment regarding, and is limited to, the combination of Sun's open source MySQL database product with Oracle's enterprise database products and its potential negative effects on competition in the
market for database products.' The EU and the EC are getting a rep for disagreeing with US counterparts." On Monday afternoon the DoJ reiterated its support for the deal. Matthew Aslett has a helpful timeline of the action from the EC.
Well, I'd object to their purchasing the sun as well!!
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
The EC is.. who now?
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
The European Commission (formally the Commission of the European Communities) acts as an executive of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union.
What do DC and Marvel think?
I seriously don't see why Oracle needs MySQL.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Let's see...MySQL brings in ~50M a year, Sun is losing 100M a month. Makes no sense why Oracle would want to delay, except for monopolistic reasons.
Oracle is marketed as an high-end database product/set of services. MySql is a low-end one (and please, don't misinterpret this as shot against it). Now, I'm not saying that you won't find companies replacing their Oracle database with a MySql one, but those are very few and far between. Between Oracle and MySql, there are actually quite of slew of decent alternatives (both proprietary and open source).
As I remember it (and I could be remembering it wrong), Sirrus and XM were allowed to merge because the likelihood of both companies continuing without a merger were essentially nil.
Would the EU perform a similar analysis on Sun and figure that, given its situation, the option is either merge with Oracle or go bankrupt, in which case the situation is, conceptually, the same because either way Sun ceases to be a player. Or do they not consider this and simply line up the bullet points, see too much overlap, say no to the merger (which is not the same as an objection, I realize), and just hope that Sun can pull it together by itself?
Mod parent up, I'm tired of the /. eds assuming i know what every god damned acronym means.
If I posted this about the acronym "US" you can be damn sure I would mbe modded troll in a heartbeat.
I dont read
If I posted this about the acronym "US" you can be damn sure I would mbe modded troll in a heartbeat.
And they are?
Mod parent up, I'm tired of the /. eds assuming i know what every god damned acronym means. (Sure I can google it, but usually I just move on)
That's assuming you get right definition of "EC". Everyone here seems to assume that googling things will give you the correct or relevant answer.
For example, I googled it and E. Coli doesn't want Oracle in Athens to predict what Apollo will say.
So there!, "why don't you google it" Nazis!
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
Actually they're multinational companies, and Oracle stands to lose a fair chunk of change if they can't do business in EU countries. Not that I agree with this retarded group's findings. The whole "Can't sustain development without being able to sell proprietary licenses" is bunk. Plenty of opensource projects thrive without being able to sell proprietary licenses. Linux springs to mind.
You raise a very interesting point - other than the fact that both the companies concerned trade within the EU, this is within the EU's jurisdiction how, exactly? Since this is about two US companies wanting to merge and the US DoJ is happy with the deal, does anyone actually know what the EC/EU actually can do about it? For instance, can they block the deal outright, escalate the dispute to the WTO or some such to prolong matters, or what? And if they can't prevent the deal going ahead, then can they place restrictions on the combined companies ability to trade within the EU without the US being able to go to the WTO?
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
This is somewhat like preventing Mercedes-Benz from buying Kia in order to prevent a monopoly. As well-stated earlier, Oracle doesn't compete against MySQL often if at all. IBM and Microsoft appear to be the most legitimate competition Oracle has in their DBMS space, and MySQL wouldn't seem to impact the competitive balance all that much. Having said that, who would want MySQL? Cisco, HP, and EMC don't seem like good choices because they all have product families that each would hate to have to tie to a 'Runs Best with MySQL' campaign. Red Hat makes sense from a certain point of view, but I'm not sure they want to diversify into the DBMS space.
I hear they like to sell their stuff in the EU, so maybe they should care.
They could not threaten the EU, for fear it would declare their copyrights null and void.
You seem to have a pretty messed up sense of how the world works.
Both Oracle almost certainly have EU-based subsidiary companies in various European countries, so I imagine they could - at the very least - block the merger of those.
SUN and Oracle are not that important. There's IBM, MS, SAP, Compaq, and a few other vendors that are praying to their personal god that the EC knocks Oracle on their ass.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
Both Oracle and Sun do an enormous amount of business in Europe and as such I expect they operate locale offices or divisions that exist as entities subject to European law.
Similarly US subsidiaries of organizations such as Siemens who are primarily European are subject to US law. (And why it was legal for Cuba to nationalize all those companies way beck when, their ball, their rules.)
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
Yeah, right. Oracle is letting one of it's largest markets fall just so they don't have to sell MySQL.
Dilbert RSS feed
Seriously, what can the EC do about it?
Forbid them from selling their stuff in the EU. Somewhere between a quarter and a third of Oracles income comes from the EU. That is a significant amount of money they cannot afford to lose.
They didn't post EU. If I posted NGA would you automatically know what I was talking about?
They can and will fine them, just like they fined Microsoft and Intel. You don't pay? Get fined again. Still don't want to pay? Do your business elsewhere and say bye bye to the biggest market in the world.
If you want to make business within the EU abide you will have to abide to the rules.
You do to. EU contries can not declare copyrights null and void without small changes like pulling out of the WTO and nullifying the Berne Convention.
There's nothing wrong about the EC trying to prevent monopolies/unacceptable mergers. They have a say too, because these companies operate there.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
(Sure I can google it, but usually I just move on)
Do you want me to tie your shoes for you, your highness?
--- "When you gotta do something wrong. You gotta do it right. (Fighter)"
The EC is much better at standing up to badly behaved companies than America.
Well, standing up to badly behaved American companies.
I am not a business lawyer. However, if the Chinese Companies that wanted to merge included EU-based subsidiaries then I expect that, yes, they would have a problem with that and have the legal authority to block the merger via preventing the merge of those subsidiary companies. If Oracle and Sun want to pull out of the EU they'd have to uproot the fairly substantial business operations, buildings and staff that they have there. Oracle, in particular, has a huge office in the UK.
If they don't want to be within the jurisdiction of the EU, I imagine they'd need to remove the technical and sales operations in those countries as well, move all those business operations to the US and then export from there to EU-based companies. They could have done that if they wanted to stay out of EU regulatory reach. So given they did not, they've already chosen to expose themselves to EU law. At that point, being subject to the local legal system is a cost of doing business there, like paying the local taxes. Their available remedy, similarly to the tax situation, is to lobby for a change of law or to move operations to a country where they like the laws better.
IBM may be doing what they can to stir the pot on this. With each delay, Sun's survival is more in question, and more business can be sucked away from Sun by IBM.
The objection (that Oracle will have "control" of an Open Source product like MySQL) is absolutely absurd. First of all, there is nothing Oracle can do to prevent others from continuing to update and support MySQL under GPL. Many Open Source projects continue under GPL. MySQL has a huge "out of Oracle's reach" GPL effort already.
Secondly, the database market is dynamic with many new competitors entering the field. MySQL as a relational database faces competition from a host of nonSQL databases whose performance and capacity relational databases cannot match.
The real problem with the merger is politics for profit and spite. Heaven forbid the EU allows two American companies to merge. The EU likes to keep their own mergers to a minimum .... like with Airbus?
If TLAs were universally unique you'd maybe have a point.
But they aren't.
Given that there's a relatively small number of letters in the alphabet, it's guaranteed that some acronyms will be duplicated with different meanings in different domains, communities or whatever. And if you happen to be in the wrong one (i.e different to clown who wrote the article) then it's quite understandable that you'll be confused.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
to the EC controlling so much to Europe. How about we break YOUR asses up to nurture competition.
Its not the first time and wont be the last. The US believes fair competition is free competition while the EU is more about making sure theres an even playing field and as many competitors as possible.
The EU has a thing against monopolies in the market and they view Oracle owning MySQL as closer to monopolisation.
Despite myself being a left winger, I dont think the database should be an issue, because the MySQL community could easily fork it and compete with Oracle (Mambo/Joomla anyone?).
Thats the beauty of OSS
This sig has been distributed under the Creative Commons license.
According to the article the last time the EU/EC contravened a takeover was when they denied General Electric's takeover of Honeywell in 2001. I'd hardly call two denials in a decade a reputation for disagreeing with the US on these matters.
Sorry, but I can't agree with you on this. Just because the number of alternatives will shrink, this doesn't mean that there still aren't a slew of alternatives and would make Oracle a monopoly on the RDBMS market. Think of MS SQL Server, IBM DB2, Sybase, Informix, Teradata....for FOSS, think of Postgres, Firebird, even SQLite.
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
Are they really "American companies"? They both have their headquarters in the U.S., but operations quite distributed. What proportion of each company's employees are based in the United States? I've actually been looking for that information and can't find it, so not a rhetorical question.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Oracle is pursuing a very good business model with the Sun aquisition.
1) Eliminate somebody else from buying them, like IBM.
2) Get all that neat Java stuff
3) Some hardware engineering but that SPARC stuff really isn't competitive.
4) Get MySQL and finally kill it by letting it wither. MySQL is probably the biggest threat right now to Oracle's dominance in the database marketplace. My controlling
it they can drive the software literally into the ground.
It was a $7B bargain.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Okay, so you don't buy that MySQL couldn't survive as a strictly open-source project without the ability to sell proprietary/closed-source licenses (like they currently can). I wouldn't argue that.
How do you respond to this scenario?:
Oracle owns MySQL. Oracle shapes MySQL's development very slowly over the course of a decade or two, cementing it in its current niche (and, thus, it will never be a threat to Oracle's ridiculously fat profit margins).
In this scenario, do you think there will sufficient impetus to fork and grow an open-source-only MySQL project (with a different brand and basically a new community starting from scratch)?
Surely you can agree that the desire for such will be radically reduced, possibly to the point that it's not feasible?
Even if it is feasible, surely you can agree that it would almost certainly slow down MySQL's developments in this direction by years? (For many years MySQL has been growing more and more feature-rich, arguable to expand the roles that it can play. I would say pretty much all of their current momentum is in this direction.)
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
If I posted NGA would you automatically know what I was talking about?
That's completely offensive. I'll have you know my ex girlfriend is black. CRKR.
...but, to answer your question: no.
The EU and the EC are getting a rep for disagreeing with US counterparts.
Generally, in a disagreement there are two parties that disagree with each other. Unless one wants to implicitly express that one side is right and the other wrong, that's the way it should be phrased.
Quite frankly, given that US "guardians" of the markets have just been caught sleeping at the wheel when they let the financial crisis happen despite experts having warned of the problems for about a decade, it's not as if they had much reputation capital left, do they?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
They are American companies. Soon to be an American company.
*yawn*
always the same old crap. Maybe I should write a reply-macro.
I'll make it short: The EU can kill them.
Europe is a bigger market than the US. It is also an important hub towards the near and middle east and eastern Europe, Russia, etc. for most american companies. Not being able to do business in the EU is a deathspell for most international corporations. Especially in the technology sector where the technology and competitors that will emerge in Europe to take your place can easily expand world-wide.
If the EC complains it is so unfair, Oracle can suggest they either stop selling SUN hardware or Oracle software to the EU, and let those bueacratic bastards pick how they best wish to further retard the quality of their citizens lives.
Funny how no "american company" has ever actually tried that stunt. I wonder why? Are they all pussies or are you an idiot for believing that they wouldn't be hung from their own intestines by their shareholders if they triedD?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
If it is apparent that Oracle is dragging their feet on development AND their is a significant desire for a more capable database then yes a fork will happen. Either that or people will flock to alternatives. The biggest thing that bothers me about this objection is the fact that Oracle and MySQL aren't competitors. This is like someone raising a stink about Caterpillar acquiring the company that makes my riding lawnmower. Sure they both make tractors, but they're not really aimed at the same markets.
If I posted this about the acronym "US" you can be damn sure I would mbe modded troll in a heartbeat.
1. This is a website specifically aimed at US citizens.
2. I live in the EU, and I still wouldn't have had a clue if I hadn't read about this deal in the past. At two letter acronym is not unique across the globe.
Not entirely true. You can have fun with copyrights without leaving WTO, in fact there was a case earlier this year of a small caribbean nation getting a free pass on US copyrights as penalty payment for some US WTO violations.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Well, standing up to badly behaved American companies.
Try some research before you post nationalistic crap like that. The EC has fined european companies in the billions range for violations of anti-corruption laws, does the same anti-trust checks on european companies and so on.
Wake up. 50 years ago, the US had the moral high ground on the rest of the world, but you can't go downhill forever without losing it.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
But who granted that pass? It certainly wasn't the small caribbean nation.
This means you need to have alternatives and not a (virtual) monopoly / oligopoly, so I think it's a great move of EC to object to this merger because there is a serious concern that the number of alternatives will shrink (even though MySQL has an open source license). Just my 2 cents.....
Because all the competitors in the DB market are some how going to vanish because Oracle owns MySQL? Are you seriously trying to claim that MySQL is the only other DB in existence beyond Oracle's? And that MySQL is really even a competitor in the enterprise markets that Oracle is? Oracle's competitors are MS SQL, IBM DB2, Sybase, etc not some dinky piece of crap like MySQL.
The whole "Can't sustain development without being able to sell proprietary licenses" is bunk.
No, it's not bunk. Monty Wideanus is quite correct that services model can not sustain MySQL's cost. But if Monty was so worried about the fate of MySQL then maybe the jackass shouldn't have sold it in the first place, no? This sounds like seller's remorse on his part.
Plenty of opensource projects thrive without being able to sell proprietary licenses. Linux springs to mind.
That's because they have corporate sponsors.
Provided Oracle/Sun breaks EU law, it's an entirely reasonable course of action for the EU to restrict the company's copyright.
Not without actual backing from the WTO.
See for example one of the many small island nations dependant on gambling. /in that country/, _up to a certain amount_.
They (and the WTO) agree that the US ban on online gambling does not constitute fair traiding policies.
In return, American copyrights are null and void
That's because Antigua won their case in front of the WTO. Antigua wasn't able to do so just because they felt like it.
SUN and Oracle are not that important. There's IBM, MS, SAP, Compaq, and a few other vendors that are praying to their personal god that the EC knocks Oracle on their ass.
Which goes to show that the EC's actions are total bullshit. If there are all these other vendors in line to see Oracle fall then there is clearly no monopolization going on just because Oracle buys some dinky FOSS database.
Honestly I dont know why Oracle doesnt just tell the EC to cram it, they're US based companies, and what are the EC going to do? Sanction them? How well do you think it would go down if no one in europe could use Oracle or MySQL anymore?
You down with O.P.P.?
Yeah you know me.
Who's down with O.P.P.?
Every last lady!
Haaaaaarm me with harmony! "O" is for other, "P" is people scratching temple. The last "P" well that's not so simple. There's five little letters that are missing and you get it on occasion after the partying is ending (and it rhymes with hussy). For the young'uns who have no idea what I'm talkin' bout - move your mouse and click'it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmuFlaFYdgE - (Man I miss the hiphop 90s. Miley Cyrus is okay but she's no replacement.)
"C'mon, c'mon, c'omn, let me show you what it's all about." - Michael Jackson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYx3BR2aJA4
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
When something strange happens, such as the claim that Oracle will be able to control the database market once they get control of an Open Source project like MySQL .... I have to ask "Who Benefits?"
Why does asking this question get me a Flamebait?
Perhaps I didn't frame the observation clearly.... One possibility requires us to identify who benefits in the market by slowing down this merger? Well, IBM does. They are making offers to any and all engineers away from Sun. They are offering specials to replace Sun hardware with IBM hardware. Oracle has been forced to take out ads to shore up their customer base, assuring them that Oracle will continue to deliver Sun hardware. Is it really so far out to think they might lobby the EU to drag its feet?
Could some other company besides IBM be pushing to resist the merger? Sure. Maybe Hp? Microsoft? But I think IBM is the best guess I can come up with.
The other possibility is that there are political points to be scored by poking a set of American companies in the eye. Folks want to pretend that is outlandish, well, you have that right. But the evidence is pretty clear that the EU can approve mergers when it is in their own (at least perceived) best interests, as in the case with Airbus. And while not technically EU, Norway's grant of a Peace Price to Obama certainly demonstrates a regional ability to value politics over logic.
It would be different if the EU had explained even once how a project under GPL could be squashed by a Sun Oracle merger. Or how we are going to be so much better off if Sun sets and gets sold off in a fire sale.
Just because you don't hear about the EU fining european companies, doesn't mean that it doesn't happen.
Sent from my PDP-11
"The Europeans' goal is to protect the competitive process & consumer welfare."
You mean like requiring MS to offer a version of Windows without a browser?
The EU's concerns can't be alleviated by forking. Only one company can own copyright on any given piece of code, which means:
There are probably other things it could do as well. Those are just the first things that come to mind.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
The US is being dragged into an unholy mess by treaties and agreements with foreign nations. Ever so steadily anything done in the US seems to also fall under foreign laws. And the US is partly to blame. After all insisting on controlling activities by groups such as Pirate Bay allows foreign nations the right to exert control over American actions.
These issues will never resolve.
I'm willing to bear the burden of his remorse if he just hands me the money he made from the sale.
I understand your point of view but I think you're oversimplifying. The EU is upset with MS, how come they haven't developed a successful alternative?
It's because the will and ability to compete isn't always enough to succeed in the marketplace.
It would cost EU companies billions to switch from Oracle to another database. Obviously, it would even be worse for Oracle, but it's really a lose-lose situation in the short and middle term.
Now for some perspective. There are estimated to be over 12 million MySQL installations worldwide. I can't find hard numbers on Sybase or Oracle, but assuming that Oracle and Sybase are about as popular as DB2, then the number of MySQL installations is nearly as many as all three of those vendors combined.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
1. This is a website specifically aimed at US citizens.
No it isn't, it is aimed at English speaking nerds, that includes elements of the EU.
I dont read
The EC is much better at standing up to badly behaved companies than America.
Well, standing up to badly behaved American companies.
Selection bias. Unless the target of their actions is an American company, you will never hear about it.
ING and Royal Bank of Scotland, two of the largest financial institutions in the world, have been ordered to split up in the past few weeks. As these companies don't make gadgets, and aren't American, this news doesn't belong on slashdot, so you aren't aware of it. The EC deals with the European market, and as such primarily with European companies. You will never hear about it, it's not newsworthy in the US any more than news about Walmart is in Europe.
And many of these are powering toy applications.
But this is a baseless assumption. In terms of revenue, Oracle is by far the biggest. Unless Oracle is significantly more expensive than the competition, they almost certainly have more installations than you claim.
The EU is a very large market but it's also a very different market to the US. The customers are different, governments and regulators have different mindsets. The regulators for this very different place with different economies, different customers and different politics to those of the US states have come to a different decision to the US regulators? How very contrary of them!
Please be civil. I know the GP tossed an epithet aroubd but calling him a Motorola phone? That's just rude.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
1. This is a website specifically aimed at US citizens.
Oh, it is? How could you tell? It lives in a generic top level domain, not the .us country code TLD. And nowhere does it say that its aimed at anything else than nerds, just nerds, not specifically American nerds.
Defining acronyms isn't dumbing down, it's just standard academic practice.
Moral high ground? Would that be after stooping to the level of the USSR in playing third-world countries like pawns -- the CIA coups in Iran or Guatemala in the early fifties? After backstabbing her allies at Suez a few years later? Or after encouraging the Hungarians that same year? Or were you thinking back to the World War -- and the wonderful economic timing of joining it two years late, when her last ally was finally bankrupt?
Come to think of it, I can't remember any instance where the US had the moral high ground since its revolution. Sure, if you compare it to the Soviet Union, it had the moral high ground, but that's not much of a comparison, is it?
This isn't a dig at the US, it's a decent country. But far too much of its propaganda is still believed, probably because it's top nation.
and forkable.
MySQL will be Sun's Oracle's property in name only.
always dumping everyones tea into the ocean..
Oracle could also obliterate MySQL by revoking the InnoDB license (which they already own), leaving MySQL with no decent transactional engine, and pretty much ruling it out for any significant usage.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
The EU and the EC are getting a rep for disagreeing with US counterparts.
They're getting a rep for doing their jobs, in other words. The same cannot be said for their U.S. counterparts who have assumed the role of the fox guarding the hen house.
So EU is basically saying IBM's DB2 and Microsoft's SQL Server, plus PostgreSQL, together ain't much of a competition?
But yet if you Google "EC" the first two results are the European Commission's home page and its Wikipedia article. Which isn't surprising, for the body that governs the world's largest economy.
One more thing EC should consider is whether the deal will create more jobs or not.
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
Let's get real - the EC and EU, while I don't agree with their bloated bureacracy MOST OF THE TIME, actually try to protect consumers sometimes.
This, opposed to USA regulatory bodies, which seems to have lost most of their bite and are owned (by proxy of politicians owned by interests) by the very corporations they seek to regulate.
Yeah, and if they did that people would only have 937 different database systems to choose from instead of 938. Oh noes!
Bullshit, utter bullshit. American companies are not under EU legal jurisdiction. All the EU could do is ban sale of the product in the EU. If a company exists entirely in the US EU laws mean jack shit beyond import/export laws.
'course this doesn't apply in this case, both companies are multinational with tendrils everywhere. So the EU has jurisdiction. I think US companies should start pulling out all manufacturing, development, research, etc... employees and sites from the EU. Sell the product, and let the tinpot bureaucrats make your life hell with their ridiculous socialism but don't contribute to their economy other than selling your product there.
No... I wouldn't have a clue. But fortunately I have access to a combination of websites like Wikipedia and Acronym Finder, and a small amount of common sense to infer that it's probably not Environment Canada who are objecting to the deal.
Or they could do what the US does - ignore international rulings and legislation when it doesn't suit them.
"...not specifically American nerds."
Are you sure?
http://slashdot.org/faq/editorial.shtml#ed850
"Slashdot is U.S.-centric. We readily admit this, and really don't see it as a problem. Slashdot is run by Americans"
Which would be a decent argument if both companies did only exist in the US. Both have large subsidiary companies that are very much European companies, even if they are wholly owned by the US parent companies. Same thing applies when European companies have operations in the USA - those local subsidiaries are incorporated in the USA even though the shareholding is held by the parent company.
Didn't the Nazis declare war on the USA, not the other way round?
Could some other company besides IBM be pushing to resist the merger? Sure. Maybe Hp? Microsoft? But I think IBM is the best guess I can come up with.
I think Microsoft has publicly protested the merger, I have not seen that from IBM. Also, doesn't msft, routinely, like to throw wrenches in anything that competitors want to do?
Sounds very similar to Microsoft's 3 'E's business strategy...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
No, because it is a shake down and Oracle/Sun aren't going to have to abandon the European Market forever, just until it causes enough damage to European citizens and companies that the EC backs off, which, it will.
Heck just by halting sales for 3-6 months, would be enough proof that their combined company is more beneficial to Europeans than it is harmful.
Mark my words, if Oracle pays the EC, the EC will sing praises about the merger, if Oracle fights hard, then the EC will have rethink it's thuggish practice of shaking down companies (Though rather then concluding "this is wrong", it is more likely they will conclude "We need a new way to extort companies", but it will set a trend.)
The Right thinks governments are evil. The Left thinks companies are evil. Neither accept both are needed (though government not nearly to the level it currently holds). While I recognize both have the potential for evil. I can avoid doing business with companies I dislike, I cannot avoid the government, so I tend to enjoy any situation where government is constrained and put in place, while I personally ensure I avoid companies I perceive as immoral.
For whatever reason nearly all Europeans I have met are willingly enslaved to the state machine, restricted by chains they do not acknowledge.
I find Europe interesting, because while many nations, people and races have been enslaved by various masters who have reaped the benefits throughout history, the Europeans have managed to enslave themselves without a master, nobody benefits, there are only slaves and yet they system not only endures, but is looked upon with reverence by the majority.
Respect the Constitution
What if I or anyone forked mySQL, merely combined for source and called it "SQL Reimagined", but it is pretty much mySQL with a name change. I keep the same OSS license and get a few fellow /.ers to form a little support community. We are founded with a single purpose "To keep an alternative to Oracle influences alive". Then the EC wouldn't have any LEGAL foundation for being concerned with a Sun_Oracle merger. Think they would drop issues they have raised against Oracle/Sun? Not likely, not unless Oracle paid the EC to be left alone or IBM failed to pay the EC to harass Oracle.
Respect the Constitution
How would you explain to shareholders that company you manage just lost half its revenue (because your american pride got hurt)?
I would explain it as follows in the open to all stock holders.
My fellow shareholders, it was not be because of "American Pride" that we lost considerable market share and revenue. Rather it was because we refused to compromise our values. As CEO I am committed to only operate in free and open markets, we will not "pay to play" for any reason under my watch. It is our moral conviction that must drive us. And while the cost to us financially was high, it is something the board and I refused to sell, corrupt or compromise. Yes we have lost money in the short term, but we have maintained our honor and integrity. As with all controversial leadership decisions, I bear full responsibility, therefore I will open myself up to a vote on removal. If you are confident in my choices and values, the choice is clear, if you are uncertain or against my leadership style, you should not vote for me to continue.
This is why I will never be the CEO of a public company, but run several successful private ones. Honor is a minority value in these times. It can be hard and costly when viewed in the short term, but in the bigger picture on the larger scale it is incredibly valuable, it is why America achieved the level of prosperity it has and as it is run out (in the current short term), why America currently is in decline.
Respect the Constitution
"Sure, if you compare it to the Soviet Union, it had the moral high ground, but that's not much of a comparison, is it?"
Versus the history of europe over the last hundred years the US definitely does have the high moral ground. The Soviets make a good showing as well. Let's see in europe, military uprisings/WWI, hitler/jews/WWII, political massacres by eastern european dictators, the genocides in the balkans, armenian genocides in turkey, fighting in northern Ireland, and europe's obvious indifference to corruption and suffering in its own back yard until the US steps or gets sucked in to stop it. There's more and this is just the last 100 years. Europe is nowhere near a bunch of angels, changing your name to the EU doesn't erase the past or change current attitudes or behavior.
How many people have died in the political games/wars/incursions in europe or because of europe? The US and even the Soviet Union would have had a lot of catching up to do. When it comes to morals the EU is in no position to say anything.
"Come to think of it, I can't remember any instance where the US had the moral high ground since its revolution. Sure, if you compare it to the Soviet Union, it had the moral high ground, but that's not much of a comparison, is it?"
Well, it's a relative high ground. Historically the US has been knee deep in the filth of corruption and double dealing. But during that same time Europe was in so deep I'm surprised they didn't drown. The whole arena is a swamp - some hillocks are just higher than others.
My problem is that somehow the US has decided they want to e in the filth too, and europe is pretending they aren't in as deep by climbing up our backs and saying "Look at me! I'm clean!"
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
"What if I or anyone forked mySQL, merely combined for source and called it "SQL Reimagined", but it is pretty much mySQL with a name change. I keep the same OSS license and get a few fellow /.ers to form a little support community. We are founded with a single purpose "To keep an alternative to Oracle influences alive".
You mean MariaDB?
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What are you going to run on those Intel boxes?
Windows Vista?
When you buy the Sparc monster you get all the necessary software in order to partition your machine as needed.
With your 10 Intel machines, please pray tell me, how do you assign two of them to the same virtual server? (including memory, disk and network capacity).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
That day the EU confiscates all of Oracle's assets in Europe, mandates that their copyrights are no longer valid, puts in trial as many Oracle's executives as possible, starts a massive migration from all kind of companies, even US based ones but with EU interests, to something else.
Yeah, if we are going to portray stupid scenarios I can also get carried away.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Yes, please. Let one large international corporation try the stunt and pull out.
I'll be watching the fireworks and selling those stocks short. Also, I'll be making side-bets on how long until revolting shareholders kick out the entire board and replace it.
And then I'll search out this posting and reply "told you so". Then we can finally stop this narcistic US attitude that makes the whole world sick of you arrogant bastards.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The EU is upset with MS, how come they haven't developed a successful alternative?
The EU is a transnational government body, not a software company.
It would cost EU companies billions to switch from Oracle to another database.
Maybe. But the EU is a transnational government body, did I mention that? In short: They have tanks. They could liquidate all european assets of Oracle and use the profits to cover the transition costs. Or they could simply go to the WTO and request permission to invalidate Oracle's copyrights, trademarks and other rights within Europe. There's a good chance they could win.
But yes, everyone who's not a total idiot knows that if you get into a fight, you'll get hurt, even if you win. So they're trying to resolve this with talk and muscle flexing instead of outright war. And their primary goal isn't to hurt Oracle, it's to protect the local market.
So yes, it's highly unlikely that it'll come to blows. MS is about the only company stupid enough to play chicken with the government. My reply was directed not at Oracle (who are smarter than that), but at the fucktards who keep posting this "wheee, it's an american company, we should just pull out of europe" nonsense to every story of this kind.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
No, it was the WTO. I thought that was obvious from my posting, apologies if it wasn't.
The EU certainly has a lot more influence in the WTO than all caribbean nations combined, so their chances would be considerably better.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Aside from it not being a crime, you mean?
But for the serious reader: The difference is that a crime is a behaviour, and to prevent it you would have to violate basic personality rights in order to predict human behaviour. A monopoly is a market development and can be predicted with publicly available information and some easy extrapolation. Even if we would grant a company personality rights, they would not be violated by such activities.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I didn't say Europe had the moral high ground. If there's any country that did, apart from the little backwaters that touched nothing and did not risk their virtue, I think only Britain could be considered to have the moral high ground in the past few centuries. But I'm sure many will disagree.
I don't know, as I said to another poster, I think Britain was one of the higher spots in the swamp of humanity, if you want to put it that way. The concept of fair play didn't just apply to the golf-course with them for a long part of their history. But I agree with you that nations on the whole are in a Hobbesian state of nature: mired in violence and corruption.
Yes, but America was a major Allied player due to her industry. Her interest and activity clearly lay in a British victory. So first she sold Britain weapons and other supplies for cash, then for credit, then for market concessions, and finally for island bases. When Britain had nothing left she started lend-lease to keep her going. She didn't commit her own troops until there was no alternative.
the FUD cloud grows black, Sun's credibility and sales are going totally down the shitter now