I have had the impression that packagers generally don't provide for non-/ installations; my "really ought to support" phrase was intended to include the packagers themselves but I probably should have stated that explicitly, since that's where a chunk of the real problem probably lies.
I actually thought I remembered rpm having an ability to specify a number of allowed locations for install, so that the packager could say where they could cope with it going. I might be making that up, though, or maybe it isn't relevant. I'm also not sure quite how it'll handle permissions - will it degrade gracefully for files that would normally be owned by users or groups that the installing party does not belong to?
My worry with the yum --installroot thing - will that just install the package requested if its dependencies are available elsewhere on the local system? Or is it going to pull in a whole Fedora for me:-(
If the distro provided white-list groups then it could be useful. E.g. the groups "non server apps" "non setuid apps" "server apps" "setuid apps". A cautious admin might whitelist the intersection of the first two, while more laid-back admins could enable them all.
Yes, though I don't think Fedora configures sudo access for users by default unless things have changed? But even if I were right about that, it could at least be set up by the administrator in order to avoid giving out the root password, which is probably still a good thing (though if sudo is configured to allow a user to run any command with it then I'm not sure that protecting root's password is that beneficial?).
The minimum thing I'd want to see *by default* is probably that a user has to type in *a* password, or even just click a UAC-style "yes, really do this privileged thing" through an interface that can't be intercepted by malware. Being able to silently install software would be really useful but only if the system's owner / administrator knows they've allowed for it. Unless, possibly, the packages that a user could install without verification were limited in certain ways (e.g. no setuid apps, can't use more than a certain disk quota)
Very much agreed that package managers really ought to support (by default IMO!) the ability to install to a user's homedir, whether or not that user has the ability to perform a system-wide install. I'm fed up of having to install stuff from source (without dependency management) just because I only want something in ~/.
The policy of allowing certain users to install software, within certain limits, is not crazy. It gives you: * don't have users typing in the root password all the time * if you need a codec or viewer plugin, the system can pop up a "Getting a viewer for you" window, rather than a "Can't view this, please install foo, put root password here" * this is made possible because Linux distros have their own "app store" of approved software, which comes *from the distro* so you know where to get it and you know it's relatively unlikely to be malware. Windows and MacOS can't do this.
The limits included only giving these privileges to the console user, who probably has physical access and can root the machine anyhow, which is also sensible. But it also gives malware the local user might end up running (e.g. due to a Firefox compromise) the ability to install software. That's not necessarily too bad unless it's, for instance, installing vulnerable setuid-root software. So this needs to be thought about carefully before enabling on an individual machine, unless the distro has thought *even harder* about it so you don't have to. It doesn't really seem like the Fedora guys thought about it hard enough, even though it could be a good policy for the future if done right. And I don't think anybody is happy about such a major change in behaviour happening without it being announced and debated very publically.
I hope to see this feature reappearing in a future Fedora release - it's a good feature if they do it right. But they should be *even more* careful about what they permit and they shouldn't make dramatic behaviour changes occurring by default without heavy debate (and if you upgrade from an old version, rather than clean install, it should certainly say "This is a behaviour change, do you want it?" - probably defaulting to no.
Worth noting the corollary - (only) console users are susceptible to any malware they happen to get (ab)using the package system. Assuming an absence of malware running under a user account, it makes a good deal of sense to let users with physical access install new packages, in fact it sounds very useful indeed. Thanks for pointing this out as it does make a huge difference that the feature is restricted by default to local users!
Chrome OS is based on technology with strong roots in the 70s, i.e. Unix and C. Moreover, the creators of Unix went on to create a new OS (Plan 9) to solve its problems and, recently, a new programming language (Go). Both Unix and C have been able to remain strong over time and add modern features whilst staying true to their roots and, broadly, retaining compatibility. This is particularly true for Unix, despite some questionable design decisions along the way.
The link you supplied is from the Unix-haters handbook, which basically argues that the entire Unix + X11 stack is a load of rubbish - I think that's a more consistent position than just wanting X replaced. To be honest I've never seen a strong explanation of why it's OK to keep developing Linux and BSD but that X should be ripped out and replaced, other than perhaps that X has languished due to lack of maintenance and management over a long period of time. But I think X.org has shown some reasonable signs of revival and more modern features.
Ironically, recent developments in X.org make replacement servers more viable than they have been before - lots of X.org infrastructure (kernel mode setting, GEM, plus others) have separated a load of the hardware support issues from the windowing system itself. Wayland seems to be the main example at the moment: https://groups.google.com/group/wayland-display-server/web/frequently-askeds-questions
Enlightenment generally seems reckoned to be very nice technology. I've been repeatedly surprised to see Enlightenment popping up in commercial products here and there; Edje-based wallpapers can even be loaded in KDE now. Evidently it's a strong piece of work and it'll be really interesting to see where this sponsorship gets them. It certainly seems an enlightened approach.
I used to do this to my friends - when I was at highschool I used to write conversational simulators of people I knew using QBASIC. Throw in a few catchphrases and favourite memes and it is remarkably easy to catch the essence of a conversation with someone you know, especially if they're a geek. If they're rude, it's even easier, since you don't have to have such a coherent conversation. I've known people who wouldn't pass the Turing Test in normal conversation.
Somebody should try doing this for... well, anyone famous really. The French government, Silvio Berlusconi, Theo de Raadt, Linus Torvalds... all good targets, I suspect!
I've heard it said various times that the Ubuntu implementation of KDE 4 is not great. My Ubuntu install is too hacked about to provide a very fair comparison but I haven't had great experiences with KDE 4 so far. With Mandriva I've found the KDE 4 desktop, though there were a couple of annoying glitches, to be very professional and slick. I've been using Mandriva 2009.1 but am intending to upgrade to 2010 once it's had a chance to be shaken down a bit by other users - my understanding is that it's shaping up to be another quality release.
I use it occasionally and I like it. I particularly like the graphic improvements in the task list, such as the integrated bar graphs. I used to find that it took too long to appear to really be useful but - for some reason - it's really quite responsive on this system now, so that's better. I used to find it confusing that it resembled the system monitor app so closely and yet I couldn't add sheets to it, etc. It now looks like it's own app, so I think that's an improvement. I suppose it might be nice if there was an option / command to jump me to the full system monitor (or a configurable so that that would appear on Ctrl-Esc instead, I guess).
But generally I think the task manager thingy has improved a lot for KDE4 and I really like it - nice work!
Bizarre! Maybe they've toned down the game there pre-emptively? My understanding was that the classification system for video games there isn't flexible enough to deal with violent content well, so it's possible for stuff to basically integer overflow and crash their classification board;-)
Of course, this might be untrue, I read it on Slashdot!
The article isn't specific on whether the infamous airport scene is being removed because of its portrayal of Russia, or whether it's being censored because it's an unpleasant part of the game. Most other countries have had uproar about this scene and I'd expect to see it refused classification in some places (e.g. in Australia where Left 4 Dead 2 recently encountered problems). A national classification body refusing to allow a game to go on sale does, effectively, constitute the government disapproving of something - but it's a very different situation to central government stepping in and banning something directly for political reasons. Maybe this is happening behind the scenes but the article *doesn't say*.
It's certainly suggested that the Russian gaming public weren't all overjoyed to see the portrayal of their country in the game. That's hardly surprising, though - I expect most gamers from other big markets such as Europe, the US and Japan would also be quite easily offended if their unpleasant past was dredged up. People don't like to think of their country ever being the villains and yet pretty much every country in the world has been villainous in the past, often surprisingly recently.
Russia has a bad history and so does everyone else. I don't see the mainstream video games industry making much effort to portray the negative sides of countries they're based in or where their major markets are. You can use art, including video games, as a critical tool - but if a developer really has an artistic interest in social commentary, rather than just finding convenient stereotypes to build plot around, I'd expect them to be tackling the dirty laundry of other major powers from history. That said, being located in an unstable region with various power plays going on in their vicinity, Russia does make a plausible setting for dramatic military stuff to go down.
Assuming your customers are advertisers, rather than the poor fools who are buying the devices. This is only a patent, not a product, so maybe they won't actually do it. I find it instructive, when looking at a company, to think to yourself "Who are the *real* customers?". The customer is "always" right. If you get a device that behaves like this, you know you're not the real customer and you can't expect to be taken seriously by the company you bought it from.
OK, I guess we know where you stand on the morality of the corporate ladder! If Mr Anonymous Coward ever asks me for a job I'll know what to say. But ignoring the moral dimension consider this - you may say "play by their rules" but that only makes sense if you're on an equal footing. This guy may very well not have the same amount of capital in the bank as his managers to tide himself over, plus he's probably easier to sack and replace, he doesn't have access to as many corporate (dirty?) secrets, etc. If he has dishonest management then he *could* just play by their rules, but part of their rules is probably "underlings get sacked if something goes wrong". Given they are wilfully setting up situations where stuff will probably go wrong and get people sacked, I don't think that's a game you'd want to play.
If his managers are acting in good faith and genuinely don't understand then I guess he needs to respectfully attempt to explain the problem to them.
I'd suggest you try to make sure you have written records that you raised this with your bosses (and preferably of the content of their responses too).
You could do this subtly by, say, raising it via e-mail or memo. If you have to talk to them in person, you can still consider writing an acknowledgement e-mail, along the lines of "Dear , Thank you for the discussion about SOFTWARE LICENSING, on the basis of your instructions I intend to take forward the following actions but understand that the existing software is licensed correctly". Print the e-mail out. That way at least they can't deny that the discussion took place, so if the BSA raid your place you can attempt to demonstrate you tried your best on this issue.
They did get soft indeed, particularly around the Pentium 4 / Itanium era. Actually neither of those seemed to sound obviously bad ideas at the time but they utterly failed to deliver on the promised benefits:-( AIUI the Pentium M processor was actually pretty close to the Pentium III design, which many people seem to have approved of.
At least the stuff learnt from Pentium 4 (arguably even Itanium) systems hasn't been completely lost, since hyperthreading and EFI (for instance) are both seeing use in other products.
It's been really good seeing the Pentium M -> Core -> Core 2 -> Core i7 development, being a kind of return to form for the company. Only trouble is that I *really* don't want them to become so good that they kill off the companies that are keeping them on their toes. I don't want to see them go soft again!
If Intel have abused their market position, it's a shame to see them "get away with it". I suppose if they *hadn't* abused their market position then it would seem a shame that they didn't get their day in court. That said, it seems pretty unlikely to me that any substantially sized company won't have been involved in dubious activity somewhere along the line, even assuming that there was no high-level directive to do this.
In the interests of honesty, I'll note that I have a few reasons for having a pro-Intel bias - but really I think that letting legitimate antitrust complaints lapse would be bad for both companies in the long run (although practical considerations may make it bad business sense for AMD to push the case). Look what's happened to Microsoft - they achieved a monopoly and they really have gone soft and become bureaucratic. If there's a case to answer, the regulators should press ahead, even if AMD needs to concentrate first and foremost on their operation as a business.
I think the offering more goods line is mostly a load of bunk. But lets assume it's true. Do we want more overpriced goods that are fundamentally lower quality because we can't use them in the way we choose within our own homes having paid for them? Or are we happy with fewer goods which actually allow our property to function properly?
We should be able to have a full range of content without reducing the value of other, physical goods that we own. But if we can't have that, I'd personally rather stick with current content offerings and have appliances I buy continue to work for me.
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!
Although these companies are primarily based in the US they have some fairly substantial operations in the EU. I don't imagine that they like the idea of moving those, especially if it involves moving them further from a market that they're trying to sell into. Europe probably would miss Oracle and MySQL but Oracle-Sun would probably miss having a presence in an enormous market and would not welcome the costs of moving parts of their operation into the US or to other places outside the EU.
When they entered the European markets, these companies did so on the understanding that they'd be required to obey European laws. Therefore I don't believe there's anything to criticize that they are now being held up by these laws - they put themselves in the reach of EU jurisdiction in order to profit in the large markets of the Europe Union, now they're living with the consequences. Objecting to the EU's actual reasoning is fair enough but it's not really reasonable to expect that because a company is based in the US it will not encounter different legal situations when it runs significant businesses in other parts of the world.
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.
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.
Slashdot Mirror
I have had the impression that packagers generally don't provide for non-/ installations; my "really ought to support" phrase was intended to include the packagers themselves but I probably should have stated that explicitly, since that's where a chunk of the real problem probably lies.
I actually thought I remembered rpm having an ability to specify a number of allowed locations for install, so that the packager could say where they could cope with it going. I might be making that up, though, or maybe it isn't relevant. I'm also not sure quite how it'll handle permissions - will it degrade gracefully for files that would normally be owned by users or groups that the installing party does not belong to?
My worry with the yum --installroot thing - will that just install the package requested if its dependencies are available elsewhere on the local system? Or is it going to pull in a whole Fedora for me :-(
If the distro provided white-list groups then it could be useful. E.g. the groups "non server apps" "non setuid apps" "server apps" "setuid apps". A cautious admin might whitelist the intersection of the first two, while more laid-back admins could enable them all.
Yes, though I don't think Fedora configures sudo access for users by default unless things have changed? But even if I were right about that, it could at least be set up by the administrator in order to avoid giving out the root password, which is probably still a good thing (though if sudo is configured to allow a user to run any command with it then I'm not sure that protecting root's password is that beneficial?).
The minimum thing I'd want to see *by default* is probably that a user has to type in *a* password, or even just click a UAC-style "yes, really do this privileged thing" through an interface that can't be intercepted by malware. Being able to silently install software would be really useful but only if the system's owner / administrator knows they've allowed for it. Unless, possibly, the packages that a user could install without verification were limited in certain ways (e.g. no setuid apps, can't use more than a certain disk quota)
Very much agreed that package managers really ought to support (by default IMO!) the ability to install to a user's homedir, whether or not that user has the ability to perform a system-wide install. I'm fed up of having to install stuff from source (without dependency management) just because I only want something in ~/.
The policy of allowing certain users to install software, within certain limits, is not crazy. It gives you:
* don't have users typing in the root password all the time
* if you need a codec or viewer plugin, the system can pop up a "Getting a viewer for you" window, rather than a "Can't view this, please install foo, put root password here"
* this is made possible because Linux distros have their own "app store" of approved software, which comes *from the distro* so you know where to get it and you know it's relatively unlikely to be malware. Windows and MacOS can't do this.
The limits included only giving these privileges to the console user, who probably has physical access and can root the machine anyhow, which is also sensible. But it also gives malware the local user might end up running (e.g. due to a Firefox compromise) the ability to install software. That's not necessarily too bad unless it's, for instance, installing vulnerable setuid-root software. So this needs to be thought about carefully before enabling on an individual machine, unless the distro has thought *even harder* about it so you don't have to. It doesn't really seem like the Fedora guys thought about it hard enough, even though it could be a good policy for the future if done right. And I don't think anybody is happy about such a major change in behaviour happening without it being announced and debated very publically.
I hope to see this feature reappearing in a future Fedora release - it's a good feature if they do it right. But they should be *even more* careful about what they permit and they shouldn't make dramatic behaviour changes occurring by default without heavy debate (and if you upgrade from an old version, rather than clean install, it should certainly say "This is a behaviour change, do you want it?" - probably defaulting to no.
The Pirate Smeller Pursuivant?
Worth noting the corollary - (only) console users are susceptible to any malware they happen to get (ab)using the package system. Assuming an absence of malware running under a user account, it makes a good deal of sense to let users with physical access install new packages, in fact it sounds very useful indeed. Thanks for pointing this out as it does make a huge difference that the feature is restricted by default to local users!
Chrome OS is based on technology with strong roots in the 70s, i.e. Unix and C. Moreover, the creators of Unix went on to create a new OS (Plan 9) to solve its problems and, recently, a new programming language (Go). Both Unix and C have been able to remain strong over time and add modern features whilst staying true to their roots and, broadly, retaining compatibility. This is particularly true for Unix, despite some questionable design decisions along the way.
The link you supplied is from the Unix-haters handbook, which basically argues that the entire Unix + X11 stack is a load of rubbish - I think that's a more consistent position than just wanting X replaced. To be honest I've never seen a strong explanation of why it's OK to keep developing Linux and BSD but that X should be ripped out and replaced, other than perhaps that X has languished due to lack of maintenance and management over a long period of time. But I think X.org has shown some reasonable signs of revival and more modern features.
Ironically, recent developments in X.org make replacement servers more viable than they have been before - lots of X.org infrastructure (kernel mode setting, GEM, plus others) have separated a load of the hardware support issues from the windowing system itself. Wayland seems to be the main example at the moment: https://groups.google.com/group/wayland-display-server/web/frequently-askeds-questions
Enlightenment generally seems reckoned to be very nice technology. I've been repeatedly surprised to see Enlightenment popping up in commercial products here and there; Edje-based wallpapers can even be loaded in KDE now. Evidently it's a strong piece of work and it'll be really interesting to see where this sponsorship gets them. It certainly seems an enlightened approach.
Funnily enough she was at the back of my mind when I wrote that ;-)
Most politicians actually only need one or two phrases at a time, so we could probably refactor the code to be more generic!
I used to do this to my friends - when I was at highschool I used to write conversational simulators of people I knew using QBASIC. Throw in a few catchphrases and favourite memes and it is remarkably easy to catch the essence of a conversation with someone you know, especially if they're a geek. If they're rude, it's even easier, since you don't have to have such a coherent conversation. I've known people who wouldn't pass the Turing Test in normal conversation.
Somebody should try doing this for ... well, anyone famous really. The French government, Silvio Berlusconi, Theo de Raadt, Linus Torvalds ... all good targets, I suspect!
I've heard it said various times that the Ubuntu implementation of KDE 4 is not great. My Ubuntu install is too hacked about to provide a very fair comparison but I haven't had great experiences with KDE 4 so far. With Mandriva I've found the KDE 4 desktop, though there were a couple of annoying glitches, to be very professional and slick. I've been using Mandriva 2009.1 but am intending to upgrade to 2010 once it's had a chance to be shaken down a bit by other users - my understanding is that it's shaping up to be another quality release.
I use it occasionally and I like it. I particularly like the graphic improvements in the task list, such as the integrated bar graphs. I used to find that it took too long to appear to really be useful but - for some reason - it's really quite responsive on this system now, so that's better. I used to find it confusing that it resembled the system monitor app so closely and yet I couldn't add sheets to it, etc. It now looks like it's own app, so I think that's an improvement. I suppose it might be nice if there was an option / command to jump me to the full system monitor (or a configurable so that that would appear on Ctrl-Esc instead, I guess).
But generally I think the task manager thingy has improved a lot for KDE4 and I really like it - nice work!
Bizarre! Maybe they've toned down the game there pre-emptively? My understanding was that the classification system for video games there isn't flexible enough to deal with violent content well, so it's possible for stuff to basically integer overflow and crash their classification board ;-)
Of course, this might be untrue, I read it on Slashdot!
The article isn't specific on whether the infamous airport scene is being removed because of its portrayal of Russia, or whether it's being censored because it's an unpleasant part of the game. Most other countries have had uproar about this scene and I'd expect to see it refused classification in some places (e.g. in Australia where Left 4 Dead 2 recently encountered problems). A national classification body refusing to allow a game to go on sale does, effectively, constitute the government disapproving of something - but it's a very different situation to central government stepping in and banning something directly for political reasons. Maybe this is happening behind the scenes but the article *doesn't say*.
It's certainly suggested that the Russian gaming public weren't all overjoyed to see the portrayal of their country in the game. That's hardly surprising, though - I expect most gamers from other big markets such as Europe, the US and Japan would also be quite easily offended if their unpleasant past was dredged up. People don't like to think of their country ever being the villains and yet pretty much every country in the world has been villainous in the past, often surprisingly recently.
Russia has a bad history and so does everyone else. I don't see the mainstream video games industry making much effort to portray the negative sides of countries they're based in or where their major markets are. You can use art, including video games, as a critical tool - but if a developer really has an artistic interest in social commentary, rather than just finding convenient stereotypes to build plot around, I'd expect them to be tackling the dirty laundry of other major powers from history. That said, being located in an unstable region with various power plays going on in their vicinity, Russia does make a plausible setting for dramatic military stuff to go down.
Assuming your customers are advertisers, rather than the poor fools who are buying the devices. This is only a patent, not a product, so maybe they won't actually do it. I find it instructive, when looking at a company, to think to yourself "Who are the *real* customers?". The customer is "always" right. If you get a device that behaves like this, you know you're not the real customer and you can't expect to be taken seriously by the company you bought it from.
OK, I guess we know where you stand on the morality of the corporate ladder! If Mr Anonymous Coward ever asks me for a job I'll know what to say. But ignoring the moral dimension consider this - you may say "play by their rules" but that only makes sense if you're on an equal footing. This guy may very well not have the same amount of capital in the bank as his managers to tide himself over, plus he's probably easier to sack and replace, he doesn't have access to as many corporate (dirty?) secrets, etc. If he has dishonest management then he *could* just play by their rules, but part of their rules is probably "underlings get sacked if something goes wrong". Given they are wilfully setting up situations where stuff will probably go wrong and get people sacked, I don't think that's a game you'd want to play.
If his managers are acting in good faith and genuinely don't understand then I guess he needs to respectfully attempt to explain the problem to them.
I'd suggest you try to make sure you have written records that you raised this with your bosses (and preferably of the content of their responses too).
You could do this subtly by, say, raising it via e-mail or memo. If you have to talk to them in person, you can still consider writing an acknowledgement e-mail, along the lines of "Dear , Thank you for the discussion about SOFTWARE LICENSING, on the basis of your instructions I intend to take forward the following actions but understand that the existing software is licensed correctly". Print the e-mail out. That way at least they can't deny that the discussion took place, so if the BSA raid your place you can attempt to demonstrate you tried your best on this issue.
They did get soft indeed, particularly around the Pentium 4 / Itanium era. Actually neither of those seemed to sound obviously bad ideas at the time but they utterly failed to deliver on the promised benefits :-( AIUI the Pentium M processor was actually pretty close to the Pentium III design, which many people seem to have approved of.
At least the stuff learnt from Pentium 4 (arguably even Itanium) systems hasn't been completely lost, since hyperthreading and EFI (for instance) are both seeing use in other products.
It's been really good seeing the Pentium M -> Core -> Core 2 -> Core i7 development, being a kind of return to form for the company. Only trouble is that I *really* don't want them to become so good that they kill off the companies that are keeping them on their toes. I don't want to see them go soft again!
If Intel have abused their market position, it's a shame to see them "get away with it". I suppose if they *hadn't* abused their market position then it would seem a shame that they didn't get their day in court. That said, it seems pretty unlikely to me that any substantially sized company won't have been involved in dubious activity somewhere along the line, even assuming that there was no high-level directive to do this.
In the interests of honesty, I'll note that I have a few reasons for having a pro-Intel bias - but really I think that letting legitimate antitrust complaints lapse would be bad for both companies in the long run (although practical considerations may make it bad business sense for AMD to push the case). Look what's happened to Microsoft - they achieved a monopoly and they really have gone soft and become bureaucratic. If there's a case to answer, the regulators should press ahead, even if AMD needs to concentrate first and foremost on their operation as a business.
I think the offering more goods line is mostly a load of bunk. But lets assume it's true. Do we want more overpriced goods that are fundamentally lower quality because we can't use them in the way we choose within our own homes having paid for them? Or are we happy with fewer goods which actually allow our property to function properly?
We should be able to have a full range of content without reducing the value of other, physical goods that we own. But if we can't have that, I'd personally rather stick with current content offerings and have appliances I buy continue to work for me.
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!
Although these companies are primarily based in the US they have some fairly substantial operations in the EU. I don't imagine that they like the idea of moving those, especially if it involves moving them further from a market that they're trying to sell into. Europe probably would miss Oracle and MySQL but Oracle-Sun would probably miss having a presence in an enormous market and would not welcome the costs of moving parts of their operation into the US or to other places outside the EU.
When they entered the European markets, these companies did so on the understanding that they'd be required to obey European laws. Therefore I don't believe there's anything to criticize that they are now being held up by these laws - they put themselves in the reach of EU jurisdiction in order to profit in the large markets of the Europe Union, now they're living with the consequences. Objecting to the EU's actual reasoning is fair enough but it's not really reasonable to expect that because a company is based in the US it will not encounter different legal situations when it runs significant businesses in other parts of the world.
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.
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.