FYI: Monty says: Help saving MySQL
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Florian Mueller <florian [ dot ] mueller [ dot ] de82319 [ at ] googlemail [ dot ] com>
Date: Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 5:30 AM
Subject: Open war: MySQL community vs. Oracle/Sun's mobilization campaign
To: dimitris [ at ] glezos [ dot ] com
I'd like to give you an update on dramatic developments in the tug-of-war
over the Oracle/Sun merger. Monty, MySQL's creator and founder, has made an
urgent call on the open source community to send emails to the European
Commission concerning the proposed takeover of Sun's MySQL by Oracle.
I'm not allowed to talk about the Oracle/Sun hearing that took place in
Brussels on Thursday and Friday. What I can say about the case in general is
that in my view the facts are just the same they've been all along. But as
Oracle's lawyer even stated in public, they believe now that Europe will
change mind due to messages from big customers in favor of the transaction.
It's just that Oracle mobilized customers to write letters to the Commission
and basically dictated the content by telephone. Based on what we heard from
at least one such customer, Oracle apparently tried to particularly appeal
to customers who also use Java and/or Sun hardware, and Oracle basically
tried to capitalize on customer concerns about Sun's overall future in case
the deal falls through, while the European Commission's concerns are only
about MySQL, not about the rest of Sun. Monty just wants a solution for
MySQL (the simplest and most effective one would be for Oracle to commit to
sell MySQL to a suitable third party).
In light of this aggressive campaigning by Oracle, Monty made the following
call on the open source community a few hours ago:
http://monty-says.blogspot.com/2009/12/help-saving-mysql.html
There is already some initial Internet momentum even though it's the middle
of the night in Europe:
http://bit.ly/info/66vFwm
(That's just some statistics from the bit.ly URL shortener, which is popular
but not the only one that people use. Apparently people have already begun
sharing it via Twitter etc.)
I want to stress that this was Monty's personal decision and it's easy to
see the difference between Monty's writing style and mine. I continue to
believe Oracle should, in the first place, never have started with
customer-related campaigning around a regulatory process. I think a case
like this should be decided entirely on its merits, not on the basis of
mobilization, and I told that view to the Commission a couple of days
ago. *However,
I can absolutely understand* that Monty took this decision because he's just
too afraid that in the end some letters orchestrated by Oracle could make a
difference at a decisive point in time. If the open source community
understands it, it can probably generate far more messages to the Commission
than Oracle has achieved.
A few years ago I ran a campaign against software patents that repeatedly
called on companies and the open source community to write letters/emails.
But that was a legislative process in the European Parliament. I don't think
Oracle should have done something like that in connection with merger
control, which is supposed to be a purely facts-based regulatory process.
But they did, and now Monty hopes the open source community will show them
how strong it is, how fast it can mobilize people and how this community
stands together.
Further below please find an example of an email that Oracle sent to
customers a few weeks ago, asking to set up a conference call with someone
in their US headquarters to discuss the acquisition of Sun. When people
accepted those invitations to conference calls, Oracle then made all sorts
of promises (neither legally binding nor truly useful) as to what they would
do after the acquisition and once the customer reacted favorably, they then
asked the customer to write a letter to the Commission to request immediate
approval of the takeover. The email below was given to me by one such
customer and of course I have meanwhile provided it to the European
Commission in order to prove that this isn't an independent outpouring of
customer support: it's simply an Oracle campaign. The email below is in
German because that is the only language in which I have obtained it so far,
but there's every indication that Oracle did this throughout Europe, not
only in Germany.
Florian
florian [ dot ] mueller [ dot ] de82319 [ at ] gmail [ dot ] com
+49-171-2632226
------------------------------
*Von:* [[NAME OF ORACLE SALES DIRECTOR REMOVED]] [[email address:
FIRST_NAME.LAST_NAME at oracle.com]]
*Gesendet:* Montag, 23. November 2009 [[TIME REMOVED]]
*An:* [[NAME OF CUSTOMER CONTACT PERSON REMOVED]]
*Cc:* [[NAME OF ORACLE ACCOUNT MANAGER REMOVED]]
*Betreff:* Terminanfrage - Gespräch zum Thema Oracle und SUN
Sehr geehrter Herr [[CUSTOMER LAST NAME REMOVED]],
unserem Unternehmen ist sehr daran gelegen, die Einstellung unserer
wichtigen Kunden zur SUN Akquisition zu verstehen. Gerne möchten wir Ihre
Sicht zu dieser Transaktion kennenlernen.
Deswegen bittet Sie Herr Joakim Johansson - Director Corporate Development -
aus unserem Headquarter in Redwood Shores um ein kurzes Telefonat von 10 bis
15 Minuten.
Wir würden uns sehr freuen, wenn Sie für dieses Gespräch zur Verfügung
stehen und uns einige Terminvorschläge für ein Telefonat - vorzugsweise
nachmittags - nennen könnten.
[[NAME OF ACCOUNT MANAGER REMOVED]], Account Manager für [[CUSTOMER COMPANY
NAME REMOVED]] wird gerne die weitere Koordination übernehmen.
Wir freuen uns auf Ihre Antwort.
Vielen Dank und beste Grüße
[[ORACLE SALES DIRECTOR NAME REMOVED]]
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