A recent pitch from the folks opposing Oracle’s ownership of MySQL via acquisition of Sun Microsystems got me thinking. The plea, ‘Oracle can have Sun, but not MySQL’ may make sense to some, but to me it speaks to the irony of closing out Oracle or any company or anyone from open source. Upon further reflection and given 2010 is off to a roaring pace of M&A, I also began to wonder what the impact of the ‘Save MySQL’ campaign could be on open source in M&A, particularly if it was to successfully derail the acquisition or somehow decouple MySQL from Sun under Oracle?

What would it mean to carve out the open source projects, components, teams and support from companies involved in mergers and acquisitions over …

Eben Moglen says EC case against Oracle-Sun is flawed. The value of open source. And more.

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“Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have to.”

For the latest on Oracle’s acquisition of MySQL via Sun, see Everything you always wanted to know about MySQL but were afraid to ask

# Eben Moglen told the EC he does not see threat to competition from Oracle-Sun, says EC’s objections are flawed. A statement from the SFLC is …

Peter Fenton’s open source investment tips. Boxee raises $6m. And more.

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“Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have to.”

*451 CAOS Links will return on August 25*

Digesting the VMware-SpringSource deal
In the wake of VMware’s acquisition of SpringSource the WSJ examined Peter Fenton’s open source investment portfolio and what he looks for in an open source vendor. Meanwhile Matt Asay noted that VMware’s purchase of SpringSource is the first big acquisition of a company based on an Apache license, while Charles Babcock reported …

Microsoft makes a patent promise. JBoss is certifiable. And more.

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“Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have to.”

# Microsoft announced that it will be applying its Community Promise to the ECMA 334 (C#) and ECMA 335 (CLI) specifications, reducing patent concerns related to Mono.

# Red Hat achieved EAL 2+ security certification for JBoss Enterprise Application Platform.

# A European Commission white paper on standards stirred some controversy with regards to open source. …

My CAOS colleague Matt Aslett wrote recently about how we expect to see an uptick in open source merger and acquisition activity given the current economic conditions and bargains for the larger, mostly proprietary players. Matt also discusses the difficulty of further VC funding, though we have seen some significant investment announcements, such as Open-Xchange, Infobright and others. Still, Matt is probably right that funding will be harder to come by for any company, open source or not.

I also continue to see a number of startup and younger open source vendors — would-be fundees — that are opting to hold off on venture funding and stick to building up business, customers and …

Continued from Part 2

Q: So what are some applications or prototypes you are actually working on? Which do you see as the most interesting ones? Can I do something useful with this today already?

In general, what I find most interesting are the use-cases that utilize the aspects that make a web-server on a mobile personal device unique. Use-cases that take advantage of the fact that the context - location, surrounding devices and people, etc. - constantly changes, and the fact that the web-site "administrator" is always there.

And I get all worked up when I think on the implications - even if I obviously don't know what they all might be - if all mobile phones were equipped with a globally accessible web-server (I ignore all technical challenges). For instance, we already have an implementation of …

Continued from Part 2

Q: So what are some applications or prototypes you are actually working on? Which do you see as the most interesting ones? Can I do something useful with this today already?

In general, what I find most interesting are the use-cases that utilize the aspects that make a web-server on a mobile personal device unique. Use-cases that take advantage of the fact that the context - location, surrounding devices and people, etc. - constantly changes, and the fact that the web-site "administrator" is always there.

And I get all worked up when I think on the implications - even if I obviously don't know what they all might be - if all mobile phones were equipped with a globally accessible web-server (I ignore all technical challenges). For instance, we already have an implementation of …

Continued from Part 2

Q: So what are some applications or prototypes you are actually working on? Which do you see as the most interesting ones? Can I do something useful with this today already?

In general, what I find most interesting are the use-cases that utilize the aspects that make a web-server on a mobile personal device unique. Use-cases that take advantage of the fact that the context - location, surrounding devices and people, etc. - constantly changes, and the fact that the web-site "administrator" is always there.

And I get all worked up when I think on the implications - even if I obviously don't know what they all might be - if all mobile phones were equipped with a globally accessible web-server (I ignore all technical challenges). For instance, we already have an implementation of …

Continued from Part 1

Q: But, we digress... so let me instead ask you the question everyone asks me when they hear about Apache and MySQL on a mobile phone: Why on earth would anyone want to do THAT?

Because we can:)

No seriously, there are good reasons. If we assume that it makes sense to run a web server on your mobile (see further down for reasons for that) and the web-server you use is Apache, then it's quite obvious that you also want to provide both PHP and MySQL. After all, some 40% of all web-sites in the world are powered by (L)AMP, so if you provide the same environment on the mobile, you have hundreds of thousands of developers who are familiar with the stack.

But, in my mind, there are also compelling reasons to have a proper database on the mobile. Currently, the way …

Continued from Part 1

Q: But, we digress... so let me instead ask you the question everyone asks me when they hear about Apache and MySQL on a mobile phone: Why on earth would anyone want to do THAT?

Because we can:)

No seriously, there are good reasons. If we assume that it makes sense to run a web server on your mobile (see further down for reasons for that) and the web-server you use is Apache, then it's quite obvious that you also want to provide both PHP and MySQL. After all, some 40% of all web-sites in the world are powered by (L)AMP, so if you provide the same environment on the mobile, you have hundreds of thousands of developers who are familiar with the stack.

But, in my mind, there are also compelling reasons to have a proper database on the mobile. Currently, the way …