Florian Mueller began 2010 by demonstrating why he was named EU Campaigner of the Year by the Economist magazine five years ago. While most of us were prepping for New Year's Eve celebrations or contemplating New Year's resolutions, Mueller and MySQL co-founder and creator Michael "Monty" Widenius spent Dec. 28 launching an online Save MySQL petition against the Oracle acquisition of MySQL via Sun. Mueller reports via e-mail:

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There's a campaign started by Monty Widenius to save MySQL from the evil clutches of Oracle. You can read about it here.

http://helpmysql.org

I just came across several blog posts regarding the Oracle/Sun/MySQL war, including this one. There are a lot of interesting clarifications and opinions, but I want to highlight this comment from MySQL's founder Monty about Mårten Mickos which is worth reading. One excerpt:

That could however explain why he [Mårten] is now so eager to help Oracle buy MySQL and even represented Oracle at the EC hearing.

MySQL's former CEO representing Oracle in the EC hearing? Is it because Mårten converted to the dark side of the planet or is it because he believes MySQL will have a great future under Oracle's umbrella? Or has it to do with stock options as Monty's …

Lots of people writing about Snorkle again today ,Monty Says, help saving MySQL

He gives us different options, a , b or c .. but I , and some others, want an option d

No I don't trust Oracle, it's not like they have been a very good Open Source Citizen, yes they contribute to the kernel and other projects but my feeling says it's only because they have to (Kernel, Xen and others ) not because they Want to (thinking about Unfakable etc) , if they would really want to they probably would work with the CentOS community more etc, and as Monty mentions their InnoDB track record could be better.

But on the other hand I don't think the EU should block the deal because Monty wants his baby back , cheap , as honestly imvho that's what they really want, be able to buy MySQL back for a nice price, either beceause Oracle is being forced by the …

First of all, I want to link to a blog article written by the founder of MySQL to help MySQL being rescued - everybody can stand up and tell the European Commision why the Oracle/Sun deal threatens MySQL. Second, due to a personal request, I want to make clear that this posting reflects my personal opinion of the case.

Third, I have been thinking about the markets both database systems address and why MySQL really competes to Oracle in one way or another. There are several voices who claimed that MySQL is not a competitor to Oracle, but if you know "Project Peter", Sun (the current owner of the trademark MySQL and its source code) targets Oracle customers in order to convince them migrating to MySQL.

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Last week Eben Moglen, founder and executive director of the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), submitted an independent opinion on the Oracle/Sun merger to the European Union (EU). Moglen summarized his submission as follows:

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I’ve just published an article that explains how a PHP-based product can gain a good position in the market and be made appealing to customers by using marketing communication. The focus is on products licensed under an Open Source license. Yet, most of the recommendations also apply to proprietary offerings.

The article has initially been published in German by PHPmagazin. It has now been translated to English and is available on the Initmarketing website: Commercialization of PHP Software.

When I talked with journalists, lawyers and analysts about the Oracle/Sun merger case questions were raised about the possibility to fork MySQL and that everybody who is not satisfied with Oracle's future way regarding MySQL could do this. I don't agree with that and I think it's best to put Monty's own words (found in a comment in his blog) here because I can't explain it better:

In addition, the MySQL trademark is so strong that it's hard to impossible for a fork to attract enough attention to be able to compete in a meaningful manner if MySQL would be owned by a vendor that refuses to cooperate and works against the fork.

These are tough days in the case of the Oracle/MySQL decision the EU faces. First of all, the lobbyists of Oracle achieved that the decision deadline will be extended from January, 19th to January, 27th 2010. Secondly, Monty recommended that a license change from GPL to BSD would be a great idea for MySQL's future.

Today, Johann pointed me to a document called "Project Peter" which can be found at wikileaks.org (download PDF from wikileaks.org server in Sweden). It's a presentation of MySQL's Robin Schumacher. You may ask "What is Project Peter?". The presentation says:

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I find it amazing that the U.S. Department of Justice can continue to cover its eyes and ears while Microsoft is allowed to exert its monopolistic power over all hardware manufacturers.

About 20 months ago, I was able to purchase a Lenovo Thinkpad T61 from the lenovo.com website without an operating system installed. Today, I went to purchase a new Lenovo Thinkpad laptop, again without having to pay the Windows Tax. Turns out Lenovo has stopped offering this option. What a complete PILE OF SHIT. Somebody in Microsoft’s “Business Development” or “Partners” team must have told Lenovo to stop offering its customers a simple choice of not having to pay the OEM license fees for Windows. And there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Microsoft is just too big and too pervasive for anybody to have a damn effect on them.

Frankly, it’s anti-choice, anti-competition, …