OStatic

Here we are in mid-September, and it's hard to believe that Oracle announced its plan to acquire Sun Microsystems all the way back in April, but the deal still hasn't gone through. While the U.S. Department of Justice quickly cleared the deal, the European Commission is continuing a drawn out investigation into it, and has expressed concerns about the fate of open source database MySQL.? As we noted when the proposed acquisition was first announced, it does raise many valid questions about MySQL's future. That said, though, I have to agree with Matt Asay that the EU's extended? obstruction of the deal threatens to send MySQL's customers to IBM and other competitors while doing little to no good for MySQL. This week, there is evidence of even more confusion and possibly dire consequences for MySQL.

According to the New York Times and Bloomberg, IBM's purchase of Sun Microsystems is imminent. The official announcement and terms of the acquisition will most likely be made public on Monday, but a late in the day announcement hasn't been ruled out. It's estimated that the purchase will cost IBM nearly $7 billion.

There's been much speculation and discussion both here at OStatic and elsewhere about what this means for Sun and its open source projects.

Bob Evans calls out Oracle's ridiculous pricing model over on InformationWeek, but strangely overlooks the pressure from open source.

In Evans' open letter to Larry Ellison, he pleads for Oracle to start negotiating with its customers: