OStatic

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.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that IBM is currently in talks to purchase Sun Microsystems. The acquisition is not a foregone conclusion, due in part to the very different corporate cultures in the companies. Some believe this tension will ultimately help both companies succeed, if they can just get through the talks.

The acquisition could take place as early as this week, and it is speculated that IBM could pay over $6.5 billion for Sun. Sun's recent financials have been more than a little disappointing, and this purchase would take a toll on IBM's profits in the short term. Business isn't solely about the short term, however, and I can't help but agree with the WSJ, CNet's Matt Asay, and at least a few of those involved in the talks that this acquisition would be a positive one for IBM, Sun, and open source in general.

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:

Yesterday Computerworld reported that MySQL cofounder and lead engineer David Axmark has resigned from Sun Microsystems. Axmark indicated that he felt he would be better off in smaller organizations and working with MySQL and Sun on a less formal basis.

Axmark's involvement with MySQL has included heading the engineering, internal IT, and community relations efforts of the project. Since January, when Sun purchased MySQL, Axmark has been working mostly with the press and in community relations.

A recent interview with Sun's Jonathan Schwartz and Rich Green (published yesterday in eWeek) makes for fascinating reading, especially in conjunction with the dustup over Sun's announcement that some MySQL enhancements will not be open-sourced.

Understanding how Sun views open source goes a long way toward explaining what's going on, and telegraphing its future strategy.

For many years, MySQL has been the best-known open-source relational database. Sun bought it and the company earlier this year, leading many to wonder what the business strategy would be. This week, the CEO of MySQL revealed part of that strategy -- the introduction of proprietary add-ons that will only be distributed to commercial customers.

Reaction in the open-source world has been quite negative. What does this shift mean for MySQL?

In a move designed to make MySQL enterprise friendly, give prospective IT hardware buyers more reasons to consider Sun and further fuel Microsoft's Open Source heartburn, Sun announced today it is acquiring MySQL AB for $1 billion in cash and debt.