September 8th, 2009
Europe can stick a fork where its mouth is
My Italian friend Roberto Galoppini has a post up describing the complaints of European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes regarding the Oracle-Sun merger.
He offers this quote from her:
Databases are a key element of company IT systems. In the current economic context, all companies are looking for cost-effective IT solutions, and systems based on open-source software are increasingly emerging as viable alternatives to proprietary solutions. The Commission has to ensure that such alternatives would continue to be available.
Roberto suggests a public tender. My Eurocratic is as bad as my Italian (so I may be saying much the same thing) but if Europe really feels a need to protect competition through mySQL, why not just stick a fork in it? (England’s iCoste sells this lovely fork from Dobbies for 18 pounds, or roughly 21 Euros. Plus VAT.)
Either establish a foundation, or designate an existing one, based on something like Apache or Eclipse. Take a copy of the mySQL code — which lives under the GPL — and place it under the foundation.
You can probably make acceptance of foundation a condition for approving the merger. Oracle could sign easily because they are not really giving anything away.
The foundation might start work by creating documentation for the program in every European language. You can establish forges in every language as well, and use input from those groups to direct code enhancements.
You collect donations and other forms of support just like a U.S. foundation. You choose other important code bases to complete your stack.
The difference between proprietary and open source competition is that you have to use the force of the law to guarantee control in a proprietary market.
In an open source investment you just invest.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 09/08/09
