I get the sincere vibe this is a big pissing contest. Past US administrations have basically screwed with the spirit of the international trading laws (though of course steering generally clear of actually breaking the letter of them), whereas the EU, hasn't.
Think of it as a prisoners dilemma; the US has a tendency to take the 'rat the other out' position, and the EU tends to do the other thing. As you may know, the 'right' strategy in prisoner's dilemma is to be nice on the first round, and to reciprocate on all future rounds. The EU is finally reciprocating. Bad timing, of course - the administration just switched so now they're just setting a stupid precedent. Then again, Obama isn't moving out of wars as fast as the EU had hoped, and Obama tends to stick his nose into local EU affairs which has rubbed off a few points of his otherwise impeccable EU support. Some of the crud the US has pulled in the EU in recent years: - Drag half the countries here into a silly war based on what europeans widely perceive as gross incompetence or possibly knowingly fabricated evidence. The war is not very popular anymore in the US, but that's nothing compared to the opposition here. - Turning the entire nation of Ireland into a lobbyist mouthpiece for US interest. - Killing iceland, economically. Okay, not EU, and iceland is partly to blame too, but, it was a hit very close to home, and iceland has been in talks to join the EU for a long time. - By letting S&P and Moody's run rampant, and (very much the EU's own fault), believing their credit ratings were correct instead of what they actually were (utter fabrications, driven by a combination of incompetence and a conflict of interest, in that the people who benefit from a high credit rating pay for the research. Of course that's going to fall on its ass) - the EU got stuck holding far more of this economic crisis' bill than the US, even though the US 'started it', so to speak. Essentially, the EU is blaming the US for this crisis. I blame the EU just as much for trusting the US economic house of cards, but this is not a popular viewpoint. - turning EU-owned airplanes around midair for frivolous terrorism security theater. - many more things that smack of bullying. Only recently, probably kindled by the crisis, has this 'why are we letting the US walk over us without reciprocating some of the pain' theme been coming up in discussions around the EU. If you need proof that there really is quite a pissing contest going on, consider Chicago 2016. The EU has more members in the Olympic Committee than any other continent. I realized too late, but I would have bet a decent amount of dosh on Chicago getting canned in the first round at the bookies. As an additional factor, Neelie Kroes, currently European Commissioner of Competition, is _very_ popular, having charged companies that generally deserved it for billions in fines, including many US companies (such as microsoft). Long story short: If I had to give my advice to snorcle, I would say that without divesting MySQL or making some other big expensive gesture, the deal will be put on hold as long as the EU can manage to do so. Alternatively, get the administration involved so a political trade can be made - some sort of gesture from the US in exchange for leniency on US financial interests, such as the snorcle deal. Some fairly important footnotes: - I live and was born in the EU, though as I've lived in the US for a while too, I take an interest in across-the-pond politics and news. - I don't necessarily believe all of what I just wrote - I'm writing down the consensus perception within the EU, as far as I know it. As these things usually are, it's really way more complicated than this. I also think that The Sun/Oracle deal, even with MySQL, is fine. Between postgres and the untouchable open source base of MySQL, there's really no anti-competitive issue here. Morally speaking it is not right to hold back this deal just to reciprocate US bullying, but practically speaking we've been taking the high road for a looong time and the US never seems to grow up, so I can see why nobody really wants to stick their neck out _for_ the US and apply pressure to let this deal move forward. - If I said something that's disagreeable, please consider that this post is intended merely as useful background information on the political machinations between the US and the EU, from the EU perspective. I'm sure I've overstated some concerns and skipped many more - as I said, it's complicated. On Oct 10, 6:19 pm, Casper Bang <[email protected]> wrote: > From what I've seen in the blogosphere, the critique is mostly coming > from from stakeholders and I imagine that includes Mårten as a > shareholder from the Sun deal! So I think we should let the EU resolve > this on their own, MySQL and Oracle XE are similar enough to warrant > concern for many. It's no different than what Microsoft is subjected > to. > > /Casper > > On 10 Okt., 17:13, TorNorbye <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > On Oct 10, 2:38 am, Phil <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > That said, I think the EU investigation should be resolved by Oracle > > > agreeing to divest itself of MySQL... > > > Did you see what former MySQL CEO Mårten Mickos wrote? > > >http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10370162-16.html > > > -- Tor --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
