Yes, the fact that this situation is a unique EU response not at all similar to the many other mergers does raise some eyebrows. But then, this is a really big merger.
The only big differences I can see: (1) This one is quite big, so undoubtedly there was a little more pressure, and a little more lenience, for the EU to do their own research on this case. (2) MySQL is the european FOSS db, and it basically got hijacked. That's possibly unfortunate but utterly irrelevant to greenlighting a merger, though it may explain further why the EU originally chose to do extra research on this one - sentimental reasons are used all the time in politics. (3) Larry Ellison is being a petulant child. It's that 3rd one that's making this go on and on, I think. The EU still hasn't received a suitable response to their request, and the EU is apparently of a mind to keep blocking this deal until Oracle responds appropriately. Possibly Oracle is in the right here, but I don't think a CEO should respond the same way a 6 year old would in this situation. The fact that a political institution wants its ego stroked is up there with 'water is wet', 'sky is blue'. NB: This post written with the presumption that the EU is being unreasonable. I haven't witnessed the paperwork on any other big mergers so I have no idea if the EU's demands are reasonable or not. On Nov 11, 9:47 am, Fabrizio Giudici <[email protected]> wrote: > Reinier Zwitserloot wrote: > > So, the fact that the US rubberstamped this deal means the EU is > > somehow at fault for doing some more thorough research before giving > > the green light? > > > I reiterate what I've been saying in other threads as well: Trusting > > US financial decisions has cost the EU a couple trillion. Expecting > > them to blindly follow suit is ludicrous. > > Unfortunately the discussion hasn't moved from a mere trust attribution > on the US / EU politics. I only re-state my point: the EU is not forced > to rubberstamp US decisions, but: > > 1. As I said, since 2001 this is only the second time the two boards > have different views. > 2. Since there are many decisions per year, the Sun/Oracle deal is also > the only disagreement point after the financial crisis (just in case it > was a relevant point, which I don't agree, but it's another story). If > you call that rubberstamping, well it sounds that it goes and will go > on, with the only exception of Oracle. > 3. The EU has got to explain *why* their vision is different. So far > I've only read that there are concerns, but as a citizen who pays taxes > I want to see a clear explanation of their concerns, and why they think > they disagree with US. I don't know if the lack of this information is > due to EU or to newspaper, but it's a fault by somebody. For instance, > there's a new communication by the DoJ that - among other things - says > that they're not concerned also because MySQL is not the only FLOSS > database (in fact there's at least Postgres). Now I'd like to see EU > explaining why they don't think it's enough. > > -- > Fabrizio Giudici - Java Architect, Project Manager > Tidalwave s.a.s. - "We make Java work. Everywhere." > weblogs.java.net/blog/fabriziogiudici -www.tidalwave.it/people > [email protected] --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
