On the eve of the Oracle/Sun EU hearing

Starting tomorrow there will be a hearing about the Oracle/Sun merger. Reuters reports in “Microsoft at EU hearing on Oracle/Sun deal: sources”:

"The Commission has Microsoft, SAP and Monti Widenius and not one customer. Oracle will have eight customers supporting its position at the hearing," one of the people told Reuters.

According to this report, Eben Moglen will be at the hearing, too. Meanwhile PJ of Grooklaw summarizes the situation in her article “Monty Program AB’s Suggestion to EU Commission to Get Rid of the GPL on MySQL - Updated”:

So, that should tell us what this Monty opposition is about. I don't view it as protecting Open Source. Clearly it's not about protecting the GPL'd version of MySQL. Let's be clear about that. It has to do with making money from Open Source code, but by forcing it to go proprietary, open core, in effect. A cunning plan, to use the EU Commission to accomplish such a goal. That's their dream, as I see it. Is it yours? It surely isn't mine.

This is pretty much in line with my opinion about Mr. Widenius intentions i’ve expressed in “Can’t stand it any longer …”. Right in front of this hearing the spin doctoring starts. One example is this comment from IBMs
Steve Mills in “Rival dismisses Oracle/Sun antitrust issues”:

Oracle’s proposed acquisition of Sun Microsystems did not raise any significant antitrust issues and was likely to close soon in spite of objections raised in Brussels, according to Steve Mills, head of IBM’s software division and one of Oracle’s biggest rivals.

and

“MySQL comes in at the bottom of the market. There is a lot of ‘freeware’ out there today.”

The reaction of Mr. Widenius hired PR gun is at least interesting:

“They would like MySQL to be confined and lose relevance because they, too, feel competitive pressure from it,” Florian Mueller, acting for Mr Widenius, said.

WTF? Well, i don’t know if Mr. Widenius and Mr. Müller are just paranoid or should opt for the anonymous megalomaniacs. Just because people aren’t your opinion, there aren’t necessarily after you. Sorry … i don’t have any sympathy for this behaviour. Together with the disgusting behaviour in the direction of Eben Moglen this gives an interesting picture.