European Commission objects to Sun Oracle merger

The European Commission has expressed their objections about the Sun acquisition by Oracle. Sun notified the SEC with an 8K filing available at EDGAR It’s based on the opinion, that the purchase of Mysql would harm the database market. I’ve already expressed my strong feeling, that this is utter nonsense. I think it’s unnecessary to repeat it. I don’t have any understanding for this decision, as it doesn’t help competition and customers. In my opinion, it just helps some interested parties. Oracle answered with a press release to the filing of the objections:

The Commission's Statement of Objections reveals a profound misunderstanding of both database competition and open source dynamics. It is well understood by those knowledgeable about open source software that because MySQL is open source, it cannot be controlled by anyone. That is the whole point of open source.

Even the Department of Justice issued a press release regarding this EC decision:

"Several factors led the Division to conclude that the proposed transaction is unlikely to be anticompetitive. There are many open-source and proprietary database competitors. The Division concluded, based on the specific facts at issue in the transaction, that consumer harm is unlikely because customers would continue to have choices from a variety of well established and widely accepted database products. The Department also concluded that there is a large community of developers and users of Sun's open source database with significant expertise in maintaining and improving the software, and who could support a derivative version of it.

However the cards are on the table now and the EC should tell Oracle and Sun, what they want to solve those objections. So it’s a good that they filed the objections now and not at the last possible moment.