I see some of your point Martin but I think the eu would look at that letter and see the author is stating 'MySQL has been used as a pricing lever'. That single factor should be enough for them to be very concerned by an acquisition as removing an effective pricing lever from the market by acquisition is anti-competitive and helps increase or maintain high prices.
I don't believe you could use any other open source database as a pricing lever in the same way because none are as mature or offer the levels of support that MySQL does and no other open source system can boast the performance benefits (especially with ndbcluster) or the availability of suitably trained and certified people to support their products. Regards John -----Original Message----- From: Martijn Tonies <m.ton...@upscene.com> Sent: 17 December 2009 09:44 To: mysql@lists.mysql.com Subject: Re: Help saving MySQL >I think that letter actually does MySQL a favour as it points out > >'MySQL has been used as a pricing lever by Oracle customers' > >That single factor says Oracle should not be allowed to control MySQL as it >>would enable Oracle to more >easily raise or maintain high prices! For >>something to be an effective 'pricing lever' it has to be a viable > >>alternative. MySQL is a very effective pricing lever on Oracle as it is a >>mature and proven product with >excellent support. I have to disagree with you there as the letter also mentions that MySQL isn't a viable alternative, or actually, Oracle shouldn't have been used for those projects in the first place. Give a number of other open source database systems, that particular point (MySQL) to drive the license price for Oracle down, is moot because you could use any other freely available DBMS (even for commercial projects!) to do the same. >> > Please visit >> > http://monty-says.blogspot.com/2009/12/help-saving-mysql.html >> > and write a message to EC! >> Guess you don't want them to write letters like this? >> http://kirkwylie.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-open-letter-to-european-competition.html With regards, Martijn Tonies Upscene Productions http://www.upscene.com Download Database Workbench for Oracle, MS SQL Server, Sybase SQL Anywhere, MySQL, InterBase, NexusDB and Firebird! Database questions? Check the forum: http://www.databasedevelopmentforum.com -- MySQL General Mailing List For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql To unsubscribe: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql?unsub=john.dais...@butterflysystems.co.uk _____________________________________________________________________ This e-mail has been scanned for viruses by MessageLabs. -- MySQL General Mailing List For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql To unsubscribe: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql?unsub=arch...@jab.org
