Another look at a bad EU deal; software patents revisited; Microsoft's copyright violations remembered

European regulators have given Oracle the tentative green light in its long-delayed merger with Sun Microsystems now that Oracle has assuaged concerns about the stewardship of the open source MySQL database.

Microsoft Corp. ended more than a decade of antitrust disputes with the European Union by giving consumers a choice among Web browsers.

Free Software Foundation Europe congratulates the European Commission on pushing Microsoft to give users greater choice between different browsers. "The selection screen will make users aware that they can make their own choices," says Karsten Gerloff, FSFE's President. "We are glad that FSFE has helped the Commission to put limits to Microsoft's desktop monopoly."

The Microsoft-stuffed European Commission is caving in to Microsoft and the threat of software patents in Europe grows

Another voice heard on the European Commission's objection to Oracle's purchase of Sun Microsystems. This time, Eben Moglen has weighed in with an analysis of the objections related to the GNU General Public License version 2 (GPLv2). Moglen disagrees with the commission, and says that the GPLv2 is sufficient to protect the MySQL community apart from Oracle.

Last week I wrote about the curious case of Mr Kallas, vice president of the European Commission. He seemed to have problems with the word “open”, imagining that this meant “unprotected”, judging by his comment

European regulators extended their review of Oracle Corp's (ORCL.O) proposed $7-billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems Inc (JAVA.O), giving the software maker more time to address anti-competitive concerns.