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Monty launches frantic 'save MySQL' web campaign

Tens of supporters sign 'anti-Oracle' petition so far

In a desperate last gasp bid to stop Oracle buying Sun Microsystems and its precious MySQL kit and kaboodle, the database's co-creator - Michael ‘Monty’ Widenius - has launched a campaign to "help keep the internet free."

As we reported earlier this month, the European Commission welcomed a series of promises made by Oracle about the future of the MySQL database, all of which signalled that the company's planned $7bn takeover of Sun Microsystems may now get the all-clear from regulators in the New Year.

However, Monty has complained long and hard about the prospect of Oracle scooping up his beloved MySQL, even though the famed developer walked away from it for good in February, thereby leaving the database's ultimate fate in the hands of Sun.

"Oracle can have Sun but not MySQL", proclaims the tagline on Monty's multi-language "Save MySQL" website.

His campaign claims that Oracle would have far too much control over an open source database and said that other OSS vendors would be unable to compete effectively in such a market.

"It's not in the internet users interest that one key piece of the net would be owned by an entity that has more to gain by severely limiting and in the long run even killing it as an open source product than by keeping it alive," Monty wrote on his blog yesterday.

"If Oracle were allowed to acquire MySQL, we would be looking at less competition among databases, which will mean higher licence and support prices. In the end it's always the consumers and the small businesses that have to pay the bills, in this case to Oracle."

Monty claimed that his efforts to "save MySQL" had already garnered plenty of support among the open source community.

"The blog got hit by more than 60,000 users and we where [sic] able to generate an approximate number of 10,000 emails to the EC. New answers are still coming in. Of the answers 0.7 per cent says 'I trust Oracle'. The rest 99.3 per cent says that they don't trust that Oracle would be [a] good owner of MySQL," he said.

Sadly for Monty, the web campaign isn't exactly pulling in the crowds right now, however. At time of writing, just 86 people had signed the "Save MySQL" petition 24 hours since it was launched. ®

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