Software Freedom Law Center Chairman to Testify at Oracle/Sun Hearing
December 11, 2009
New York, NY (12/11/09): Eben Moglen, the founder and executive director of the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), will assure European Regulators today, that the open source license under which MySQL is distributed can protect the program from any proprietary threats that could emerge from the merger of Oracle and Sun Microsystems.
Moglen, the leading expert on the law of free software, will present his opinion on the stalled merger at the closed-door European Commission (EC) hearing in Belgium. Though Moglen’s testimony will not be made public, he plans to argue that Oracle’s ownership of the MySQL copyright will not threaten the freedom to access, modify, and distribute the program’s source code under the terms of the GNU General Public License Version 2 (GPLv2). “The GPL was designed to prevent the very type of scenario the Commission is currently reviewing,” Moglen said, summarizing his testimony shortly before he was scheduled to appear. “It was designed to level all barriers to competitive entry, including the purchase of copyright by a potentially hostile hand. If the GPL couldn’t ensure the freedom of the MySQL’s code-base now, then it never would have worked in the past.”
Moglen was invited to testify after submitting a letter to the Commission earlier this month that addressed certain concerns about Oracle’s acquisition of MySQL in the Statement of Objections the EC issued on November 9.
To read a draft of the SFLC’s letter to the Commission, please visit the following link on our website: http://www.softwarefreedom.org/news/2009/dec/04/software-freedom-law-center-submits-opinion-oracle/
For further information, contact Lysandra Ohrstrom, SFLC communications director, at (212) 461-1915 or by e-mail at lohrstrom@softwarefreedom.org.