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.

In order to appease European regulators, Oracle has made a number of commitments to the future of MySQL. According to a statement overnight (Australian time), Oracle has made a number of public commitments regarding MySQL in order to ease the concerns of European Union regulators investigating the proposed Oracle – Sun merger.

Oracle has announced it is purchasing Sun Microsystems for just over $7 billion. The official word from Oracle is that the purchase gives it two key assets - Java and Solaris - but open sourcerers will understandably be more interested in MySQL and OpenOffice.org.

According to the Wall Street Journal's All Things Digital blog, Oracle and Sun expect that the European Commission will approve the acquisition of Sun Microsystems some time this week.

It’s official: the European Commission has granted regulatory approval for Oracle to acquire Sun Microsystems for approximately $7.4 billion, without further conditions.

Oracle and Sun Microsystems announced, Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems for $7.4B Deal with lot of major software products including Java and Solaris.

We are writing to express our opposition to the proposed acquisition of MySQL as part of the larger merger between Sun Microsystems and Oracle Corporation.
Oracle seeks to acquire MySQL to prevent further erosion of its share of the market for database software licenses and services, and to protect the high prices now charged for its proprietary database software licenses and services.

On January 27, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison will share his vision for the Oracle-Sun Microsystems business combination. But before the Oracle webcast kicks off, industry rivals and partners are offering a key piece of advice to Ellison: Don’t mess up Sun’s Java programming language. Here’s the scoop — including perspectives from Red Hat’s middleware team.

European antitrust authorities formally objected to Oracle Corp.'s proposed purchase of Sun Microsystems Inc., complicating a $7.4 billion deal that U.S. officials had already blessed.