Oracle, maker of one of the largest proprietary database solutions, recently purchased Sun, who makes MySQL, a piece of open-source database software. Naturally, this sounds like trouble. One of the biggest database companies buys another of the largest?

Florian Effenberger is co-lead of the international OpenOffice.org marketing project. Our sister publication Linux-Community asked him how the deal between Sun and Oracle would affect OpenOffice.

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.

We've been debating the merits of a possible IBM-Sun deal for a while now, and even Sun itself seemed to be in the dark as to if it would be a good idea to be bought by IBM. These debates are now all moot: in a suprise move (at least, I didn't see any speculation about it) ORacle has bought Sun Microsystems, at USD 9.50 a share, which equates to a total of 7.4 billion USD.

As certain large nations approach bankruptcy, will so-called "IP"; become the next battleground?

A RECENT comprehensive survey showed that, based on votes, Novell is the most likely technology company not to survive this year (in its current form), but Sun Microsystems was a close candidate too.

I can be an idiot some days. As proof I'll only mention that I thought Sun buying MySQL was a great move. Boy was I wrong. First, the crème de la crème of MySQL's developers and founders started leaving Sun.

If IBM does acquire SUN, and the rumors on the street suggest that it will, what will IBM do about Solaris? Let’s look at some of the options.