WSJ: Open-source software has achieved fetish status in certain precints in Europe

In the context of an editorial against the European Commission decision on questioning the acquisition of Sun by Oracle, the Wall Street Journal writes:

Open-source software has achieved fetish status in certain precincts in Europe [...]

This has to do with Sun controlling MySQL since the MySQL AB acquisition. Apparently, the fact that Oracle, which is already holding a really large share of the database market (about a half of it), would also control MySQL, is one of the objections considered by the European Comission.

The WSJ correctly explains that libre software can be modified and distributed by anyone, but fails to explain the control that the leader developers can have on the product, specially in the case of MySQL, which has carefully avoided including external developers in the core team. Another point is how the market for MySQL is estimated in dollars… In several cases I’ve been talking with colleagues about how to do fair comparations in market share between proprietary and libre software products, but certainly using the cost of licenses and maintenance contracts doesn’t seem to fair to me. Number of installations could be a better number (although can also be skewed, of course).

In any case, it is interesting to learn that WSJ considers that libre software has “fetish status” in any place, even if that place is Europe. Next time you visit a customer, trying to sell some libre software solutions, you can claim: “this is what WSJ considers as having fetish status”