Oracle’s battle with European regulators over its acquisition of Sun Microsystems boils down to a conflict about the importance of free software and the government’s role in protecting it, The New York Times reports.
The verbal salvos heated up this week after the European Union issued formal objections on Monday to a bid by Oracle, the giant software maker, to buy Sun for US$7,4bn.
Oracle immediately pilloried the objections, saying they were based on “a profound misunderstanding” of the software market.
On Tuesday, the European Union struck back, with a spokesman for the union’s competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes, dismissing Oracle’s criticism as “facile and superficial.”