Fluendo Group Concerned over EC threat to open-source investment

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Leading Spanish software company Fluendo S.A. today expressed its concern that, if upheld, the EuropeanCommission's objections regarding Oracle’s acquisition of Sun could set a precedent that will undermine thedevelopment of open source technology worldwide.

As a key contributor to the Free Software multimedia landscape, the Fluendo Group believes that theCommission should abandon its view that any open source software product represents a price constraint onproprietary vendors, regardless of actual competition. If this precedent is established a vital source of fundingfor OSS vendors will dry up.

Venture capitalists and potential acquirers will perceive open source software offerings not as an asset, but asa liability which engenders greater antitrust scrutiny and potential prohibition, said Pascal Pegaz Paquet, cofounder of Fluendo. Venture capitalists, who are a vital source of financing for emerging technologies, will nolonger be willing to invest, he added.

At a time when policymakers should be doing everything they can to promote innovation, the Commission isthreatening to set a precedent that will choke off financing for development of open source software ventures,particularly in Europe,

said Mr Pegaz Paquet.

Fluendo follows a very similar path to MySQL and we are quickly gaining market share against giants onvarious market segments including broadcasters with our streaming solutions, hardware manufacturers withour codecs, etc... The outcome of that case with Oracle and Sun might definitely make our life harder when itcomes to working with VCs or potential M&As

said Julien Moutte, chief executive officer and co founder of Fluendo.

About Fluendo Group

Fluendo was founded in 2004 to address the multimedia issue in GNU/Linux and Free Software in General.Fluendo employs several of the central developers of the GStreamer multimedia framework, which is quicklyestablishing itself as the de-facto standard multimedia framework for GNU/Linux and UNIX systems. Fluendoprovide a wide range of products under and above GStreamer including proprietary codecs (together with theirrespective patent licenses), a streaming server, a DVD player, the Fluoh Media Center, and an Open Sourcemedia center project.

For Marketing and Press feel free to contact Katia Marti at:marcom(at)fluendo(dot)com

Fluendo, Influencing the Multimedia World

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