If Ellison could receive emergency ego-reduction surgery, this could perhaps enable him to make some decisions that would benefit Oracle and its shareholders in the long run. Instead he has done the following:

- Release impulsive, childish statements re: the HP/Hurd issue, alienating the world's largest PC manufacturer (who is acting within their legal rights...Hurd signed that contract). Oracle sells database software that needs to run on SERVERS (and HP sells a lot of servers).

-Suing Google (one of the biggest users and advocates of Java) over Java, alienating Oracle/Java from the entire open source community and demonstrating to the world that using Java is a legal liability.

These seem to be the actions of an egoist who is so full of himself and his power that he is destroying the company that he works for (as just another employee).

So, while he is into dropping these lawsuits...a big slice of humble pie, a secret apologetic letter to HP while delaying Hurd's appointment, open-sourcing Java, apologizing to Google and working with the FSF to reassure the world that Java is still safe to use, THOSE would be decisions that would be in the best interest of Oracle and its shareholders. It is never too late to do the right thing(s). Perhaps Steve Jobs would follow suit.

Failing that, maybe Hurd would make a better CEO for Oracle (after attending the Tiger Woods School for Wayward Boys, of course).

Oracle is killing opensolaris, so likely they are also killing zfs as open source, if not killing it completely. NetApp would not want to lose to Oracle's well funded legal team and lose the ability to sue smaller companies trying to use zfs.

"Why can't we all just...get along?"
(Jack Nicholson - Mars Attacks!)

And we all remember what happened to Jack in that movie. So Ellison is playing the "nice guy" now? He soon could be sporting a Google flag (AAACCCK, AAAACK-AAAACK!).