“Every new day of uncertainty is potentially very harmful to the various businesses of Sun, reducing competition in the market,” Mickos wrote. “A delay in the closing of this transaction is therefore only going to work against the respectable goal that you set out to achieve when launching the probe into this acquisition.”

Oracle, says Mickos, has far better reason to ramp-up Sun’s MySQL business than it does to harm it.

“Even if Oracle, for whatever reason, would have malicious or ignorant intent regarding MySQL (not that I think so), the positive and massive influence MySQL has on the DBMS market cannot be controlled by a single entity–not even by the owner of the MySQL assets. The users of MySQL exert a more powerful influence in the market than the owner does,” he continues. “Many expected Oracle to harm MySQL as far back as 2005, when they acquired the InnoDB storage engine that plays a crucial role for many MySQL customers. And yet Oracle increased their investment in InnoDB since that time, making MySQL a stronger player in the market.”

An interesting argument and one that appears to offer Mickos little personal gain. Now an entrepreneur in residence at Benchmark Capital, Mickos says he has no financial interest in the transaction. So why bother making it? “I couldn’t live with the fact that I’m not taking action,” Mickos told News.com.

Mickos’s letter will no doubt be welcomed by Oracle, which has repeatedly said it has only the best intentions for MySQL. “No, we’re not going to spin [MySQL] off,” Oracle CEO Larry Ellison told attendees of a Churchill Club event in Silicon Valley earlier this year. “We are keeping everything. We’re keeping tape. We’re keeping storage. We’re keeping x86 and SPARC. And we’re going to increase investment in all of them.”

Tell me why you aren’t going to be the next Friendster.”

– Venture capitalist David L. Sze’s 2006 litmus test for entrepreneurs who claimed to have the next MySpace.

If Orkut is the Facebook of Brazil, then Friendster is the Orkut of Asia. The company, which created the social- networking market only to forfeit it to Myspace and Facebook, is apparently doing quite well in Asia. So much so, that it’s used its success on that continent to secure some new venture funding and a CEO with a Google (GOOG) pedigree. In a statement proclaiming itself the No. 1 social network in Asia this morning, Friendster named Richard Kimber, Google’s Managing Director of Sales and Operations for South East Asia, as CEO. The company also said it has raised $20 million in new venture funding from DG Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, and the Founders Fund. Friendster plans to use that money to hire up and bolster its presence across Asia, specifically Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

Perhaps, we’ll see that Friendster movie yet–though I still can’t imagine a worse concept.