IMHO Ellison's lack of distinction between "take" & "use" is precisely the harm. The danger is how easily that becomes the Embrace & Extinguish strategy. He obviously sees no such distinction himself and imagines that he's big and powerful enough to just take whatever he wants. He sounds like a modern day warlord, and not in the good way. In my book, any individual who assumes that much power, without giving back in proportion, deserves to be shut down on general principle. How is it possible to respect one of the most eminent business leaders on Earth when he shoots his dumb mouth off in public like that? At best he reveals his inability to strategize & maintain coalitions, and at worst he reveals his sociopathic hubris. Being so mighty he would do well to learn the value of at least trying to listen to the advice of his PR viziers, and wear a false-face of humility in public, so as to not trigger indefensible public outrage. Which would lead to eventual Federal investigations—anyone as big as Oracle has a graveyard of skeletons buried in the basement.
I can forgive accidents, stupidity, and even short-term, limited corporate greed(implicit in The Game); but never when it's backed by the treacherous potential to cause long-term harm to much weaker open source allies. Linux, Java, Apache and other open source software projects are not mere pawns to be moved around the chess board upon which Oracle, Apple, Google and IBM engage in battle.
I hope the hippie idealism of open source populism hasn't been drowned in the ocean of money, but is instead still alive & kicking—Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_Against_the_Wall_Motherfucke...