I am not out to buy MySQL, so I can't change the license. It's up to the new owner of MySQL to decide upon the license.

The petition is about giving control to the MySQL users of the MySQL destiny. I have nothing to gain financially if MySQL is sold to someone else. My gain would only be that MySQL would have a much better chance to be available and developed under Open Source also in the future.

If you read the petition and my blog, you should know that I am working on to find MySQL a good home and to ensure that MySQL is actively developed also in the future under Open Source. The idea is not to get the code back.
If you would have read the published comments on my blog, you would see that there is also negative onces. I do not publish things that contains bad language, things already commented upon or questions that are already answered in the blog or in the comments.
When it comes to MariaDB, I am committed to work on it and keep it Open Source.
The problem is that with a bad owner of the MySQL copyright, no fork can keep MySQL alive forever. You can read more about this in my blog.. It's now, before the Oracle / MySQL deal is approved, that MySQL users has a last chance to affect the future of MySQL by signing the petition.. If you do nothing now, you don't have anything to complain about if and when Oracle would stop developing MySQL as Open Source.

I have answered your questions in my blog post here
What we are now working on is just to ensure that MySQL gets a good home, which is of benefit for all MySQL users.

We have been working on a branch of MySQL, MariaDB, for 11 months already, so it's not like I am not doing anything.

However, the problem is that with a bad owner of the MySQL copyright, a fork that can't survive for long (because no one will be willing to pay for development of it). This is why we put up the petition; To give all MySQL users a chance to get heard and help affecting that MySQL will be available for all also in the future.

Note that GPL is based on distribution, not linking.

If you distribute your shared closed source library with the GPL code that uses the library, the whole is a derivated work of the GPL code and the shared library is thus affected by the GPL.

To make it clear, I don't want MySQL back.

I just want that MySQL should be owned by someone that have more reasons to keep it alive than to kill it.
(which is not me). This to ensure that the project is kept alive as an Open Source project also in the future.

I haven't asked Sun to give up anything

I have however pointed out the reasons why one can't assume that a fork will suddenly spring up and be able to resurrect MySQL if Oracle would decide to kill it (as others seam to think). The manual is one reason, the GPL license is another.

And MariaDB is not commercial; It's only available under Open Source.

What we are asking for in the petition is that MySQL users should be heard in the process.
By asking MySQL to be divested to another entity, there is no money for me to make (actually less, as you should know if you have read my blog)

Yes, you can use the old version of MySQL, but there is no guarantee that a fork will come up and be able to continue development if Oracle slowly starts to close up MySQL development.

The reason is that if MySQL is only available under GPL, there will be very few companies that can make direct revenue on MySQL and because of this, there is very little incentive to put money into MySQL development.

All GPL libraries have the same problem, which is the reason why there is so few GPL libraries that are actively developed.

Look at PostgreSQL for example; Many core developers works at a companies that is using PostgreSQL with proprietary code. If PostgreSQL was under GPL, they could not do that and would not have an incentive to do development on it.

When you take in investors, it's impossible to get such a clause. (Don't think that we didn't try).

So, in 2001, David and I had the choice to continue like before and grow slowly or take a risk and grow
rapidly.

Growing meant more resources for development and a better Open Source database overall. The price to pay was less control.