[LINK] You have got to be kidding...

[Scott Howard]

On Tue, Jan 13, 2009 at 2:40 PM, <grove at zeta.org.au> wrote:

> What brainwave caused this ridiculous decision to take effect?
>
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/13/sqlers_barred_from_oz/


For those that haven't visited the blog entry linked in that article
recently, you might like to go there again.

In short, one person had an ETA (which is NOT a Visa) application rejected.
This happens all the time, and could be for any reason including the person
having a criminal record or any number of other things and would not in any
way be related to Open Source or anything similar.

Rejection of an ETA simply means that, for one reason or another, you need
to apply for a Visa.  As someone else has pointed out, Sun has a Visa
company on retainer for assisting with such Visa applications.  There's a
very good chance such a visa application would be approved, even though the
ETA was rejected.

A second person, completely unrelated to the first, who WAS approved for an
ETA appears to have not actually traveled to Australia because... well..
umm..  well, best I can see probably due to something he was smoking at the
time.  Something about the possibility that the Visa (well, ETA) could be
revoked at the border.  Of course, any ETA/Visa/ESTA/etc issued by any
country can _always_ be rejected at the border - that's the way immigration
works.

Seriously, if this is the way MySQL tries to promote itself, I'm going back
to Oracle...

  Scott.