Does Oracle Losing Sun's Open Source Chief Matter?

I've had the good fortune to speak with Simon Phipps - now the former Chief Open Source Officer at Sun - a number of times over the last several years.

Phipps always provided insightful comments on licensing and strategic open source issues. His comments and opinion on GPLv3 in particular were very solid and his opinion was a great one to include in the stories I published. Now with Oracle buying up Sun - Phipps has decided to leave Oracle.

While I have always appreciated Phipps insight - I don't think his departure will affect Oracle in any tangible way.

Within Sun, Phipps insight was almost unique as he was able to comment on things and provide direction that no one else really could and that in my view also include his former CEO Jonathan Schwartz who is also gone now too.

Oracle is another story altogether and a very different culture in many respects.