Dale,

For the past months I have been eagerly and anxiously awaiting the release
of InterBase to the open source community. I have invested hundreds of my
professional man-hours and other costly resources in order to build up a
community to surround and ensure the success of InterBase as a product.
This has been a very difficult process to go through since the happenings in
December nearly destroyed people's confidence in Inprise's ability to manage
and support the InterBase business unit.

I have been tenacious to squelch anyone who has attempted to spew negative
and pessimistic opinions about Inprise management and that they didn't think
the open source thing would happen and that if it did it wouldn't fly.
Ultimately Dale, I have placed my reputation as a professional upon your
ability to operate this company in a way that will vindicate my undying
faith in it. In short, I have believed you would make and keep your promises
and put an and to the abuses and pillaging of InterBase as has been done for
so long now.

I also have a commercial product I have been working on for just about 4
years that is worth at least a million dollars. This product is exclusively
tied to InterBase and so everything for me depends upon the continued
success of InterBase. I have thousands of customers using my product, which
are also Delphi and C++ Builder customers. If my product cannot survive then
it is my estimation that most of these people will not only leave InterBase
but they will leave Inprise lock, stock and barrel. Terrible and tremendous
losses are at stake here.

At the very least, release the binaries of IB6 TODAY so that the community
can rest assured that their investments in InterBase are sound and so they
can keep their promises to their customers and clients.

Give the people at InterBase a deal that they can survive with! The few
extra million you may be able to squeeze out of InterBase (that might
ultimately kill it) could cost you a massive loss in the tens of millions
you will lose if this deal doesn't go through and/or InterBase is unable to
succeed. A company's reputation is worth 99% of the companies value. Don't
go for the 1% and lose the 99%.

InterBase's success is vital to Inprise's continued success. Please, make it
happen!

You said you wouldn't ship a product until it is ready. Well, InterBase is
ready, SHIP IT!

A response would be appreciated. Write or call. 602-542-8650 or
480-834-7454.

Kind regards,
Jason Wharton

CPS - Mesa AZ
http://www.ibobjects.com

InterBase Developer Initiative
http://www.interbase2000.org