> -----Original Message-----
> From: odonohue [mailto:odonohue]On Behalf Of Mark O'Donohue
> Sent: Jueves 27 de Julio de 2000 22:00
>
> PS: The venture capital thing on interbase2000 is also a bit
> obscure, what do they want money, or
>
> someone the hassle the guy and why?

Don't know what you mean with obscure, but there's nobody trying to cheat
people and get money for his or her personal profit. See below, I'm
reproducing a posting in Mers:

Helen Borrie wrote in message
<4.2.0.58.20000726202934.00db2810@...>...

>At 05:28 PM 25-07-00 -0400, you wrote:
>>Make that three of us. I can only muster that it has something to
>>do with vul^H^H^H venture capital being held back, but I'm confused
>>as hell by the IBDI homepage asking us to contact this Dalton
>>Crawford fellow about this. And say what? "Give us your money,
>>we want your money, we love your money, we need your money!"
>
>Mmm? did it say that? interesting....
>
>
>>I wonder if Helen or someone else "in the know" could tell us
>>in no uncertain terms what all of this means.
>
>Nobody can tell us "in no uncertain terms". But let's have a close look
>at the current situation.
>
>What we were looking forward to was a scenario (fairly reassured by public
>statements by Dale Fuller, over the months) in which an infrastructure was
>to be set up to ready InterBase for open source and ongoing technical
>supervision. The actual work of presiding over the creation of a
>sustainable business model around InterBase-related support, distribution,
>training and marketing was put into the hands of Ann Harrison, who was
>contracted to achieve that by whatever means possible. Markus Kemper and
>(I think) Wayne Ostiguy carried on with InterBase product support for
>Inprise's existing customers with Markus putting in long hours of voluntary
>time into the beta testing and support that you have all witnessed over the
>past 6 months.
>
>Charlie Caro and Brett Bandy have put in a similar mix of paid and
>voluntary time in bringing the beta forward to release stage. Again, both
>have been very obvious donors of own time to helping those who have helped
>themselves to the betas.
>
>Ann has been working the long hours, too, along with Paul Beach and Matt
>Larsen, to design and implement the business model for the support company
>and negotiate unendingly and frustratingly with Dale Fuller over the
>conditions for selling the operation to the new owner. Ann has
>unremittingly kept up her insightful problem support in this list. Paul
>has been actively marketing Interbase services and setting up business
>relationships with other companies, to be brought into reality once the
>operation passed out of Inprise hands.
>
>Paul and Matt have remained unpaid throughout the entire time.
>
>An important factor in the readying phase has been to get an ODBC
>driver. Originally, this work was outsourced. When Fuller closed down the
>InterBase operation in December, that contract was terminated. As many of
>you may know, Jim Starkey (the original architect of InterBase) stepped up
>and developed a driver which was in beta at the end of last month, the
>promised deadline for the handover of the operation to ISC and for
>releasing the source code and the full IB 6 release. Jim was not paid,

either.

>
>Out here in the community, several of us have been involved in the
>development of the InterBase community, through free support, providing
>documentation, running discussion lists, doing tools development, building
>networks around an open source InterBase, active beta testing. I've tried
>as best I could to keep information as up-to-date as possible, through the
>interbase2000 web site and the lists.
>
>Given the problems that the ISC team have had to deal with in their
>negotiations with Inprise, some non-technical details haven't filtered out
>here to the public arena. We've gone as far as we could go without
>compromising the team. You know who we are - "the bad apples", as someone
>dubbed us.
>
>For those of us who are passionate about the survival of InterBase and
>chose to be proactive about it, it has all been worth doing. Despite the
>delays, the whole handover and freeing of InterBase from Inprise shackles
>has made it every inch "worth it".
>
>Until yesterday. First, Dale Fuller's statement on the early-morning
>conference call that the InterBase company probably wouldn't be spun off
>after all. Next, the releasing of the source and binaries by Inprise
>itself and the rewording of the IPL to remove all references to ISC as the
>owner of the assets. And, as soon as we began downloading from the Inprise
>site, it was clear that Inprise was keeping some crucial pieces back.
>
>Fuller has put an irrational, outrageous price on the pieces - the test
>suites, documentation and the build environment, along with the trademarks,
>domain names and what-have-you. Who will not pay the price shall not
>receive. Technically speaking, these pieces are useless to Inprise, who
>ceased development of Interbase seven months ago. But withholding them
>gives them leverage to try and force acceptance of their outrageous ransom.
>
>So - we resort to the fallback strategy. Now that the source code is
>openly available and the IPL is formally and very publicly sanctioned by
>Inprise, there is nothing to prevent anyone from forming an
>"ISC". Technically and economically, to be able to buy the ransomed pieces
>at a fair price would give such a company a kickstart. Technically and
>economically, that company could also reconstruct everything from scratch,
>fork mainstream development under new trademarks and really make InterBase
>Inprise-free forever.
>
>This isn't just the newest bright idea. It has been Plan B ever since the
>day Fuller publicly announced the spin-off plan and its intention to kick
>off the operation with a 29% VC stake. The stumbling block of course is
>the price. If the condition of the deal is that the buyer has to spend R &
>D dollars and then give the product away, how can a company commit to a
>debt that is hugely out of proportion to the value of the purchase and
>expect to sustain itself? Fuller's ransom offers no resort except
>self-destruction. It puts the buyer company in the position of having to
>devour its own flesh.
>
>It wasn't always Plan B. During the six weeks' delay between Fuller's New
>Year announcement that InterBase was going OS and his mid-February
>announcement of the spin-off plan, it was Plan A.
>
>Now it is Plan A again. I reiterate what I wrote on the web site - to do
>this it needs (1) venture capital - that is, sufficient investment and
>financial commitment to get this thing moving and cash flowing. Equally,
>(2) it needs customers and, specifically, your commitment to bring that
>business to the company. Ann, Paul and Matt have spent 6 months putting
>together a business plan that can work. An expert and devoted community
>has coalesced around that core. We have the people. We have the
>source. We would all wish for the cooperation of Inprise but we can do
>without it if we have to.
>
>Regards,
>Helen
>
>
>>S.W.
>>
>>
>>Dalton Calford wrote:
>> >
>> > :)
>> >
>> > Great minds thinking alike.......
>> >
>> > Sebastian Skracic wrote:
>> >
>> > > Er, pardon my English, but now when the source is released and
>> > > ISC holding the largest InterBase brain-power ever assembled in
>> > > history, why do they need Inprise at all? I know that IPL now
>> > > states 'Inprise' instead of 'ISC', but does it really matter?
>> > > Are there some trademark issues maybe?
>> > >
>> > > And finally, why not just fork/rewrite the code from the ground
>> > > up, and release it under new license, this time with 'ISC'?
>> > >
>> > > Just thinking aloud,
>> > >
>> > > Seb.
>> > >
>> > > _______________________________________________
>> > > Interbase mailing list
>> > > Interbase@...
>> > > http://mers.com/mailman/listinfo/interbase
>>
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>
>http://www.interbase2000.org
>___________________________________________________
>"Ask not what your free, open-source database can do for you,
>but what you can do for your free, open-source database."
>(J.F.K.)
>
>