Ted Shelton was quoted by Robert F. Tulloch:

>We hope that many successful companies are developed around
>InterBase and by releasing the source code right away, we hope
>that those companies can get started on their business plans.

I was gonna start this sentence with "He's kiddin', right?", but then
I understood that he probably believe this. Scary.

>I want to continue to do the right thing -- for all of my stakeholders
>(employees, >customers, and shareholders). Your advice on what
>we can do to support you would be welcome.

OK, I give my $0.02 on what this deal *should* have included:

1. Release the documents you have regarding IB. I don't care if these
are in a terrible state, they can't be any worse than the code you
release without any release notes, build instructions, no *nothing*
except the pure (initially unbuildable) code.

2. ASAP start a few mailing-lists directed towards developement,
design, and coding for both server and client issues. This includes
specific list for patches regarding server and client libs. These
lists should (must) *not* contain commericals added by a robot.

3. Get a working CVS repository, including responsible and available
people that are skilled enough to manage it.

4. Make sure people that turns out to be responsible in the way they
deliver patches gets CVS committ access.

I suggest SourceForge for this. They got all the facilities in place,
and they're working. I however see a problem with this (one, and one
only) and that's that no one seems to know who "dale1" is, that is
apparently the project leader on SourceForge for the InterBase
Project. If it's Dale Fuller my suggestion is that he retires from
that position and let someone with responsibility and adequate
technical skills take that position. I don't know how the people that
were (still going to?) start up NewCo feels about filling this
position, but as I understand it they are both knowledgeble regarding
the source and design of IB, and trusted.

After that's done, I think the community will sort it out. If Inprose
want to have in-house developers working on the source, fine. But let
it be noted that they are nothing more than anyone else participating
in this Open Source project.

This is what I think is the only reasonable way to handle it.

/Mike


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