I will try to explain, see below:

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mike Nordell [mailto:tamlin@...]
> Sent: Domingo 30 de Julio de 2000 7:54
>
> While looking through the IB tree to clean up compiler warnings
> and stuff, I
> had a look at the contents of MSG.gdb.
>
> It has data that contains the following:
> "Copyright (c) 1985, 1994 by Borland International, Inc." and
> "copyright (c) 1984, 1990 by Interbase Software Corporation"
> which got me wondering if
>
> 1. Did ISC existed both 1984 and 1990?

Yes, if you read the Roadmap in my site, you'll know that an interim
Renegade Systems become Groton Database (GDB) and then Interbase SW.
Ashton-Tate bought IB on 1991. Few months later, Borland purchased
Ahston-Tate.

> 2. Is this database is covered by the IPL?

Good question. Since ISC legally disappeared when it was absorbed by
Ashton-Tate and Borland owns all the rights, I *think* there's no problem.

> IMO it should be, since it contains parts of the IB source, but
> on the other
> hand I believe the IPL only covers source code and the DB is a
> binary file.

Maybe it's because IB is like an egg and a chicken or like Delphi itself:
you require IB to build IB.

> Since the opening of the source seem to have been quite infected by
> politics, and people apparently gets screwed left and right by Inprice, it
> might be a problem.

After all, only Inprise can make the legal statements.

> This DB also contains source code for a bunch of languages (e.g.
> C, PASCAL),
> and I guess it's code that gpre uses to create compilable files from e.g.
> ".e" files. If this is a correct guess, wouldn't it be better to
> move these
> source into text-strings the source of gpre?

Can't comment. There're things that are used by GPRE to create
platform-independent code.

> I also found qute a few message string that seems to be of no relevance to
> the DB itself, e.g. what seems to explain command-line parameters for some
> program(s). If they are, I think they also should be migrated
> into the src.

Utilities like isql and gbak read their messages from interbase.msg, same
as IB itself IMHO. Don't know what are you reading really and what's the
purpose of this stuff.

C.
---------
Claudio Valderrama C.
Ingeniero en Informática - Consultor independiente
http://members.tripod.com/cvalde