You're wrong Mr Shelton, desperately wrong.

| However,
| I believe that we have done the right thing by going ahead and releasing
| the
| source code to the community. 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
| want
| to continue to do the right thing -- for all of my stakeholders
| (employees,
| customers, and shareholders).

What your company has 'released' is a farce. I first wrote pleasant words to
thank Mr Fuller when I read about the source release. Now, having spent some
time evaluating what your company has released, I find it really bad to get
such plain jokes throwed at my face.

Are you aware, Mr Shelton, that your company did not released many many
pieces of Interbase ? It is hardly possible to really build the product from
what has been released. It is impossible to run decent tests against builds,
because your company retain the test suites that were elaborated other the
years for the product. And what about the end-user documentation ?

While it is pleasant to 'have a look to the code', that is definitely NOT
the way of open-sourcing a product. The press will not be duped for long.

| Your advice on what we can do to support you would be welcome.

So, Ok. Let me repeat myself : "Open-sourcing a product does not simply mean
'showing' some parts of its source-code". The press will not be duped for
long.

-------------------------- www.tipgroup.com -------------------------
Olivier Mascia T.I.P. Group S.A.
om@... Company Phone +32 65401111
Director, Senior Software Engineer Private Mailbox/FAX +32 43204716


| -----Original Message-----
| From: Robert F. Tulloch [mailto:tultalk@...]
| Sent: Sunday, July 30, 2000 6:25 PM
| To: IB-Architect@egroups.com
| Subject: [IB-Architect] Response from Ted Shelton
|
|
| Robert:
|
| Thanks for your note.
|
| Ann and ISC proposed to have an independent company from Inprise and
| asked
| for the technology, trademarks, and for a venture capital investment.
| There
| were, in addition, a number of legal requirements that they placed
| around
| the transfer of these funds and the intellectual property. A
| significant
| effort was made to reach a middle ground in our negotiations with Ann.
| However we were not able to bridge the differences in opinion. As we
| have
| an obligation to our shareholders and employees in addition to our
| obligation to our customers, we could not simply agree to ANY conditions
| that a third party was going to put on a transaction of this kind. The
| conditions had to be reasonable and at the end of the day, both sides
| left
| the table without a compromise having been reached.
|
| I can certainly understand your concerns, as we are still in the process
| of
| putting together our plans for continued support for the product.
| However,
| I believe that we have done the right thing by going ahead and releasing
| the
| source code to the community. 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
| 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.
|
| yours,
|
| Ted Shelton
|
|
| ----- Original Message -----
| From: "Robert F. Tulloch" <tultalk@...>
| To: <tshelton@...>
| Sent: Saturday, July 29, 2000 9:39 AM
| Subject: IB6 Release
|
|
| Mr. Ted Shelton
|
| I would like to let you know that I appreciate your release of open
| source IB6. I do however have some problems with not releasing it
| through ISC.
|
| I have developed a big app, originally in dialect 1 using Crystal
| Reports and the intersolv ODBC driver. I converted to dialect 3 and
| there is no ODBC driver for dialect 3 so the reports are in limbo. Jim
| Starkey was working on the driver and I (and many others) were
| anticipating having it available to continue development:
|
| INPRISE/BORLAND FORMS NEW COMPANY TO OPEN-SOURCE INTERBASE® 6
|
| Inprise/Borland and Venture Capitalists to Fund New Company
| Called InterBase
|
| SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif. -- February 14, 2000 -- Inprise/Borland
| (Nasdaq: INPR) today announced the formation of a new company that
| will provide service, support and hosting for a new version of
| InterBase®,
| the first open-source embedded relational database product.
| The formation of the new company comes on the heels of
| Inprise/Borland's
| announcement last month to release InterBase 6, which is currently in
| beta,
| in open-source form for multiple platforms, including Linux, Windows NT
| and
| Solaris. The source code for InterBase 6 is scheduled to be available
| mid-2000.
|
| The executive team of the new company, called InterBase, will be
| led by Ann Harrison as president, Paul Beach as vice president of sales
| and marketing, and Jim Starkey, the founding architect of the original
| InterBase product, will serve as the technology software architectural
| advisor for InterBase.
|
| When this was not consummated as we had all anticipated, we are left
| without an ODBC driver for dialect 3. Going back to dialect 1 is a
| possibility but that is supposedly going to be abandoned in favor of 3.
| So what are we to do, those of us who have investeed a great deal of
| development time based on the Feb. 14 announcement and the commitments
| made by the "Executive Team" of the "new" company based on their
| anticipation of the Feb. 14th announcement.
|
| We cannot develop a product and market it when the foundation on which
| it is built is in an apparent state of confusion. Who would buy such a
| product?
|
|
| Thanks.
|
| Best regards
|
|
|
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