Hi all,
To judge from the number of unsubscribes we've had so far, the new list
went out minus the introductory letter.

Here it is. Stay tuned!!!

Helen
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InterBase Developer Initiative

The time has come for the InterBase Developer Community to assemble and
make a serious and concerted stand for a product that we all hold very
dear. We all know the value of InterBase and many of us have a great amount
invested in this product. We have rallied for years to convince Inprise
(Borland) to take our gem and market it such that it would rise to the
level of respect it deserves. This never happened but things are different
now. The time to intensify that difference is now.

Inprise has recently been forced to take a very serious look at InterBase
due to the resignation of three top managers. It is a time of great
announcements without any clear declaration of intent but it does appear
that Inprise is beginning to listen to the developer community. Now that
it is public knowledge that Inprise intends to spin off InterBase as an
independent company with the potential for developer investment, this is
truly an exciting opportunity for us all.

The developer collective now has the opportunity to acquire majority
ownership of this newly establishing company and officially begin what we
have been doing all along, market and support the product.

Taking InterBase into the open source arena will give us the great benefit
of enabling us to work collectively on the product and, in time, accelerate
its development in a way that will ensure that Interbase increases its lead
on the nearest competing technologies. It also makes deployment of our
applications much more affordable.

With the Linux niche ripe for a highly efficient, easily managed, fully
transactional SQL-compliant database, the market/mind share that can be
grabbed up is tremendous. We stand to be the "Oracle" of the next wave of
technology to sweep through this new millennium.

We believe the developer collective has the skill, talent, vision and
determination to make this not only work but thrive. We have people (Jason
Wharton, Pavel Cisar and more) with first-hand experience as directors of
Open Source initiatives. Some of this experience goes back a long way in time.

We cordially invite everyone who has an interest in InterBase's future
success to rally under this united banner and make our voice ring clear. If
we organize and unite right now the synergy will carry forward and place us
in the best position to respond quickly as Inprise's plans unfold. If we
unite quickly, we place ourselves in the best position to present arguments
to influence those plans.

The purpose of this group/list-server is to focus on acquiring a majority
share of the new InterBase Company and to involve everyone in planning and
implementing the strategy and structure of the development community that
will surround our newly acquired InterBase.

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Please understand that we are not asking you for any money.
Our buying plans are not dependent on contributions from developers.

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Various list-serve threads, along with Internet-based activities, will be
directed at determining the developer consensus and the voice that will be
heard in the wider community.

Community email addresses:
Post message: IBDI@onelist.com
Subscribe: IBDI-subscribe@onelist.com
Unsubscribe: IBDI-unsubscribe@onelist.com
List owner: IBDI-owner@onelist.com
http://www.onelist.com/community/IBDI

We are setting up at least one web-site at http://www.Interbase2000.org and
have registered another. Jason has written an InterBase client application
to enable you to submit information into a database for storing the
community's views. Please stay tuned as these critical pieces come on-line.

Best regards,

Jason Wharton <jwharton@...>
Dalton Calford <dcalford@...>
Helen Borrie <helebor@...>
Pavel Cisar <pcisar@...>
Tim Benest <thb@...>

for the InterBase Developer Initiative