Mike,

This is exactly what IBDI is all about. I have a database about to be
released that will allow everyone to come forward and register themselves to
let us know what their experience with InterBase is and where they feel they
will be able to help. This includes networking, operating systems,
development environments like Delphi, JAVA, ODBC, etc.

It will also make an effort to start bridging the cultural boundries that
separate the open source folks and the closed source folks. We are cutting
fresh new teritory and there isn't time to be working behind closed doors
anymore. Developers will need to come forward and make themselves known to
the community in a public way.

<soap box>
Being that we know Open Source IS a reality for InterBase it is imperitive
that we unite together as a community and prepare to take things into our
own hands. Yes, Inprise is planning to make a new management structure in a
new company and that is fine. Hopefully it will make what we do here
obsolete. That would be GREAT!

But, I don't think I'm alone in the feeling that we don't have 6 months to
dilly dally around waiting as a community. Something at the community level
of this sort will take a good solid 2-3 months just to get off the ground
and probably another 2-3 months to fill in the gaps and get productively
clipping along.

If Inprise isn't going to either commit to join forces with the IBDI or do
something comparable to it then I would highly suspect that they are not
very serious about giving InterBase a strong position in the market, but
rather a politically correct (stock market stimulating) way to wash their
hands of it.

The way I'm looking at it is whatever we accomplish as a community is our
worst-case-scenario. I want that to be an excellent position for the
community to be in. Inprise has lost my trust long ago with their poor
handling of InterBase and I'm not going to sit back and trust what is now a
community affair to the whims of their devices.

When a project goes open-source it is essentially community property. If I
don't have that confidence then my curiosity wouldn't even have my eyes in
the code let alone my hands. I hope that Inprise and the NewCo is prepared
for that cultural adjustment. If they try to put on the front that they do
but they still want to pull all the strings then they will kill InterBase in
a way that could spell the doom of their hopes to have any favor in the
Linux community.

Inprise needs to be a champion of the community and this is their chance to
prove how serious they are about getting involved in the Linux arena. If
InterBase thrives it will be because the community has confidence in the
product and it's leaders and rolls up their sleeves and jump into the code
with a passion. If NewCo doesn't fill this recipe with these ingredients
then what are they really trying to accomplish?
</soap box>

My thoughts on the matter!

Jason Wharton
CPS - Mesa AZ
http://www.ibobjects.com

Developers Search Site http://developers.href.com

-----Original Message-----
From: MIKE EDEN <meden@...>
To: IBDI@onelist.com <IBDI@onelist.com>
Date: Monday, January 10, 2000 3:19 PM
Subject: [IBDI] Getting organized

>From: "MIKE EDEN" <meden@...>
>
>Hi all:
>
>I believe that one of the best ways for us to help ensure that Interbase is
>well supported in the future is to form our own virtual support group.

From

>all the postings I have read on various groups over the past few weeks, it
>seems that we have some developers who are using Interbase for a variety of
>internal IT projects, some who are building applications on it for resale,
>independent consultants, etc. We have developer talent in several languages
>on a variety of hardware platforms. At this point, we probably

collectively

>have more experience with Interbase than Inprise does.
>
>Unfortunately, right now there doesn�t seem to be any easy way for us to
>specify our capabilities, our needs, and experiences to each other. If we
>had a publicly available database of Interbase developers, we could all
>easily locate fellow developers that are geographically close, or that have
>specific skill sets that we could benefit from. This would make it easier
>for those interested in doing independent consulting for Interbase to �get
>the word out� and find opportunities, and easier for customers of Interbase
>to find qualified people to assist in supporting them and doing custom
>development. Obviously there are a lot of different ways we could grow

this

>over time to strengthen our community, but as a first step I think we could
>get much more organized as a community with this database.
>
>What do you all think? The IB community certainly has the experience to
>build such a database ;) and I believe I could secure a small amount of
>funding to run it as an organized OpenSource project like they do on
>SourceExchange or something like that.
>
>Mike
>
>Michael Eden
>Vice President, Corporate Development
>Management Insights, Inc.
>14755 Preston Road Suite 525
>Dallas, TX 75240
>
>972-755-2064 Direct
>972-755-2080 Fax
>meden@...