At 01:21 AM 30-07-00 -0600, you wrote:

>[snip same old blah]
>
>Here is what I humbly suggest. Let Ann, Paul and whoever wants to join up
>form whatever comapny they can and do whatever they want. If they can
>wrestle the docs and stuff from Inprise and resell them great!.

That's about as low and the "low" we are trying to climb over.
Who the hell ever suggested Ann, etc. wanted to ** resell ** the docs?

They want to ** release ** them.

You, Tim Uckun, who preacheth so much on Open Source, consistently and
boringly misseth the key point about copyright. Open Source is NOT open
copyright, not for source code, not for docs.

So try, if you will, to get an appreciation of what Inprise is holding out
on. Yes, it was their dime that generated the docs. And it's their dime
that they want to increase by expecting someone to pay out big $$$$ for the
rights. Clearly, people are not going to get far as first-timers with the
BINARIES without the docs, especially as the on-line and printable docs are
one and the same.

>I am sure
>they can sell support no problems. Although Inprise is being slimy I will
>grudgingly admit that the all of the docs and tools were developed on their
>dime and they can do with it whatever they want.
>
>Let some third party people who belong neither to Inprise nor newco

NewCo was born in January from the efforts of the community. They are us
and we are they.

>be the
>leaders of the community or some non profit organization. Of course this
>would be Jim and perhaps a few other people who have no dealings with
>either company. They will be free of taint and can be trusted to advance
>interbase and not the profit motive of some company.

Trust? if we cannot trust ourselves, whom should we trust?

>

Sure, that's how it is happening. A response to changed conditions that
some would say was fortuitous. But let's work on matching up idealistic
piffle with cold reality. You don't care a snoot whether IB lives or
dies. Others do; and others have a better appreciation of the elements of
InterBase's life history and the community around it, that make this
erstwhile commercial product different and better.

>Let them set up the
>CVS tree and be the final arbiters of what gets added to the code and what
>does not. After a small core of developers gets set up and an
>infrastructure we the community would have to build our own tools and
>documents. These documents would be owned by community adn would be the
>"official" documents. If the newco or oreilly wants to publish an interbase
>for smarties well then that's great.

Of course, nobody can dispute that that is how it will be. Those best
qualified to be the ones are also those most closely involved with the
Inprise-free support structure.

>David is right let's define what is what, Who does what, and for why. Jim
>is absent is he in or out? Is he going to be working for the newco or not?
>Is he willing to be in charge of the CVS tree?
>
>Comunities are hard to build but before they can be built there must be a
>clear vision and a strong leader. Right now it seems like we lack either.

As a misinformed spokesperson, you lack either. The community (to which
you are a latecomer) lacks neither. Watch more and gab less. Then we will
all get what is best - including a future user base that appreciates the
technical strength and credibility of a well-regulated Open Source
community. Those of us with a serious stake in InterBase care little for
those who just want toys to play with.

Helen