> -----Original Message-----
> From: David J N Begley [mailto:d.begley@...]
> Sent: Domingo 30 de Julio de 2000 5:37
>
> At last, the truth starts to leak - the intention is for this to be a
> "well-regulated Open Source community", not really a "bazaar" at
> all; that's
> fine, but it would be nice if that was made clear when trying to round-up
> support from other users and developers otherwise you shouldn't
> be surprised
> when people have differing expectations and opinions.

David:
With all respect, I think that you and Helen are wasting your time fighting
for issues that are worthless your respective efforts. Nobody wished that
NewCo & Borland couldn't agree. This harsh exchange of opinions that range
from tech considerations to personal disqualifications does nothing more
than hurting both of you and the rest of the readers. Please, press the STOP
button before it's too late.

> > Those of us with a serious stake in InterBase care little for those who
> > just want toys to play with.

Contrary to Helen, I think that all kind of people can participate,
provided that such people make a responsible contribution. There're more
than one way of contributing, not only writing code.

> And that, dear readers, is why InterBase (the product, regardless of name)
> will most certainly die; existing users with blinkered views ignoring the
> opinions of anyone disagreeing with themselves. I said it
> before, I'll say it
> again - InterBase will die not because of Inprise, but because
> the existing
> userbase refuses to make the product sufficiently open (nothing to do with
> copyright so stop whining about it) and accessible to a wider audience.

Sir, regardless of how annoyed you might be, remember that nobody can stop
you from getting the source, nobody can stop you from trying to compile them
and nobody can stop you from participate in IB-Architect, even if you clash
with a couple of the community members. And in the unlikely event you were
banned from some list, you can access the Mers newsgroups that are linked
to the lists.

Using a singer's words, "we didn't start the fire". Neither you nor Helen
nor me asked Borland to shutdown IB. Nobody welcomes the lack of sincerity
of Dale when he asked two weeks more at Borcon to finish the deal.
Certainly, "finish" supports many interpretations, but he didn't throw a
hint that the shareholders already have decided to rollback the deal.

I'm not totally surprised of what I'm reading. You are asking people to
clarify positions and don't cheat the masses. You seem to assume that IBDI
is a group of people dedicated to brainwash developers to get money easily.
The ultimate crushing of ISC wasn't in the plan of the community. Ann
wouldn't have agree to play this nasty 5-month soap opera if she would have
been aware of how the deal was going to die. This is the reason nobody can
give you the brilliant answers you require: because nobody has a complete
clear path to the future. I don't think that you should be flamed. All of us
need to rethink the perspective. IBDI is (officially) Dalton + Jason + Helen
just in case you want to ask Jason or Dalton directly. In the most wider
sense, IBDI is a community. If you care about donating your efforts to an
evil IBDI or to an evil Borland, you can play with IB sources at home and
nobody will pressure you.

What happens is, instead of a brilliant answer, you got a too sincere
answer and maybe, I still have hopes, you can assess what means for a too
tired woman like Helen this week, who happened to read your posting and
caught fire before time. Actually, accusing her of driving the community
based on obscure interests is not fair on your side, too. So, instead of
continuing exploring the "subliminal messages carried by IBDI", I suggest
that we go back to the engine. Whether you contribute code for EntityX,
Borland included, they can take your efforts and package them in a box. This
is not radically different of the way Linux has worked. Of course, there're
some utilities documented in O'Reilly books that were driven by a totally
"payment-free" group of people. But have in mind that IB wasn't born open
source, it's the original creation of a single individual (Jim Starkey), it
was a closed, commercial product that went from being kicked by DEC to
Apollo, to become Groton and then Interbase, then was sold to Ashton-Tate
and finally went where it never should have remained: in Borland's hands.
That's not because Borland lacks brilliant developers but because Borland
historically has lacked brilliant marketing people and they never have had
the most minimal idea of what to do with Interbase, other than bundle it
with Delphi & BCB as a test database or as a students' toy.

> Helen, anyone building an application on a database comes to rely on that
> database - regardless whether or not money is involved (separate to their
> existing wages/salaries); your opinion that anyone not paying
> money or being
> paid money to develop on InterBase just wants "toys to play with" is both
> wrong and ignorant.

As you know, you are free to pay or not to pay money to Borland, NewCo, The
Cheaters Inc., Fuller & Gottfried & Sons, The Renegades, etc. After all,
nobody has the power to bill you or me for the engine... unless Borland
decides to change the IPL... but this would be too hideous that I'm
confident they won't do that. In any case, I'm still using beta3 because its
license lasts up to next year. <g> We can disagree on who must receive our
contributions on engine improvements, documentation, tools, etc. This
depends whether you are a newbie on Borland issues or a seasoned Borland
customer or simply think that Borland always does the right thing regardless
on the time you play with Borland tools, etc. Personally, I'm reaching the
saturation point with lying press releases, after 10 years of being crushed
indirectly by the errors of the company whose tools I appreciate too much
and have tried to push in my country's market. I know the short answer is
"go with another company" but I still believe it's possible to retain the
high tech value while getting rid of the shameful marketing decisions.

> But at least it's best that the truth be revealed now, rather than later.

I don't know what's the truth that you wanted to be revealed and whether
you got it or only confirmed your suspicions about the people you don't
trust due to this clash with Helen.

I know it's difficult, but try to smile. Almost every childbirth implies
pain and a tad of agony and a SW product that experiences a forced
transition from paid binaries to open source is not very different.

C.