Interesting ramble from Rob. Got me going on a number of fronts. Hope I
don't add to the confusion with my comments...

At 9/6/2000 08:17 PM (Wednesday), Rob wrote:

>Maybe everyone thinks that screaming at Borland for transgressions that it may
>or may not have committed is bringing the community together, I do not!
>[more about what has been unproductive to community building]

I agree with what you are saying here. However, the community needs a way
to vent frustration and we do it online. If that drives people away then so
be it.

We have a fledgling open source community here which is still organizing
itself. Anyone who comes to visit should understand that and make
allowances. We will get better at this as we go along.

One thing we definitely need is one or more mature voices from those who
have the big picture and long view in mind. When others jump up screaming
death, destruction, and desperation that is the time for those voices to be
heard to calm things down a bit, re-establish perspective, and keep
everyone focused. We have seen some of that but hopefully we will see more.

>I seem to keep inferring from the messages about the test control system/suite
>that if Ann had got a hold of InterBase then she would have released the
>entire test suite, which as I have been trying to point out is not correct.

The continuing confusion about the test suite mostly stems from the lack of
clear messages about what was intended (on both Inprise and ISC's parts).
When everyone heard a test suite existed they correctly assumed this was an
important piece of the puzzle. The also naturally assumed the test suite
should come along with the source code. Not unreasonable assumptions but
not accurate either.

The confusion has been exacerbated by Inprise's overall limited
communications with the community. Inprise has a history of not
communicating well with the developer community online, leaving most of
that communication up to Team B. Only in the last year or two has that
changed. The corporate level, official communications continue to be sparse
and usually PR fluff. Ted Shelton's online contributions were wonderful
when they started at the beginning of the Summer. Since they stopped
everyone if largely left to wondering once again what is going on.

>With InterBase OpenSourced, there are only three things of value left.
>
>1) The InterBase Name
>2) The InterBase Web Site
>3) The full test control system

I would add
4) Knowledge of the product internals
5) Knowledge of the recent history of development both in how changes were
implemented and why

I also think the Interbase name has some but not all that much value. It
just is not well known enough to be all that valuable. IMHO, an open source
DBMS named Firebird which looked, acted, and smelled like Interbase would
probably do as well.

>It appears to me that both Ann and Borland expected that the new InterBase
>Company would happen and both were caught off guard by the outcome. I suspect
>Ann would have made different decisions (fiscal amongst others) and Borland
>would have had a management team and plans in place to handle InterBase if
>they all new that the New ISC wasn't going to happen. But that is water under
>the bridge and everyone is scrambling to pick up their respective pieces.

I heartily agree with this. Looks exactly that way from my perspective, also.

>The community needs to make a decision as to whether they want to cut Borland
>some slack and see what they plan or continue to bash. Large companies move
>slowly and bashing drives existing and potential customers away. I hope the
>community chooses carefully and regulates their decision.

I think we are trying. It will take time. I'll bet each of us has cringed
with dismay at more than one post made by someone else in the community
over the past few months. It happens.

As a self-regulating group I think we are actually doing quite well. We are
all feeling our way along here but the community is maturing before our eyes.

>The community also has to decide how they are going to handle the InterBase
>R&D people when the show up on this list. You can continue to "jump" them when
>the surface on this list and drive them away or welcome them to the community
>and use their guidance. After all, the most knowledgable person on the current
>releases of InterBase isn't Ann Harrison nor Jim Starkey, it is Charlie Cairo
>and he is with Borland/InterBase R&D.
>
>The community also had to decide how they are going to handle InterBase Tech
>Support when they surface on this list, and they will surface here. I hope it
>is with a warm welcome not a "where is my test suite".

Me, too!

>[... stuff about the archives and build procedures and test certifications]

I wish the R&D people would share more of their experience with how to make
changes judiciously. This is the sort of thing we need them to contribute.

I respect what you say about the value of the Inprise CVS tree vs. the
others. However, having seen many of the fixes that have been made to the
Firebird tree I must say I'd sure like to see some of them added to the
Inprise tree. A bunch of those are fixes to simple typos in the code which
I cannot think would do anything but help.