At 07:29 PM 09-09-00 +0000, Maureen O'Gara wrote:

>Helen, Helen, Helen.
>
>"Scurrilous"? "Sensational"? "Badly written"? "Biased"? "Inaccurate"?

Here is the offending passage from my posting:

<< The two articles in the Client/Server journal were, in my opinion,
scurrilous and
sensational, badly written, biased and inaccurate. The fact that they
"dished" Inprise did not in any way redeem or justify their publication, in
my view. >>

I hereby apologise for and retract the word "scurrilous". I meant
"scandalous". You are quite correct to object.

Is it "ostrich-like" for me to express an opinion about your articles? I
should not, and do not, challenge your right to publish. I have a right to
express my opinion as to whether you were justified in publishing material
that I consider **scandalous**, sensational, badly written, biased and
inaccurate.

Badly written - there are several examples where supposition is mixed with
fact, without any clarification of which is which. There are mistakes in
word usage (e.g. "evidentially" when you meant "evidently"; "the projected
InterBase Systems (ISC) spin-off" (as far as I know, "ISC" is a mnemonic
for "Interbase Software Corporation" - with a lower case
"b"!); "appliantize'd" (what sort of English syntax is
this?); "underwrite" to describe Inprise's proposed venture capital
contribution; and several other examples of sloppy writing and sub-editing.

"NewCo may be restyled Firebird and InterBase or rather the InterBase clone
given another name and tag line." Apart from its inaccuracy, this sentence
does not even parse.

Sensational -
Loaded terms such as "kidnap", "InterBase clone", your headline ("InterBase
Flap Could Fork Code" are sensational. Consider the intro paragraph of the
second article:

<< Rebel forces are making off with InterBase, the old-line database that
belongs to Inprise/Borland. Disgruntled
InterBase developers have forked the code, now that it's gone
open source, and a couple of ex-InterBase managers are setting up a firm
around the rogue code. >>

It is sensational, at least to those who are interested in InterBase. The
truth is that the Firebird tree is a community project, not an IBPhoenix
one, it is open for anonymous download and Inprise R & D has availed itself
of Firebird modifications. The code has not forked (so far). The new firm
is not being set up around any notion of "rogue code". Its intentions all
along have been to set up around one integrated code tree, if possible.

This:
<< ..the end-of-life database that in its heyday was an Oracle wannabe. Oh,
okay, Sybase wannabe. >>

Was it? In my opinion (and I did say "in my opinion") that is sensational
and misleading. InterBase is in its heyday now. I shudder to think of it
as ever having been a "Sybase wannabe" and I don't see how it would have
been considered "an Oracle wannabe" at any point in its life.

Biased - both articles presumed that the code had forked. Both articles
conveyed the impression that "Newco" was behind this supposed fork.

A very germaine aspect of the current situation is the overlap of the
InterBase community with the Borland tools community and the Inprise R & D
people in general. It has been emphasised greatly in all of the list-based
"flak" that you say you used as your resource material for these articles.

Whatever your intention, your articles have been construed as a smear
campaign against Inprise by the IBPhoenix group. As a member of that
group, I take strong exception to that. I care a great deal about Borland
tools and the developer support infrastructure at Inprise. If IBPhoenix
had set out to be at war with Inprise, I would not have been part of it.

I think it is patently clear to any beholder that the actions of the
Inprise executive have had a very negative impact on these coal-face
relationships. In my view, to have ignored this and bundled the issues as
you have is to have biased your articles against one of the essential issues.

Inaccurate -

<< Everything is out under a variant of the Mozilla license, which means
developers don't have to open source their modifications or
InterBase6-based applications. Mozilla makes InterBase different from the
MySQL database, for instance, which is going GPL, because GPL would require
MySQL apps to be open sourced. >>

This is inaccurate. The Mozilla licence very specifically ** does **
require developers to open source their modifications. Where it differs
from GPL is that is does not require open-sourcing of other code that
touches it, such as plug-in modules or applications. Quoting Article 3.2.,
Availability of Source Code:
Any Modification which You create or to which You contribute must be made
available in Source Code form under the terms of this License either on the
same media as an Executable version or via an accepted Electronic
Distribution Mechanism to anyone to whom you made an Executable version
available; and if made available via Electronic Distribution Mechanism,
must remain available for at least twelve (12) months after the date it
initially became available, or at least six (6) months after a subsequent
version of that particular Modification has been made available to such
recipients. You are responsible for ensuring that the Source Code version
remains available even if the Electronic Distribution Mechanism is
maintained by a third party.

<<Inprise had originally said it would underwrite ISC from its venture
capital fund. >>

This is misleading and inaccurate, since the proposal was for Inprise to
contribute venture capital to a maximum of 19.5 per cent of the total
startup. All remaining liabilities ($6 million cash in the form of a debt
note, $1 to $1.5 million in interest obligations and a hefty chunk of
"assets" which were actually liabilities) were to rest with ISC.

<< Fuller has made a lot of people unhappy with his decision and not the
least of them are Harrison and Starkey, who might very well go ahead and
form ISC anyway and fork InterBase. >>

Your implication is that Jim Starkey is involved in the activities to form
the new company. He is not.

<< NewCo may be restyled Firebird and InterBase or rather the InterBase
clone given another name and tag line. >>

Where did that come from? "Firebird" is the name of the community's
project at SourceForge. It was an initiative from the community. The ISC
people were not involved. Use of the words "InterBase clone" clearly
implies that the code had forked and "Newco" was responsible for it. There
are three patent inaccuracies here.

<< There are notions about hosting any schismatic effort on VA Linux
Systems' SourceForge site. Anyway, there are moves to set up a replacement
web site, get the source tree organized, put documentation together and
synchronize the code. >>

This is conjecture scrambled with circumstance. Yes, IBPhoenix has put up
a replacement web site and has put in a lot of effort to make documentation
available and centralise information about open source activity. The
"hosting of any schismatic effort" has not been an issue because, until
today, the assumption has remained that Inprise would find a solution to
the problems it has with open source and the trees would be merged.

The independent Firebird project (not ISC) organised the source tree and is
keeping its code synchronised. It has been on SourceForge all along.

<< Rebel forces are making off with InterBase, the old-line database that
belongs to
Inprise/Borland. Disgruntled InterBase developers have forked the code, now
that it's gone open source, and a couple of ex-InterBase managers are
setting up a firm around the rogue code. The new wannabe-a-company is
called IBPhoenix and hopes to breath new life into the old girl.>>

Fact: the Firebird source tree was set up by open source programmers who
wanted to work cooperatively on the code and were prevented from doing so
because no read/write tree was available. They didn't "make off" with it.

Whilst it is quite possible that the IBPhoenix company would align itself
with the "rogue code", its preference would be for there to be only one
InterBase code tree. Until Inprise released its plans a few hours ago, it
was unclear how Inprise intended to proceed. In the IBPhoenix group, we
all hoped that Inprise would have been researching ways to cooperate with
the volunteer coders.

<< By many lights, Inprise, which got the database off Ashton Tate, which
in turn bought the original InterBase company, has been a lousy landlord.
So Inprise's latest gyrations didn't go down at all well. When the database
went open source, developers basically kidnapped it and set up a rival site
at SourceForge, VA Linux' open source development host site.>>

The developers didn't "kidnap" the code - they copied it, as any individual
or group is licensed to do. It was not a "rival" tree since, at the time,
the InterBase tree, which had been set up by someone with the nick of
"Dale1" months before, was empty and remained so for some days.
------------------------------------------------
I stand by my opinion of these articles and my right to express it. It is
ironic, really. I'm the loudest critic of the Inprise "spin machine" and
the injustice of Inprise proponents putting abroad libels and innuendos to
the discredit of the former ISC team. Shouldn't I be grateful that
somebody wanted to publicise the ISC point of view?

The fact is, I don't believe falsehood serves benefit to any party in this
situation.

Regards,
Helen


http://www.interbase2000.org
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Team JEDI Member