At 08:14 PM 09-09-00, Helen Borrie wrote:


<<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. >>

Somehow I don't feel any better. Now I'm supposed to have
"publicized an incident that brings about disgrace or offends the
moral sensibilities of society," according to the dictionary
meaning of "scandalous." You sure we're talking about the
same simple narratives? Couldn't just be that you're naturally
given to wild overstatements?

<<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. >>

Ostrich-like in that you don't want any coverage for fear
InterBase can't withstand the scrutiny.

<<Badly written - there are several examples where supposition is
mixed with fact, without any clarification of which is which.

You offer no evidence.

<<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. >>

1. I confess I misspelled evidently.

2. Inprise styled it InterBase with a capital B when referring to
ISC. (See Inprise press release February 14,2000). If my not using a
lower case B rates an exclamation point, one shudders to think of the
value system being applied here.

3. The strength of English is its ability to absorb new
constructions. It's as valid as that blasted neologism
"finalized."

4. When the ISC negotiations hit the wall, Dale Fuller was quoted as
saying "it was not in the best interest of Inprise/Borland
stockholders for us to sell the InterBase product line to a start-up
entity which would be dependent on Inprise/Borland for funding."
Seems to me that meets the dictionary qualifications for using the
word "underwrite: To assume financial responsibility for,
guarantee against failure." Maybe you knew differently by dint of
being an "insider." I, on the other hand, answer to a higher
authority and can't go around shouting "liar" every time
the whimsy overtakes me.

<<"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. >>

Maybe you missed the debate in these very pages on the subject. Oh,
yes, and you were taking someone else apart here on September 7 but
didn't correct him when he used the
expression "IBPhoenix/NewCo/FireBird." Gee, other people must
have the same impression. Wonder how that happened?

As far as parsing, I'll send you a grammar book. It's in the
front under simple sentences.

<<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. <

Guilty.

<<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. >>

By any conceivable definition of the word including Ann
Harrison's, the code has forked. Get over it.

<<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. >>

Oh, brother.

<<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. >

I don't think that conclusion about being forked – and it
said clearly in the first story's headline "could fork"
–
meets the definition of bias. However, nothing in either story said
NewCo was behind the fork. Otherwise, IBP says on its web page,
"We're
involved with Firebird…"

<<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. >

And your point is…

<<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. >

Excuse me, but then why did IBPhoenix put the stories on its web site?

<<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 issue. >

Huh? Shall we return to the subject of parsing, non sequiturs and the
intelligible use of the English language?

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. >

Afraid you might have me there but let us remember there is a
campaign underway to put Mozilla under a real GPL and there is the
little matter of the Netscape codicil that lets it take submitted
code and not return it.

<<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. >

Ah, but we were speaking of what Inprise had represented
historically. Notice the use of the word "originally." It had
nothing to do with any of what I understand were a series of changing
terms offered 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. >

At the time the story was written it was unclear whether Starkey was
in or out. However, let me tell you a few of the facts of life. As
long as Ann Harrison is married to Jim Starkey and they are living
under the same roof, Starkey's involved, if only tangentially.
It's in the nature of boys and girls. Go ask her. And don't
hand me
any of that feminist crap, Gloria Steinem's married now.

>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. >

See above.

>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. >

It's what happened.

<<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. >

Pretty to think so, but the IBP and FireBird people I've talked
to aren't so confident. Looks like your vested interest is
showing.

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

If you mean synchronized with Borland's code, well, I understand
there are more changes and cleanups in the FireBird code.

>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. >

Uh-huh

<<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. >

See above

>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 think any sane person would judge it to be a rival.

<<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? >>

We stand by our stories.

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

Falsehood's an awfully strong word to be throwing around.

<<Regards,
Helen>>

Maureen O'Gara