Although I don't completely agree to Jim, I think, the article is too long.
It has a very good topic, and is well written, but I had really problems to
force myself reading it completely.

The analogy is not bad at all, but you should point out your goals more
clear and shorten things a bit up.
I for myself wouldn't like anything more than to merge the Borland and the
Firebird-source-trees together. It is a shame to have a splitted community
at all, and Interbase as a database is doing nothing than loosing in this
constellation. Many potential users are either confused or scared off by
having two different COMPETING products based on one source.

I think, that open source Interbase could've made it to the linux-standard
in all dirstributions, and with having an PHP-module, also could've replaced
mySQL at many ISP's. Until now, the user-base of Interbase/Firebird didn't
grow significantly, and by far not enough since december '99. Taking a look
at the message-count on the mers-list, it seems, that a lot of users are
perhaps ex-interbase users now, as the number of messages is sinking
steadily.

CU, and happy coding,
Kaputnik
(Nick Josipovic)

nick@... <mailto:nick@...>
kap@... <mailto:kap@...>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
superior Client/Server programming:
www.IBObjects.com <http://www.ibobjects.com/>
a nice Tool for Interbase:
www.InterbaseWorkbench.com <http://www.InterbaseWorkbench.com>

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jim Gunkel [mailto:jimg@...]
>
> The analogy of the Parent/Child is too far of a stretch to make
> your point
> and involves a lot of "personal" beliefs which are very often
> different. e.g. Some people believe in strong discipline for their
> children...where does that fit into the analogy?
>
> IMHO, the issue is to figure out how to join the efforts of the IB
> community with those of Borland for the best possible outcome for IB's
> future. The beginning of the article starts out great towards this goal
> but I'm left confused after the end as to what the purpose of the article
> is and what your true feelings are. Eliminate about 1/3 to 1/2 of the
> article and it will be much easier to read (which means more people will
> read it) and much more understandable (which means it will have a greater
> effect).
>