> From: Jason Wharton

Hi,

> Perhaps we should do a poll to see how many people want Firebird
> and Borland
> to resolve their efforts into a single unified development effort.

My personal though on the 'issue' is that that Borland is having a problem
with 'Control' and 'Ownership' of Interbase. Every 'Borland' press
release, article, whatever always contains phrases like "Borland's
Interbase" or "Our database server", every newsgroup posting from a
'Borlander' contains phrase like "WE are working on...", "we our supporting
OUR database", "WE are doing x,y,z"; when in fact it is not 'their' product,
it is 'ours'. They might 'own' the name, and hold a copyright on the
original code, but the 'product' is now the communities to do with it what
they want. The reason(s) behind this are the fact that Borland are a
commercial software 'house', and pre-v6 Interbase, is still a closed source
commercial product.

Putting myself in Borland's 'current' shoes for a minute.... If I were to
let my developers join the Firebird 'tree', I would feel like I was giving
up all control over the product, together with the 'ownership'. If I were
to let the 'Firebird' developers and Ann and Jim etc., join the Borland
tree, I would feel like I was losing control over the product, and would
have to make public all the 'behind closed doors' work, bug lists,
documentation etc.

Borland are a commercial company, and that means making money. The only way
they are going to make money out of Interbase is by offering support, CD's,
manuals etc. This makes them and IBPhoenix competitors in the marketplace
and always will do. I have no problem with this, I think it is a good thing
for the 'consumers', and have no issues with Borland saying their support is
better than IBPhoenix, or IBPhoenix saying their is better etc.. But, at
the end of the day it is in both their interest, and IBPhoenix's to see
Interbase grow and develop, and continue to exist, and this means
'Borland's' development team working with Firebirds.

I think there needs to be some separation of the entities involved, as
people, on current information, are getting muddled. There is, in my
opinion, five different entities involved....

1) Borland 'Commercial' - Offering support, CD's, Manuals etc.
2) IBPhoenix - Offering support, CD's, Manuals etc.
3) Borland 'Development' - Working on development of Borland "fork" of IB,
currently 'behind closed Doors'
4) Firebird - Working on development of 'public' "fork" of IB.
5) IBDI - Community website offering news and views etc. from all Interbase
Camps

I have no problem with (1), (2) and (5), its (3) and (4) that need sorting
out, and in my view, combined/merged. The two main issues preventing this,
as I see them, are the inability of Borland to separate its commercial
Interbase side and its 'development' side, and the fact that 'Firebird' is
perceived of being 'owned' by IBPhoenix.

If things stay as they are, 'Borland' are going to lose out on the
co-operation of a group of highly skilled/experienced 'firebird' developers,
but the 'product' will eventually die, and 'Firebird' are going to lose out
on any 'kudos' associated with having the 'Borland' name behind them, as
well as the experience/skills of current Borland IB developers, but the
'product' will continue to live. Personally, I want the best of both
worlds, and a couple or more companies I can look to for support/commercial
offerings 'for the best deal'.

The above is just my point of view, and understanding of the current
situation. Corrections are most welcome.

Cheers

Phil