Hi Arthur, others,

> > 1) my part-time day-time job -> IB (because it's 'backed up' by a

company)

> Sorry, english is not my language. What do you mean with this? That you
> spend time with IB because it's supported by Borland?
> Goto http://firebird.sourceforge.net/, click 'Professional Services'. Goto
> http://www.ibphoenix.com, click 'Service & Support'. These are the people

I

> want my customers to spend money with. If my customers use IB, I will
> recomend this 'backup' links as well.
> Just what you and I do for free all the time: we don't click the links,

but

> get that persons online everyday, always free to help...

It's not that there isn't anyone available for FB services, it's the
company that's maintaining the product. There are lots of companies
and so-called 'tech' people out there (who make the decisions) and
don't believe jack about what's said about Open Source but do
think it's a cancer, like M$ said.

> > 2) my part-time InterBase Workbench job -> IB & FB (because it earns me
> money)
> More people you have moving from IB to FB more money you will earn. FB is

This is a rather bold statement to make and I don't think it's related
to the subject. Both you and I cannot predict what's going to
happen yet...

> one of the best BD in the market today.

There are a lot of players for small to mid-range database engines
these days -- personally, I think that both IB and FB lack some
'modern' stuff for sure and I certainly would like to take FB to a
higher level... From my own point of view, I try that by testing
and supplying (3rd party) GUI tools and other tools for it...

Don't forget PostgreSQL, FlashFiler, DBISAM, BTrieve, MySQL
to name a few 'smaller' database engines. All have their purpose
and all work quite well.

> > 3) my part-time other job stuff -> FB (because it's free, bugfixed and
> there's no need for licenses of course :)
> You mention the most important (bugfixed), and forgot to mention something
> that I use to say it's one of the most valuable things: we have a public
> list of 'Open Bugs'.

Completely true - but the more you know about the bugs,
the more you might get scared of them.

I've used Oracle for a couple of years, and Oracle had
quite a few bugs - as a developer, you know - but still
Million (or Billion whatever :)) dollar companies trust Oracle
to do their biddings for them. Not because they really know
about the product, but because they want to spend money
-- it gives them a feeling of trust. Believe me on this, I once
advised open source IB to a company here in The
Netherlands and they'd rather spend big bucks on an
Oracle license because of the name... Even though IB is
a mature product backed up by Borland... I surely hope
that Borland will start marketing IB soon :)

> My customers will not use FireBird because it's free
> (as Paul Schmidt from TriCats once said: 'there is no free software, the
> cost takes another form'), that's what I use to keep my application cost
> low. Clients always see the software cost as one, Application plus

DataBase

> engine. FireBird open source will benefict more the software development
> companys that will benefict clients.

There are lots of good things to say about Open Source.
And we probably know them all :)

> > When it comes to mailinglists and FB/IB support, I have but one thing to
> > say:
> > Please, not _another_ mailinglist to check!!
> For what I think, this will be just for a period of time, until the other
> lists die for itself. If we all redirect the people to the new lists this
> will be a matter of time. But this time will be valuable to you: more

people

> using FB, more clients you can have buying
>'WhateverYouDecide Workbench'. ;)

But I don't want ib-support (or others, for that matter) to
die -- ib-support offers a different kind of support than,
for example, borland.public.interbase.general

> FireBird is a well know product for us, developers. I feel more

confortable

> selling a FB application that selling an IB one, because I'm a tech

person.

> We all need something that will make our clients feel the same way when

they

> are going to buy a FireBird application.

Lots of clients don't settle for Open Source product -
plain and simple. (although this has become better
the last few years).

But I think that's beyond the scope of this post about
changing the newsgroup/list names :)



Thanks,

Martijn Tonies
InterBase Workbench - the developer tool for InterBase and Firebird
http://www.interbaseworkbench.com

Upscene Productions
http://www.upscene.com

"This is an object-oriented system.
If we change anything, the users object."