Robert,

There are some people who are just plain bitter towards Borland and then
there are those who want to see Borland do the right thing because they care
about Borland. If you are bitter and just want to see injury come to Borland
then for the sake of everyone including Firebird your advice to "cool it" is
justified. However, for those who are vocal about their concerns regarding
Borland's business practices, this is the place to share them and get
unbiased and thoughtful dialog concerning them.

If people all do what you say then what you say will happen won't happen.
Borland needs to know the magnitude of our concerns. What Borland does is
truly their prerogative and I generally respect and uphold whatever they do.
They will know if and when I'm bitter for some reason when I fold up shop
and quietly move elsewhere. That is what 99% of people do when they no
longer believe in a company. That's an awfully difficult number to measure
and something I hope they are very concerned about. More so than the bitter
1%.

I will support Borland if they proceed just as they are as long as they
properly market InterBase this time. It is a wonderful product that a lot
more people would use if they marketed it better. It does appear that
InterBase is getting more recognition from Borland upper management and that
is a very good thing. Borland is the most ideal company to own and operate
InterBase and I am as happy as can be that they are doing what they are
doing.

The commercializing of InterBase isn't especially compatible with running an
Open Source distro. It is also much more difficult to maintain multiple
branches of code. I am feeling less aggravated towards Borland for not doing
open source better than they are because I realize that Firebird is who is
going to be providing that aspect of things if that is what people want. I
also realize that this helps them focus on making a better resalable
product. There is a lot to be said for that. The bottom line is that
products need to generate revenue or they cease to operate.

What matters more than how Borland does open source is how much
communication and synergy the Borland and Firebird groups generate. Firebird
is reality folks! I hope that given just a little more time there will be a
lot more comfortable feelings between the two. As long as the engineers in
Borland are willing to promptly come to agreement about things with Firebird
and they can move forward in a uniform manner, InterBase and its derivatives
will be a very powerful market force.

As far as I am concerned, if this synergy can take place we will all have
the best of both worlds. A heavily marketed commercial contender able to
stand toe to toe with market giants that will pull in significant revenue
and a very active and progressive open source wing that accelerates it
forward in development and stability. Borland's Open Edition is the official
feedback loop to the Firebird team. Let's hope the loops are tight so things
can move forward together.

A motto that I often like to use seems appropriate to repeat. If we are
concerned about getting a bigger slice of the pie than someone else we will
diminish the size of the pie. If we worry less about the size of our piece
and more about simply increasing the size of the pie as a whole we will end
up with a lot more in the end. This goes for Borland, Firebird, IBPhoenix,
IBDI, and whoever else you care to mention.

FWIW,
Jason Wharton
IBDI Co-founder

----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert F. Tulloch" <tultalk@...>
To: <IBDI@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, April 20, 2001 5:43 AM
Subject: Re: [IBDI] IBPhoenix - article about IB6, certified, faq etc...


> Hi:
>
> > <RANT>
> > The current 'open source' model by Borland is useless! No matter what
> > every 'TeamB' member says - its utterly useless... They know it, but
> > cannot tell - at least, that's what I think.
> >
> > How can someone at Borland say that the current open source model is
> > good and works fine... The whole open source IB is just one big
> > fraud...
> >
> > I know, people keep saying let the past rest, I agree on that. But
> > this is current date and time we're talking about. What is Borland
> > expecting? 'Anyone' can add to InterBases value -> you're allowed to
> > add fixes, new functionality ... but what do you get in return?
> > Nightly builds, not even done by Borland!!
>
> This endless ranting that has gone on for months is a real detriment to
both
> IB and Firebird and has the potential (if not already the effect) of
turning
> potential users/contributors away from use/participation in this open
source
> scenario.
>
> Given a while longer, I think Borland will realize it is in their best
> interest to provide binaries for download rather than let a bunch of folks
> build their own and "call" it IB. Eventually it will all come together
into one,
> they control the testing and building of IB Open Source, all the open
source
> folks contribute ideas and code and preliminary testing and it on big
happy
> IB family with a known product identity. Of course this presupposes that
the
> fanatics can get over the bitter feelings which are so slowly abating, if
at all.
>
> Lets cool it.
>
> Best regards