On Fri, 27 Apr 2001 22:12:07 -0400, Claudio Valderrama C. wrote:

>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Fabricio Araujo [mailto:fabricioa@...]
>> Sent: Viernes 27 de Abril de 2001 1:40
>>
>> Ok Markus, I read you how-to. Just a synthesis of the facts:
>
> I tracked the main points in the IB Roadmap at my site. Since it was a
>roadmap, I couldn't fill it with details.

Very good! This story must not be forgotten!

>
>
>> December 99: Bill Karwin, former product manager of IB on
>> Borprise (Helen, correct me
>> if I made a mistake here) and flames and hoaxes and all type of
>> speculation about the
>> death of Interbase Relational Database Server came and flow like
>> lava rivers. This epoch
>> is related, by the ones that were on NGs and message lists on
>> that moment, as being
>> the "Black December". Pressure at Borland CEO gets to the sky.
>
> IB people resigned on Dec-14. The issue was known almost by accident on
>Dec-17 and published immediately in Mers-list by Greg Deatz (author of the
>freeUdfLib).

Hmmm. I don't remember the dates with that precision. I have to dump my messages
time to time.. And I had some HD crashes last year.

>> Jan 2000: Borland ( called Inprise on that moment) announce the
>> open of source code
>> of Interbase RDBMS and Ann Harrison(original co-author of the
>> software) initiates nego-
>> tiations related to the expurge of Interbase line of products
>> from Borland to a new compa-
>> ny, commanded by her and Paul Reeves (initially)
> The IB Webring was created on January 20 and the first members were IBDI,
>IBO and my own site. Soon I had 7 members and interbase.com signed, too
>thanks to Markus Kemper. When the Borland-IB site was restructured, they
>pulled away from the ring by deleting the link. I invited them again but no
>response in a couple of months. Be it their decision.

Hmm... Interesting.

>
> Jim started because ISC and EasySoft couldn't agree on the development
>price. The gory details of the failed agreement are not clear as to comment
>on them. Later, Easysoft continued developing their driver.

I don't remember this also. Guy, you have worked for CIA or SNI?

>> IBDI born with the intention to gather people interest and
>> enthusiasm on Open-Source Interbase.
>> * Jason Wharton: creator of a component set for Delphi and C++
>> Builder for native connec-
>> tion Interbase using all its capabilities
>> * Helen Borrie: well known IB user and collaborator in all suport
>> lists (in that moment, the one
>> that exist - the main one - was the one hosted on www.mers.com)
>
> You missed the third member: Dalton Calford, from Distributel. He has
>extensive experience doing large infrastructure (I almost wrote
>netfrastructure <g>) with IB.

I never perceived Dalton as a member of the innerest ring of IBDI.
But Dalton's knowledge is (and was) a great source of orientation
for new IB developers.

>
>
>> August 2k - December 2K
>[snip]
>> * IBDI does not negate its' origin and gather a enthusiastic
>> group to make the Firebird
>> fly. Mark O'Donnahue was the first to offer his efforts - in this
>> moment, to clean-up and
>> create a source-base buildable outside Borland labs. Others
>> engaged to the projects.
>
> Actually, I didn't know Mark O'Donohue and Mike Nordell before second half
>of y2000. Mark used IB in those prehistoric times (sorry, Mark) when Cognos
>sold a separate version under the name StarBase and he returned to the
>engine after several years of absence.

The second half? At least for me, 'second half' of a year mean the interval between
1-Jul to 31-del.
Anyway, these time references are from memory. Just to locate people in the sequence
of the things.

>
>
>> Middle December 2K - Jan 2001
>> - CERN alert about the "politically correct" backdoor. Firebird
>> gets ahead and patch
>> the source much before Borland. Fights about the merit of "who
>> make the s* and
>> why" fly around.
>
> Actually, a firebird volunteer, Frank (he's a Pascal developer, I
>understand) discovered the backdoor. Also, a destructive built-in UDF was
>found... active in the release version, both since v4 series (with a clear
>comment by Dave Schnepper). Firebird didn't do the politically correct
>thing. Instead, Ann alerted Borland almost same day. The politically correct
>action would have been to patch the issue silently and work on the press
>release with CERN or worse, wait for Borland to release a certified version
>and then chime in all directions. But since firebird is not a crew of
>Borland haters, the product was privileged above "partisan fights" (as
>Charlie Caro said) and so Borland was almost in time to push a "final
>solution" (as they wrote) when the CERN article was released to public eyes.
>What did firebird get in exchange? Flames.
>

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!



[]s Fabricio
Systems Developer