On 19 Apr 2002, at 10:46, R. Tulloch wrote:

> When Nick was developing the EasySoft driver, I did many tests and
> sent him the feedback (trace logs etc). Naturally since that was a
> for profit effort, he was very responsive and resolved issues rapidly.

The difference is not in the fact, that EasySoft driver is for profit, but
that Nick is paid to work on it full-time. Of course, for-profit and full-
time work goes naturally together, but important is the second, not
the first. If someone would work on XTG or IBP ODBC driver full-
time, (s)he would be very responsive and issues would be resolved
rapidly. There are many ways how to put full-time workers to open
source development, but someone always have to pay for it in
some way. The good news is that the total cost of OS development
could be far less than in closed environment and distributed to
many participants that make it even smaller for each, but there is
still a cost that have to be paid by someone in whatever way. A
great many have a difficulty to realize that because the "free beer"
mindset, but Open Source is as good as _all_ participants paid for
in some way. The only one, but _very_ important difference
between Open Source and closed, for-profit development model is
that in open source no one would try to "milk" customers to the
dry, but only to the sum needed to make work done.

> The effort to develop an OS ODBC driver for IB/FB OS is a
> natural part of making FB a viable options for developers as so many
> inquiries on this topic have shown. Most of these I have seen are
> related to CR. It would seem that a working ODBC driver that
> supports CR would be in the interest of all concerned with
> promoting FB.

Why on earth you can make an assuption like that ? Of course, it
would be nice to have a free (no deployment cost) ODBC driver for
freely deployable database engine, but FB/IB developers don't owe
it to anyone just for the fact, that they work on FB engine for free!
I'm sure that you'll not send a letter to Borland, that they should
provide a free ODBC for free IB Open Edition, so why should
Firebird developers ? Firebird Project has only limited resources,
and they are spent on more "important" areas than ODBC driver
that works with CR, especially when working (but not free) options
exists. But anyway, there is at least one OS ODBC driver in active
development that should work with CR in future, and everyone
would get it for nothing. If anyone would like more, for example get
it faster or get sponsition that it would be developed, then why they
do not gather from all interested about $5000-$10000 (it's enough
to pay two good developers full-time for few months here in Czech)
and offer that to XTG developers to make it done this summer ?

You see, it's ALL about resources. Someone can throw in
resources in hope for future revenue from licence fees, but it's
possible for anyone to throw in resources just to make work done,
or faster, or in predictable time. There is a wide range of options
how to provide needed resources, just pick the one that would work
best for you. Throw in needed resources (nothing more and nothing
less), and you all can have anything you want.

Best regards

Pavel Cisar
Mobil: 0724 281429
http://www.ibphoenix.cz
Vse co potrebujete pro Firebird a InterBase