In Firebird-general@yahoogroups.com,
"Ann W. Harrison" <aharrison@i...> wrote:

> > Oh, and BTW, if IB (and I mean IB *_before_*
> > the birth of FB) was doing even moderately
> > well, what prompted Borland to Open Source
> > it, in particular? There was no talk of
> > Open Sourcing Delphi or JBuilder. The only
> > rational guess that one can make is that
> > IB as a division of Borland was (how to
> > put it kindly) "struggling" - maybe paying
> > its own way, but not putting back the revenue
> > into the company which merited its
> > upkeep.


> Realizing that this is all ancient history, but
> do you remember anything about the US stock market
> in the late 90's?

Indeed, I do. Making money meant that you were
losing money, by not borrowing (or issuing shares)
to expand instead of wasting time on the business
of actually generating long term revenue.

Profit = Loser was the motto of those glorious
halcyon days.

> In high tech, the only thing
> that counted was growth. Revenue didn't enter
> into the picture.

Yep. I think that I've summarised it quite
nicely above.

> Borland's intention in open
> sourcing InterBase was to create a company on
> the Red Hat model, with them owning a significant
> share, pump it up, take it public, and rake in
> millions.

OK, but *_why_* did it decide to Open Source
Interbase if this was a sure fire way of making
money. By that logic, they could have made even
more money opensourcing Delphi, JBuilder, BCPPB,
hell, every product in the company.

Why Interbase in particular? Could it be that there
was something about IB that distinguished it
(negatively) from the other products in the
Borland (or was it Inprise) range? Did Borland
see an opportunity to divest itself of a
millstone around their neck, and make
some money at the same time?

> April 2000 ended that story.

Remind me of what happened in April. I was in
a company that IPO'd in (approx.) Oct 2000. It
was still bedlam at that stage with regards to
getting one's greasy paws on shares and or
options. Reminds me of a funny cartoon I saw
in the aftermath of the collapse - candidate
being told by interviewer "And one of the
benefits of this role is no share options!".

Or was that just Europe (i.e. date of burst)?


Paul...

> Ann