Svein Erling Tysvær wrote:

>Just one minor detail, Artur. There is absolutely no decision that
>have been made, I just suggested a possible name change - I'm not even
>a member of fb-admins or fb-architect.
>

Yes, I understand that. But the idea was a good move.

"Branding" or "naming a product" isn't simple. Sometimes, a good name
just make thinks different.

I'm not saying that I like the move to "Personal, standard, Enterprise"
as it is. I'm just arguing that maybe it's really a good move to change it.

>As to which version to call
>standard and enterprise, well, I just had no coin at hand to toss, so
>I made a random choice. There may well be other name changes that are
>better, the "Free Oracle" subject just made me realise that the names
>of our current versions are better suited for those of us that are
>already in the Firebird fold, than for potentially new users - let
>alone CEOs.
>
>

There is always a lot of discussions in support lists about the
difference between them.

Oracle move doesn't have any efect on me, and on products made by my
company. There are a lot of people that choose Firebird for it's
features, not for it's price.

My company delivers a product - Akropole - that people can download and
install. That's a 7 Mb download, with Fb-Embedded + Aplication + Initial
DataBase. When they install the application, nothing is writen in the
registry, so uninstall is just a question of deleting the directory.
That's a feature that you don't get in Oracle for sure.

My biggest application that uses Firebird was a specific application for
a client that had money to spend in Oracle. At the time - 3 or 4 years
ago - I give them the option of Firebird and Oracle. I had a meeting
with the Board of Directors, and explain the two options for databases.
They choose Firebird because it had a "must have" feature - was simple
to copy the all database to some managers laptops to work on it at home
(at this time, there where no Embedded version, but install Firebird 1.0
Beta 2 was a few minutes). I never talked about costs, and they where
quite impress when they realize that they have choose a free database -
that was after 6 months on implementation. For this kind of meeting -
with no tech persons - they are just interested in the features, and
they don't have any references to technical products/brands/etc. They
just want a good solution.
Sometimes, we spend a lot of time discussing things just because
Firebird is free. This move from Oracle can be very profitable, since it
will be easy to put them at the same level. :-)

I really doubt that Software Houses choose an Open Source database just
because it's free (sometimes they are OS and not free, as MySQL). People
that are really focus on technology, choose a database that fits his
needs. Firebird isn't the solution for all problems, neither Oracle.
It's good to have options. :-)

Artur