Well, perhaps it is time to do a mid-week summary. I'm not quite
ready to compile a list of all slogan proposals, but I will attempt
to summarise all of the discussion around it.

I think there is a strong common opinion that the following four
things are the core benefits of Firebird:
- Capable
- Reliable
- Easy
- Free
I think the first two imply enterprise readiness, but perhaps others
disagree. I think "capable" can be understood to imply speed, but I
am not sure. Perhaps "scalable" is a fifth core value.

For each of the above benefits it should be easy to provide "proof"
in the marketing sense: concrete reasons why the claims are credible
and trustworthy. See my earlier posts for an example.

Specifically for developers there is a supportive set of benefits:
- Good drivers for all popular client technologies
- Great, international, helpful community
- Independence, ownership, empowerment
- DBA's can have peace of mind

For these benefits marketing proof seems straightforward as well.

Specifically for the managers/customers co-deciding on larger
projects there is another supportive set of benefits:
- Large user base, larger than nearly all competing RDBMS's
- Capable commercial support network
- Grows with you (i.e. scaleable, performant)
- Somebody like you has already implemented FB and is happy/successful

Getting marketing proof for this together will be more work. We need
to assemble a "support directory", H/W sizing rules of thumb for
various typical workloads, and a "large user" reference list with
some details of their deployment (db size, workload, H/W used, etc.)

So far the summary of benefits.

There have been many valliant attempts to capture all of the above in
a slogan. I think we have seen two types: "wordy" and "abstract".

The "wordy" ones are generally of the form: "Firebird SQL: X, Y, Z",
where X, Y and Z are words that try to capture as many of the
Firebird benefits as possible.

The "abstract" ones try to convey the general feeling of the Firebird
experience. Examples are "the legend continues", "we build
excitement", "pure empowerment", etc.

It is my opinion that the slogan thread (i) leans towards favouring
an abstract slogan over a wordy slogan; (ii) has not yet generated an
idea that has broad support.

However, there is broad support for the idea that the slogan cannot
capture the full message that we want to communicate and that a
layered approach is needed, a multi-stage message boot loader so to
speak.

At the top of this pyramid is the slogan that should generate the
first level of interest. I suppose it should also act as our 'battle
cry', to print on tee shirts, coffee mugs, to yell at Monty, etc. :^)

At the second level is a "10 line whitepaper", a short statement that
summarises the benefits of Firebird. It is a 1-minute sales pitch,
designed to be kept in the the press at all times, by attaching it to
press releases, by discussing it in interviews, etc.

(How about mailing it to 10 developer friends: through the 'six
degrees of separation' principle all developers in the world will be
reached quite quickly :^)

At the third level is a full explanation of all the Firebird
benefits, including all the marketing proof of those benefits. The
third level is basically an improved version of the current fact
sheet.

I hope the above summary has been fair to all contributors. If not,
please make yourself heard.

Paul