Doug Chamberlin wrote

>However, the primary reason to buy the book is not to supply
>revenue to the
>Foundation. It is to support the publication of the book. The
>publishing
>business is such that if this version does not sell as hoped, the
>publisher, and probably any other publisher, will forego any second
>edition. We will NEED more editions covering Firebird 2.0 and beyond!
>
>So, the best way to help ensure they will be published is to buy more
>copies of the current edition. I have three - one to loan out,
>one to use, and a signed one to keep pristine.

No argument there. We bought four copies, both for that reason and because
it's really useful to have around. But buying copies of the firebird book
needs to be in addition to, not instead of, supporting the foundation. We
have a number of talented, experienced and knowlegeable programmers who
could get snatched away by better offers. Oracle wouldn't have to "Buy
firebird" to kill the project. All they'd have to do is make unrefusable
offers to a few of our key people like Claudio, Dmitry, Helen, or any of
several others, and it could prove to be impossible to recover from the
loss. But without the ability to compensate them for their time, how would
we respond to something like that?