> Personally, I think there is potential for better times ahead for both

groups. I can't see how DevCo could consider Interbase,

> which is now "almost as good as Firebird other than the price", as a

viable part of their product line. They'll be selling

> primarily IDE/Compilers, which historically have been database agnostic-

and need to be, since focusing on their OWN database

> would make the products viable for maybe 1% of their potential market.
>
> So why waste programmers on advancing a product whose market share will

continue to decline, which is competing with Free (and

> not keeping up in performance or quality)?
>

I don't want to start a "InterBase does this better than Firebird and vice
versa"
e-mail exchange, but I find your above remark a bit short sighted.

Despite whatever you say about Firebird does not mean that InterBase is
always following it. InterBase has SMP support, while Firebird does not.
(Vulcan will do this, but it's not finished yet). InterBase has statement
cancelling, and although people say "it's easy", it's still non existing in
Firebird. InterBase has monitoring tables. And there's more ...

Martijn Tonies
Database Workbench - development tool for Firebird and more!
Upscene Productions
http://www.upscene.com
My thoughts:
http://blog.upscene.com/martijn/
Database development questions? Check the forum!
http://www.databasedevelopmentforum.com