Hello,

I suggest, that all this talk about Firebird & competition is a bit
of misconcept.

How can you compete?

How a buddhist monk can compete with a businessman?
A businessman is all about money, a buddhist monk is all about
openness. How can they compete? Still, both attract certain people.

Firebird is open-source. It is about openness in the first place.
Private companies are what they are. It is about money in the first
place. If you become a private company - then you will have to
compete!

Dont forget, they can read your messages, and you can not read
theirs! Then how you can compete? This is impossible!

You can only compete when you hide things.
If you disclose things - how do you plan to compete?

If you choose to compete, you become a private company,
you sell licenses, you hide your messages,
you hire enough developers to compete.

If you choose to be open, you accept things like they are,
you sell services, you write your messages openly,
developers come and go like they want.

It is a question of personal choise, taste and style.
But not both things in the same time. :)

You are fantastic souls, you do the great job, you display openness,
that is your strength. Don't worry about competition! :)

Competition is a psychological trick in the mind only. The trick
happens when you suddenly think that you are *here* and the
competing person is *there*. This is a trick of the mind only. In
reality, you are *here* and competing person is *here* as well! :)

In fact, the competition exists if only you think of it as of
competition. If you think of them as friends -
then they are friends! :)

Like when light enters - darkness dissapears, it can not exist
in the same time. If you are open, competition vanishes by itself.

What is this talk about "we can loose the project",
If you are open - how can you loose anything?
Who can beat you? Nothing to beat. No target.

Not possible simultaneously. Opposite directions.

Misconcept really...

Go bold! :)