Hello Paul,

>> ... but is there some special reason why you didn't make this a
>> Firebird docs paper? Or, do you plan to?

> Yes, there are such reasons:
>
> 1. At the last conference, the doc's project made it known that they
> were very close to releasing a full set of doc's. I assume this is
> still the case and I don't want to intefere with that.

That's right, we've been "close" fore some time now, but in the end
things always take considerably longer than foreseen.

I'm very glad that you produced this documentation, but it also
painfully underlines the slowness of the doc project.

No, let me rephrase that: precisely because the doc project is so
understaffed, we should be grateful that someone "out there" succeeds
in putting up a good manual of his own.

On a practical level, how do you want to license this documentation?
At this moment the legal information link points to you general site
license, which says "all rights reserved". If you want other doccers
to be able to use your work, it would need to be placed in the public
domain or under an OS license (preferably PDL). Of course that's your
call: it's your work and we should all be grateful you did it, no
matter whether you open-source it or not.

Another practical issue: why spend time on writing a Getting Started
Guide if we already have the Quick Start Guide? Everybody can pick it
up and put it on their site without prior permission.

(The latest version shipped with RC4. A completely up-to-date version
will be available for Fb 2 final, or earlier.)

> 2. The doc's project seems very keen on the docbook technology.

That's correct, but we never refuse useful contributions just because
they are in the "wrong" format. We're not *that* stupid. We do try to
gently push contributors in the DocBook direction though, because of
the huge advantages for publishing, maintainability, etc.


Greetings,
Paul Vinkenoog