Dear Firebird Foundation members and sponsors, dear Firebird developers and users,

I wish everybody a happy Firebird project's 10th birthday.

As you may know, in July 2000, Borland Software Corp. (formerly known as Inprise) released
the beta version of InterBase 6.0 as open source. The community of waiting developers and
users preferred to establish itself as an independent, self-regulating team rather than
submit to the risks, conditions and restrictions that the company proposed for community
participation in open source development. A core of developers quickly formed a project
and installed its own source tree on SourceForge. They liked the Phoenix logo which was to
have been ISC's brandmark and adopted the name "Firebird" for the project.
So, July 31 2000, the Firebird Project was born.

The Firebird project has a lot of active members. Of course, that doesn't
mean that there are all developers working directly on Firebird code. Some people
volunteer for various tasks that surround the core development work, such as
documentation, building, testing and packaging on various platforms, mentoring and
providing technical advice, web site maintenance etc. Many members are dedicated to a
particular sub-project, or to particular problem area. The Firebird Team consists of many
skilled and enthusiastic members including primary Interbase developers, former Interbase
engineers, experienced Interbase users, and complete newcomers keen to lend a hand in any
way they can. This diverse, multi-talented, and ever-growing community is our greatest
asset -- one that guarantees a very healthy future for the Firebird Project.

In 2002, Firebird 1.0 was released, and the Firebird Foundation was created to support the
project. Firebird 1.5 came in 2004, Firebird 2.0 in 2008.
The project won Source-Forge award in 2007 and 2009.
As a 10th birthday gift, we are about to release Firebird 2.5 and the work on Firebird 3.0
started.

Firebird Project is a lively community, open to everyone. We want this community to be a
nice place for both newcomers and current members, where everyone feels comfortable and
accepted. In the Firebird Community, participants from all over the world come together to
create a Free Software RDBMS. This is made possible by the support, hard work, and
enthusiasm of thousands of people, including those who create and use Firebird.

As you see, the Firebird community is well alive - the recent Firebird Day in Brazil had
more than 500 attendees -, and 10 years after, it is really a challenge that we can be
proud to took up.

I would like to thanks all the past and actual core developers, contributors, sponsors,
Foundation members for that.

Taking up the challenge of the project growth is our main concern for the next years.
Obviously, to make an even more successful project, we need more contributors, more
sponsors, more Foundation members.

There some key points that are on the way.

I would thanks the "MindTheBird!" initiative. It's a good point to have Firebird
ambassadors around the world. The Firebird project will work in coordination with
"MindTheBird!" leaders to see how to consolidated this.

The Firebird web site will be revamped, with the help of past donors. This new web site
will be a place were you can find more information, and ways to contribute to the project.

We always need people to write code, documentation, review and triage bug report
submissions, maintain the servers that run the Firebird Project and create new
applications to make development of Firebird go smoother, develop marketing strategy to
promote the usage and support of Firebird worldwide, support other users, give money to
the Foundation, setting up Firebird events ...

May be we'll drink a beer together at one of our futures events ...

Long live Firebird !

best regards,

Philippe Makowski
Firebird Foundation President