> Honestly I can't understand why
> Inprise not simply releases them to the public. Can you tell us why?
>

Well, I am not the one you adressed.
However, I leave it to you to judge whether
you would consider the quotes below
to be a valid answer to your question...


Regards
Frank Emser

_______________________________________
From: Ted Shelton [SMTP:tshelton@...]
Sent:
To: Frank Emser [SMTP:FrankEmser@...]
Subject: Re: Concerning the interbase cripple source debacle...
Time: 01.08.00 at 18:59

Frank:

I think that the four possibilities for the test suite are as follows --

a) Release the test suite as open source -- anyone can do anything, but
conversly it may destroy one of the potential values that InterBase
companies could hope to have

b) License the test suite to many independent companies -- each company
would then be able to do testing, and contribute back to the source tree but
there would be administrative oversight required by Inprise

c) License the test suite to a single independent company -- basically
the ISC model

d) Keep the test suite a proprietary Inprise tool -- would require that
Inprise perform all testing so a lot of work and would engender distrust
from
the community.

Personally I am leaning towards option (b) because I think that it is
important that there be some economic reasons for people to create InterBase
related companies. But I would welcome your thoughts on this.

yours,

Ted
<...>


_______________________________________
From: Ted Shelton [SMTP:tshelton@...]
Sent:
To: Frank Emser [SMTP:FrankEmser@...]
Subject: Re: Concerning the interbase cripple source debacle...
Time: 01.08.00 at 04:03

<...>
Regarding your point -- "the cause for all evil..." -- Heck - I can see a
good argument for releasing the test suites, and enabling every company to
do what ISC had proposed to do as a business model. Paul Beach points out
that you only release them once though :-) So I should be really sure that
we don't want to enable ISC or ourselves or any other party to be in that
business before we release them. One possibility we are discussing is
releasing some of the tests -- would this be helpful or more frustrating?
<...>


_______________________________________
From: Ted Shelton [SMTP:tshelton@...]
Sent:
To: Frank Emser [SMTP:FrankEmser@...]
Subject: Re: Concerning the interbase cripple source debacle...
Time: 31.07.00 at 22:06

<...>
I am working on the test system -- some people have told me that it was
never the plan (under ISC or otherwise) to release the test system. Many
people have since come to me and said that it has to be released. I am
working to sort this out.
<...>

_______________________________________