Subject RE: [ib-support] Why Red Hat didnt got IB instead of PostGreSQL ?
Author Helen Borrie
At 08:45 AM 29-06-01 +0200, you wrote:
>Is that not a bit of a short term vision. I think Firebird is a
>better database and the fact that firebird is on sourceforge should
>saveguard against any problems consering these battles.

Oh, it goes without saying, that Red Hat's contact with PGSQL and its developers goes back a long way, predating even the existence of Red Hat. Regardless of relative product quality (who knows, really?) PostGreSQL has existed as an Open Source SQL RDBMS since 1996 and the Open Source engine has been around longer than that. It has plenty of history and a long-term dedicated source code developer base.

Firebird, by contrast, has been Open Source for not quite one year. It also has a dedicated and very well-informed source code developer base, but it is one that is still getting to grips with the source code. Also, unlike Firebird, it started its OS life with all of the source code, which was documented, and the documentation was freely available. So far, Firebird doesn't have any full-time developers.

A company could be excused for harbouring doubts about the stability of the IPL licensing model, which is subject to the whim of the public corporation which not only OWNS the code base but would also be a direct competitor.

>Should a
>company not choose on the basis of performance/specs rather than
>on ownership/lackof ?

Companies generally don't choose to put their heads right inside the lion's mouth, even if performance stats and benchmarks were available which set one DBMS right out in front of others. Given that no such figures are available, this question of their having chosen on that basis doesn't even arise.

>Btw Name recognition would come much slower without such decisions
>in our favor.

Well, true, but how on earth could there be any likelihood that Red Hat would even consider Firebird, if their strategy was to move on it in June 2001?

This will give you some background on PG if you don't know their story:
http://www.ca.postgresql.org/docs/devhistory.html

Regards,
Helen

All for Open and Open for All
InterBase Developer Initiative ยท http://www.interbase2000.org
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