Ann,

With your post regarding Netfrastructure being purchased by MySQL,
this brings up a topic that I (am sure others) have thought about
since the recent news of Oracle purchasing Innobase Sleepycat.

I am less concerned about MySQL with the purchase of Netfrastructure.
Hopefully any damage that Oracle could or would do to MySQL would not
affect them in the long term. While my database of choice is Firebird,
I support the open source concept and MySQL has been a much publicized
success in that regard.

Could the situation that happened to MySQL happen to Firebird? Could a
company like Oracle start buying up aspects of Firebird? An overview
of the situation with Firebird would be very helpful.

Thanks,

Michael Fisher
desnotes@...

On 2/19/06, Ann W. Harrison <aharrison@...> wrote:
> Jim Starkey sent the letter below to the Firebird admins and asked
> me to forward it here. This is a great opportunity for Jim and
> for the technology he's worked on for the past seven years. As
> for my plans, MySQL have been very supportive of my intention to
> continue to work on and for Firebird while working for them part
> time as a senior architect.
>
> What changes does this acquisition bring to Firebird? Almost none.
> Jim's work on Vulcan is done. He's not the right person to lead its
> integration with Firebird 2. I'll continue my work on the Vulcan Mac
> port and other areas of interest and help documenting and integrating
> Vulcan, and of course, continue to explain Firebird to novices and
> database experts alike. From my new position, I hope to encourage
> more cooperation between Firebird and MySQL in areas where our interests
> coincide – possibly test suites, certainly new syntax – ways to
> demonstrate to the commercial world that cooperating open source
> projects are a viable alternative to monolithic commercial solutions.
>
> Sincerely,
>
>
> Ann
>
> Here's Jim's letter:
>
> My company, Netfrastructure, Inc., has been acquired by MySQL, AB. As
> part of the agreement, I will be working full time for MySQL. I expect
> to lurk on the architecture list from time to time and may contribute
> the occasional wolf-o-gram, but I will not be taking an active part in
> Firebird development. Although Ann will work for MySQL, part time,
> translating from wolf to English, she will continue to be active in the
> Firebird project.
>
> My decision to join MySQL has almost nothing to do with Firebird and
> everything to do with Netfrastructure. The Netfrastructure platform
> represents what I feel about contemporary computing hardware and future
> application requirements, and has been the center of my technical heart
> and soul for six year. Some aspects of Netfrastructure technology have
> already been contributed to the Vulcan project, but Firebird and
> Netfrastructure are architecturally incompatible. An attempt to
> integrate the technologies would be unlikely to meet the goals of either
> project.
>
> MySQL and Firebird have never seen each other as competitors and I doubt
> this will change in the future. The projects have different open source
> philosophies, different technologies, different customer bases, and
> different sweet spots. The ideas behind the two projects are, happily,
> public and available to all. If MySQL and Firebird compete, it is only
> competition in offering the best possible support to their respective
> customers.
>
> I am pleased to have had the opportunity to finish the Vulcan project.
> The combination of Vulcan SMP and architecture combined the rich feature
> set of Firebird 2 will make a solid release and a superb platform for
> future development.
>
> I wish the Firebird project all the best in years to come. And if you
> need an opinion, please feel free to call.
>
>
>
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
> Visit http://firebird.sourceforge.net and click the Resources item
> on the main (top) menu. Try Knowledgebase and FAQ links !
>
> Also search the knowledgebases at http://www.ibphoenix.com
>
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>