> > My point being, Firebird has a much more broad spectrum of usage to
> solicit.
> > As a result, IBX is bound to be less of a priority, in general, to
> Firebird
> > than it will be to InterBase.
>
> Agreed, afterall Borland has to 'invest' some effort into IBX/dbExpress for
> Interbase, otherwise, they would very likely be accused for neglecting their
> own product/Interbase.

Borland had already decided to kill Interbase 2 years ago.
It is only pressure from users that kept it alive, and now
Borland are acting as if that 'incident' did not happen and
it is still an in house program. As far as I am concerned it
is only Firebird that is taking this seriously and time is
VERY limited so lets concentrate on getting key parts fully
functional.

> > > There are a lot of Firebird project members/followers which use Borland
> > > tools. The reality is that most Firebird users, only know about it
> > through
> > > their use of Interbase and the Borland tools. Accordingly, support for
> > > Firebird by those tools is very important to us.
> >
> > Granted, but this will change over time I predict.
> > If it doesn't then I predict there really isn't much of a need for
> Firebird
> > afterall.
>
> I'm not sure what you mean.

What Jason means is that IF Borland were actually taking
Interbase seriously, then there would not be a need for
Firebird. It has a lot of bad will to overcome BUT if a
credible Interbase came out with all the fixes currently
covered by Firebird, then the need for Firebird lapses.
Somehow I don't see that happening. It would have to be VERY
good to get me back.

> > > By the same token, we would welcome anyone who would like to port and
> > > maintain any Borland data-access component to support Firebird.
> >
> > I know that Firebird is not hostile towards IBX,
>
> Obviously, you did see some of the exchanges between myself and Craig
> Stuntz/Jeff Overcash about 4-6 weeks ago... ;-)
>
> Seriously, you're right Firebird is not specifically hostile to IBX.

It is a pity that this is not mutual. I would not use IBX
now, I am more than happy with IBO/Firebird, but Borlands
atitude to third party packages in general does them no
favoures. They would gain more support if they actually
admitted that in the past they 'got it wrong' and started
talking to developers seriously. ( This is even more vital
with Kylix )

> Jason, it's kind of hard to lobby an organization which doesn't answer email
> or phone calls on the subject!

Exactly - they spend no time on us - their users - so why
should we bother helping them.

> > It makes me wonder how many people are going forward with supporting and
> > using Firebird because early on I made a committed stand to support and
> back
> > it with IBO? I'd like you to assure the commitment and focus will be
> > reciprocated...
>
> Again, don't quite follow "reciprocated"?

But for IBO I would probably be paying an arm and a leg for
some other database - there was a lot of presure to drop
Interbase when Borland said they were pulling the plug.
Especialy because it was not working. I had invested a lot
of time, spent money with BORLAND for help, and tried
everthing. IB6 + IBO saved the day, and my bacon.

WHERE does Borland even acknowledge that IBObjects exists?

I stopped using the Borland lists when they ( and their
supporters ) pulled the plug on the IBO list.

"reciprocated"?

( This should really be on a more general list ?IBDI )

--
Lester Caine
-----------------------------
L.S.Caine Electronic Services