Re: [HACKERS] Inprise/Borland releasing Interbase as Open source

The Hermit Hacker wrote:

> On Mon, 3 Jan 2000, Stephen Birch wrote:
>
> > I wish this announcement had been made a few months ago!! We have
> > several developers porting our server software to PostgreSQL.
> > Although we like PostgreSQL, we have run into a number of memory leaks
> > and bugs - something we never encountered with Interbase.
>
> What version of PostgreSQL? Did the problem reports you sent in not
> improve the situation?

I haven't seen that many. And what kind of a project leader must it be,
that a simple announcement causes the work of several programmers over
months (sounds at least like a man-year) to be thrown away? IMHO the
kind of PL, companies like M$ are targeting with their huge amount of
announcements.

> > Now Interbase is going open source, we will discontinue the PostgreSQL
> > development effort. Interbase is such a well written DBMS, it doesn't
> > make sense to continue.
>
> Two points...when will Interbase go open source? Right now they've
> announced the intention to do so, and even given a very brood time
> frame...but, when is it going to happen. two...what says Interbase will
> continue to be "as good" when becomes open source and they are no longer
> making any money on it?

Since it's the toplevel story on www.borland.com, I think it'll really
happen soon. And I also think they intend to continue making money on
it, just not by selling DB-licenses any more. They have a rich set of
development tools etc. they can sell anyway. And in many projects I've
seen that it's never a bad choice not to mixup too many
hardware/software vendors (they'll all point to each other as soon as
problems arise). So it's a big PRO for their applications and tools, if
you'll get the DB they use for free. And it's your decision to spend
money when going into production to buy commercial support (what I
expect they'll offer).

Another point is this. As long as I know Postgres, a couple of features
had been added just because some user needed it. And they are supported
and kept alive. Do they have some proposal on that? How will they deal
with some feature-patch sent in?

Jan

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