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
workof several programmers over    months (sounds at least like a man-year) to be thrown away? IMHO the    kind of PL,
companieslike 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
tocontinue making money on    it, just not by selling DB-licenses any more. They have a rich set of    development
toolsetc. they can sell anyway. And in many projects I've    seen that it's never a bad choice not to mixup too many
hardware/softwarevendors (they'll all point to each other as soon as    problems arise). So it's a big PRO for their
applicationsand tools, if    you'll get the DB they use for free. And it's your decision to spend    money when going
intoproduction 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
neededit. And they are supported    and kept alive. Do they have some proposal on that? How will they deal    with some
feature-patchsent in?
 


Jan

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