December 28, 2007
Firebird: Project of the Month on SourceForge
The Firebird database, the open source databases most commonly used by Delphi developers, is the December 2007 project of the month on SourceForge.
The Firebird database, the open source databases most commonly used by Delphi developers, is the December 2007 project of the month on SourceForge. The page with the award on SourceForge hosts a lot of information, including a short background and an interview with the key developers. Very interesting read. (This is hardly new information, as it has been around since early December, but I failed to mentioned it. Now what triggered my further interest is the extra bit below.)
As Carlos Cantu noted, it is very relevant that one of the InterBase engineers (Sriram Balasubramanian) blogged his congratulations. This gives me a good chance to reiterate something I mentioned many times on my blog, my hope that CodeGear (and the Delphi team in particular) will consider Firebird as a partner and not as a competitor of InterBase (the project Firebird was spinned off with Borland/Inprise original blessing). In my opinion, the key priority is to fully support Firebird in dbExpress with a specific driver, but official IBX support will also be nice to have.
7 Comments
Firebird Project of the Month on SourceForge
CodeGear or Borland is a coward and arrogant as well! If they would cooperate with other open source projects like Firebird and FreePascal, they possibly would be better than now. Both Firebird and FreePascal are never considered CG/BOR as competitor or enemy and would like to cooperate since both project are actually started because lack of innovation and/or interest from CG/BOR. But on the other side, the CG/BOR's side, they threat FB and FPC as competitor, even as enemy! What a silly and over reaction from CG/BOR! :PComment by bee [http://beeography.wordpress.com] on December 30, 08:57
Firebird Project of the Month on SourceForge
Before complaining why Codegear does not cooperate with FB and FP, people should read this lines from the FB team interview: "To date, however, the overwhelming majority of Firebird users, including commercial companies with huge deployments, don’t contribute anything", aka *money*. Although I agree that Borland/Codegear didn't innovate too much in the past years (something looks changing, anyway), I'd really like to know how cooperating with competitors delivering free products would help them. Oh yes, it would help all those guys looking for a free full copy of Delphi without going to wharez, and allow them to charge $$$ for their software built without spending a penny (see above...), but - please - explain me in what ways it would help Codegear to raise money to "contribute", or even survive????Comment by Luigi D. Sandon on December 31, 01:16
Firebird Project of the Month on SourceForge
Yes, it will be VERY nice if IBX will support Firebird !Comment by Hugues Van Landeghem [http://www.hvsoft.eu] on January 1, 16:35
Firebird Project of the Month on SourceForge
@Luigi: > Oh yes, it would help all those guys looking for a free full copy of Delphi without going to wharez, and allow them to charge $$$ for their software built without spending a penny So, you think all users off FPC are illegal users of Delphi?! You need to read and learn more about FLOSS. :P FYI, I HAVE a legal copy of Delphi 7. Fortunately, I didn't upgrade to newer Delphi releases. > explain me in what ways it would help Codegear to raise money to "contribute", or even survive? If you follow CG's list (borland.public.delphi.non-technical), this topic had been discussed more than once. You need to read and learn more about software business if you can't see profits on Linux/FLOSS world. Because lots of companies can survive very well in this area. ;)Comment by bee [http://beeography.wordpress.com] on January 1, 17:53
Firebird Project of the Month on SourceForge
"So, you think all users off FPC are illegal users of Delphi?!" Never said that. Many are genuine users. However I see a lot of people who want a free full Delphi, and tons of free compontents. And many do not release free software at all - they are just trying to maximize their return. *Some* of them probably use illegal copies of Delphi already, but as long as licensing code becomes more difficult to bypass, they want the right to use Delphi for free anyway. And I can't see any reason why CodeGear should help improving a competitor like FPC, especially one that have a so large price advantage! Supporting FB could be different - if it could boost Delphi sales without impacting Interbase revenues. "Fortunately, I didn't upgrade to newer Delphi releases." Exactly. You're looking for a cheap alternative to the latest Delphi releases. I do not blame you, you may have your good reasons. But CodeGear needs money to improve and innovate Delphi and other products. Noone there works for free. Tell me, who would pay for new features in Delphi if you can get them for free in FPC? "You need to read and learn more about software business if you can't see profits on Linux/FLOSS world. Because lots of companies can survive very well in this area" I know very well the open source market. And I know very well that CodeGear won't survive open sourcing its products, or helping os competitors. Look at successful OS products: they are either sideline or basic products of companies that have a different core business (Eclipse, Apache, Linux, Subversion, and others) with others piggibacking on them (i.e. RedHat), or use a dual license (i.e. MySQL). Probably if CodeGear had a couple of products, say a database, an application server or an office suite generating enough revenues could be in the position to release Delphi as open source. But Delphi *is* its core business and has to be written entirely by CodeGear, if it does not generate revenues CodeGear won't go far - and Bauer and colleagues won't go to work for FPC... probably they would start to work for Visual Studio or the like! And don't tell me people would pay for it anyway, we know a paltry percentage would - see what happens with FB. Show me a real business case where CodeGear could survive following your advices. And tell me, why FB and FPC need so much help from CodeGear, if OS companies can survive very well? Why they don't attract money and programmers?Comment by Luigi D. Sandon on January 2, 13:19
Firebird Project of the Month on SourceForge
@Luigi: In your opinion, money seems to be the biggest motivation for Delphi users, doesn't it? ;) > *Some* of them probably use illegal copies of Delphi already, but as long as licensing code becomes more difficult to bypass, they want the right to use Delphi for free anyway. What I'd found is quite contradiction with your assumption. Those who use illegal copies of Delphi won't bother themselves using FPC/Lazarus since 'visually' Delphi looks better. > You're looking for a cheap alternative to the latest Delphi releases. Wrong. I never said that either. It's because Delphi releases after 7 don't worth the price. :P Why should I spend thousand of dollars for a buggy IDE and compiler which depends on buggy virtual environment and would lock myself on a single proprietary platform? Obviously Delphi 7 and Kylix is still much better and give me some options and opportunities to go somewhere else without loosing my code. I love Delphi, but I love Pascal more. Pascal is bigger than Delphi. I don't mind to spend my money for Delphi and CodeGear, *if* they do their jobs right! :P > in the position to release Delphi as open source Never said that nor request for that. I pretty much understand CodeGear and the business. Re-read my previous comment, I requested for *cooperation*. > why FB and FPC need so much help from CodeGear Did I say that? :P Both FB and FPC don't need any help from CodeGear. I believe both will survive even if CodeGear is dead! In fact, both would help CodeGear alive. C'mon Luigi, be fair and objective. Both are voluntary-based projects and started with no money, but see what they can achieve so far. On some particular field, they are better than CodeGear's Delphi and Interbase. :P For example: FPC had supported 64 bit and generic since years ago. Using FPC, we could make our Delphi code goes cross platform. :P In just a few years, both FPC and FB is able to compete with CodeGear which is a relative medium-size company having not-small amount of capital. Shame on CodeGear! :PComment by bee [http://beeography.wordpress.com] on January 3, 18:54
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Firebird Project of the Month on SourceForge
Comment by Carlos H. Cantu [http://www.firebirdnews.org] on December 28, 19:52