Re: [Firebird-docs] Complete Language Reference

[Paul V. <pa...@vi...>]

Hello Cosmin,

> So Interbase was released with a license that allows derived works
> to be published, hence Firebird, but the reference documentation was
> released under a different license that doesn't allow derivation?

Yes, InterBase 6.0 beta was open-sourced under the IPL (InterBase
Public Licence). The accompanying documentation was never released
under a license that gave third parties any rights. They are simply
(c) Inprise/Borland, all rights reserved. This means that you can't
do anything without their explicit permission.

Over the years, several of us have kindly asked Borland to release
the documentation under an open-source/open-doc license as well.
But by that time, they already regretted ever having open-sourced
IB6, so no chance.

> If that is so, then what is the option for Firebird to have a
> complete reference manual without infringing langref's copyright?

Write it ourselves. It's OK to write a book that covers the exact
same subject(s) as another book. Just as long as the *text* is
original.

It's not even incredibly hard to do this. In all modesty (ahem),
I think we can even do a little bit better than Borland. It just
takes a damn long time.


Paul Vinkenoog