RE: [Firebird-devel] damn gbak Win32 error

[Leyne, S. <sl...@at...>]

Dmitry,

I realize that language is probably an issue here
(English-Russian-English, English-Spanish-English) but...

I get the sense that you're 'angry'/upset with Firebird, am I wrong? =20

Or, are you simply pointing out some issues which the project needs to
be aware of?


> Claudio, seems that most of FB developers does not in tight=20
> contact with
> end users. If FB developers doing something they like - it's=20
> one point.
> If they want their work to be usable by other people - it's=20
> another point.

Your suggesting that we are not users of the product ourselves and are
not responding to user needs, right?


> Maybe I'm too stupid to promote Firebird in Russia, causing a lot of
> "beta users"? I don't know.

Please clarify.

> Our company are selling Interbase during 5 years. I can=20
> survive with or
> without FB. Alternative (opposite to Interbase), free=20
> Firebird will give
> us (our company) new customers. No Firebird - less customers,=20
> and believe
> me, less Interbase customers (some will move to another RDBMS).
> And, our company does not claim to be world-wide IB/FB=20
> support. We work
> only in Russia. We do not crossing IBPhoenix line or yours.

In this project, there are no IBPhoenix or any other lines. =20

Each of us has there own 'motivation' for participating, but does not
mean that there are lines of responsiblity which have been established.


> To be honest, I can offend Borland same way as you seen in my=20
> post about
> Firebird bugs, as we, Interbase community, did ~2 years ago.
> If something going wrong, it must be told. I can't cry alone
> about bugs, seeing people fighting bugs on their production systems.

I think it is safe to say that we welcome comments/bugs reports.

However, unless someone is willing to 'invest' some time of their own to
help solve a problem/add a new feature, then I don't think that anybody
can complain about the lack of movement of some issues.

Look at Mike Grover, he had the need to support multi-gigabyte external
tables, the engine had a problem with that.  He downloaded the code and
with a little direction came up with a solution, which he has submitted
and will be incorporated into the next release.

The same was true for my own issues with 64Bit I/O and 16KB pages, in
that case I did 95% of the investigation and then co-opted other members
to spend a little while doing the code.  I am not a C/C++ programmer,
I'm barely a Delphi programmer, but I made the effort to read the code,
ask question and research the issues.

In both case, people where willing to 'invest' the time, in order to
address a need or to incorporate a valuable feature.


> I'm wondering why IBPhoenix keep silence, if they offering IB/FB=20
> technical support. I mean, people can't use workarounds forever=20
> working on Interbase built 5 january 2001 (really august 2000,=20
> if I remember correctly).

What does IBP support have to do with the state of this project?  I
don't follow.


> Of course, I can hire peolpe to make same things like Firebird do.
> But I do not want to make 3-rd version of Interbase. You may assume
> that I'm trying to make money with your hands. Maybe, but I'm doing
> a lot of techsupport for free (in Russia, of course). Also I have
> my own intellectual property that can be sold with or without
> Firebird. But I like Firebird! I want it to be good, stable, and used
> more often than Interbase.=20

I would hope that is the goal of all project members to make Firebird
good, stable and widely used.  It is certainly the goal of the core
developers (there are about 16 of us, by my count) that I have exchanged
with.


> > > p.s. people, are we going to release? Or we will wait=20
> until Borland
> > > will release 6.5 and every user will move to it?
> >=20
> > Going to release with pending issues like this? Are you kidding?
>=20
> Hmm... I'm not saying that we must mark current version as release.
> But I don't see any progress moving to release - lot of changes
> produces new bugs.

See my last posting.


> No. I do not want to fight. We work in different counties, so we can
> make money different ways, and we are not required to do it together.
> But I think I said things that any other developer in USA,
> UK, Italy, Poland etc can say.

None of us want to fight, especially when there Interbase to 'go after'.
;-)


> Will certified Borland Interbase 6.5 violate IPL, if changes will not
> be available? Does current certified Borland builds violating IPL?
> (1.9 and 3.2 of IPL)

No, since borland is the original copyright holders, they are free to
treat the IB code anyway they want.  Let's just say that I will be very
interested in seeing what Borland does with the IB 6.5 release (to be
clear I'm refereing to the treatment of feature and code for the
OpenEdition)


> > - If there's no place where to see or test his compiled=20
> changes, then we
> > only have to trust you, but your assertion seems more a=20
> troll than other
> > thing.
>=20
> Right now it is only for testing purposes, Win32. I can count=20
> and name all new
> engine features. Binaries with src will be available at=20
> monday, I hope.

Why is he launching yet another fork/port, why not work with us?


> He's doing this for free. FB developers can agree or not with=20
> his changes.

We are working for free as well, why can't he work with us?


> Right now I see EXECUTE VARCHAR feature in the same=20
> situation. It is done, but not yet accepted.=20

As discussed previsouly there are some concerns about the approach used
with the new feature?

Had the feature been discussed here beforehand, then I'm sure that the
concerns would have been discussed and addressed thus the final feature
enhancement would have been accepted and incorporated.  But as it was,
their are a number of issue with the approach used.


> But I can't put
> changes, because I have not write access to CVS. I have Win32=20
> bat files
> to compile FB made by Paul Reeves (with some changes from me), but
> can't put them into cvs, because have no write access.

All anyone has to do is join the project and ask an Admin for CVS write
access.  CVS write access is no longer given by default, this was
changed as the membership grew in size.


> > Otherwise, where are those changes or a binary to test it?=20
> And apart from
> > sending diatribes against our work here, what else are you=20
> doing? Have you
> > tried to contact that person if he wants to work with=20
> anybody else at least?
>=20
> I'm not agains your work or another people here who are doing=20
> great work.
> But I think it's not enough - FB group does not have people=20
> to cover all FB parts.

No argument, that's why we are always looking for new members.

But having someone say, look at the great stuff that's happening over
here, doesn't really help this project.  Especially, if there are issues
with the approach/techniques used to accomplish the goals.


Sean