Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Borland's Interbase Open-Sourced

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the let-the-code-run-free dept.

A slew of people have written in with confirmation that the beta version of Borland's Interbase will be Open Source. This comes on the heels of rampant speculation that this move would be forthcoming. Their press release states they expect to release in the first quarter of 2000. One interesting point is that they are not just opening the code for Linux - the Solaris and WinNT versions will be open as well. However, no mention of what license they plan on using, so I'm sure we'll be revisiting this story.

3 of 152 comments (clear)

  1. I wonder..... by Accipiter · · Score: 4
    Am I imagining things, or doesn't Microsoft own a heavy chunk of Borland/Inprise?

    That being the case, what are they doing? And is Microsoft beind it? If not, I can't see them being too happy.

    Speculation back then seemed to say that Inprise/Borland would be hesitant to support/port apps to Linux, when in fact the opposite is showing true. What's going on here?

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

    --

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
    (If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't. :P)

  2. Re:YAF/.CFOSSWRTRTLSS by sinator · · Score: 5

    Normally I'd consider those "Yet Another.." posts trolls, but I think there is something to be said about this.

    The source to Slash hasn't been released in quite a while; it seems slightly fishy that preaching the joys of Open Source gets Slashdot and Andover a lot of money, but the source isn't actually being released. Is this a strategic move for Andover?

    If so, it's pretty stupid. Slashdot functionality has been emulated many times over. My personal favorite is SquishDot, a plug-in for Zope. I don't see any competitive advantage to not releasing the source. It's not like releasing the source is that much more work for Rob and crew; we know it's being worked on because of improvements in Slashdot itself...

    A lot of people might respond "If you don't like it, leave. You get what you paid for." But this is a web site held by a publicly owned company; we get bombarded by the ads and click through on the banners and generally keep this site funded pretty well. You'd think that

    1. in the face of consumer demand for the source (and yes, we are consumers whose click throughs fund slashdot and andover), and

    2. in the face of the open source ideology that slashdot promulgates, and


    3. in the face of the fact that there is no strategic advantage in delaying the release to Slash because there are so many workalikes

    you'd think that Slash source code would be released.

    That having been said, I don't particularly mind if the source isn't released because Rob et al are taking their sweet time due to programmer-endemic laziness (as opposed to andover policy and other conspiracy ideas ), but it would be nice to hear status reports on the matter at the very least (e.g., "01-03-2000: Did nothing.") :-)

    just an opinion..

    --
    Three Step Plan:
    1. Take over the world.
    2. Get a lot of cookies.
    3. Eat the cookies.
  3. Re:Lig^Hnux: Everyone's favorite charity! by Tom+Christiansen · · Score: 4
    No, the point is just that rather than throwing something out, they open it up on the way out the door. So what? Would you rather it were completely lost to the world? (And I'm not even clear that that's what's happening here, but that does seem to be what you were grinching over, so that's what I'm addressing.)

    Kindly wipe that Stallmanesque `g' from the name of Mr. Torvald's kernel. It's insulting.

    One more thing: open sourcing something does not mean `giving it to Linux'. It means giving it to the whole wide world! Try not to see everything through Linux-colored glasses. I know it's hard, but please, for everyone's sake, do please try.