From: "Lehman, Marci L" To: "'George C. Hawkins'" Subject: thank you Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2001 11:46:33 -0700 Thanks for composing and sending such a straightforward and well-documented commentary on the change of InstantDB from OpenSource to a closed source product. Marci Lehman -----Original Message----- From: George C. Hawkins [mailto:george.hawkins@pobox.com] Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2001 11:35 AM To: instantdb@projects.lutris.com; keith.bigelow@lutris.com Subject: , , Subject: Future status of instantDB Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2001 01:58:36 +0100 Sender: owner-instantdb@projects.lutris.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: instantdb@projects.lutris.com First let me say I'm not a rapid open source fanatic, if companies want to develop and sell products using closed source that's fine with me (I'm composing this on Windows 2000 and I've no access to its source code but then I was never promised or expected such access). I do have a problem tho' with developing against something on the basis of a promise that it would eventually become open source and then having that promise broken. I hope this isn't the case with instantDB I'm not sure what instantDB's move from enhydra.org to Lutris central means (along with the package renaming to lutris.org). Particularly after looking at page http://www.lutris.com/products/projects/index.html Previously instantDB's licensing was undefined but it was made clear by Peter Hearty and others at Lutris and Enhydra that it would soon become a fully open source project. The link above now refers to a special license available for the source code. If you follow the licensing link on the same page you're told "We understand that some [technologies], for example InstantDB, are highly valuable as separate standalone technologies and therefore we are able to offer cost-effective and fully supported commercial ISV/OEM licensing." There is no mention whatsoever of the long promised open source version and the available download is being made available to "Evaluators & Educators" and "Lutris Customers" - this sounds like purchasers, would be purchasers and the educational community to me, no mention of the community that contributed bug reports, etc. over the last year or so to instantDB in the belief that it would be an open source rather than commercial product (or that both an open source and commercial product, featuring support etc., would be available side by side). If you'd looked (before the instantdb.enhydra.org site was taken down) at pages such as the following you'd have felt pretty confident that if you started working against instantDB an open source version would soon be available. http://instantdb.enhydra.org/software/index.html > Lutris Technologies purchased InstantDB in April of 2000. The intent > is to Open Source InstantDB in the near future, and create the most > popular Open Source Java RDBMS. http://instantdb.enhydra.org/software/cvs/index.html > Lutris Technologies purchased InstantDB in April of 2000. The intent > is to Open Source InstantDB in the near future, and create the most > popular Open Source Java RDBMS. Once that process has been > completed, this page will lead you to the CVS tree for InstantDB. The subject of the lack of appearance of such an open source version was a common topic on the instantdb@enhydra.org mailing list and we were continuously reassured that it was on its way right up until recently: Keith Bigelow - 15 Jan 2001 > We're hoping for Q2/01. InstantDB over the past few quarters has > been integrated into the Enhydra Enterprise architecture, and this > integration has delayed our ability to bring the product fully open > source. With the completion of the integration, we expect to see it > released under the EPL or a variant of the EPL. Keith Bigelow - 22 Jan 2001 > We have legal commitments with IBM, Nortel and other global > companies that have licensed InstantDB from Lutris. Thus, there > should be no concern regarding either our commitment to the product > or to the open source process for the product later this year > [target Q2/early Q3]. Peter Hearty - 2 Feb > I'm currently focusing all my efforts on readying InstantDB for its > first open source version. Peter Hearty - 28 April > Glad your finding IDB a useful tool. As to the source code? Lutris > has us all waiting with baited breath... I'm honestly as much in the > dark about that as everyone else. The last message dated 28 April, only a month ago, where Peter refers to being "in the dark" I believed meant he was in the dark about a date for instantDB going open source NOT about whether it would or not - this being a now well established fact. The contents of the main Enhydra CVS repository still contain just the class files from the previous, i.e. last Enhydra, version of instantDB: http://enterprise.enhydra.org/software/cvs/cvsweb.cgi/Projects/EnhydraOrg/pl atforms/EE/services/Jdbc/modules/InstantDB/ The link on the Lutris documentation page to the license is currently broken: http://www.lutris.com/products/projects/instantDB/software/license/instantDB .html Lutris has had the benefit of many developers working against instantDB, tracking down and submitting bug reports and making other useful contributions all for free on the basis that they were contributing to what would ultimately be an open source project and that they would eventually get to see (and contribute to via CVS) the source for this product. This is something many of them would not have done if instantDB had been marked as a close source project - WHICH IT WAS NOT. I really hope I'm taking this all wrong and that Lutris hasn't duped lots of developers into using and contributing to instantDB under false pretenses. I look forward to clarification from Lutris and Enhydra. Yours, George C. Hawkins PS as the instantdb.enhydra.org site has been taken down some people might like to see my extract of the site (taken from a Web cache snapshot), containing any pages that contained the words "open" and "source" or "opensource". I haven't had time to weed out any irrelevant pages (ones with "open" somewhere and "source" somewhere else entirely) but any evidence people need should be there. Catch it there before it disappears in a Soviet style rewrite of history (only joking Lutris guys I suspect you're good guys and this'll all be sorted out): http://instantdb.tripod.com/ Or if you live a pre HTTP/1.1 world: http://members.tripod.com/~instantdb/