Business Factors in OSS Database Companies
Here’s another research paper I wrote on specific business influences on all of our favorite open source database companies, Business Factors in Open Source Database Companies
– AndrewZ
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Some mistakes of that article:
That article assumes that IBPhoenix is the owner of Firebird. This is wrong. Firebird has no owner.
IPL license is based on MPL (Mozilla Public License), not GPL.
Actually the license allows anyone to “sell” a database based on Firebird.
you can send him an email 🙂 with corrections
Have done that already 😉
Andrew, the author of the article here. Cantu is correct that under the InterBase Public License, no company other than Borland can own the Interbase source code and product.
However the article is a study of IBPhoenix, the company that develops and supports Firebird. IBPhoenix makes money by selling documentation and support for Firebird, not by selling the licensing.
For MySQL and SleepyCat (not a part of Oracle), most revenue comes from licensing the product.
My personal opinion, not expressed in the article, is that Interbase/Firebird is a very mature database with a high level of sophistication. I am always surprised that it does not get more exposure and usage here in the USA.
– Andrew Hudson
Thanks for the comments, Andrew. But I see a major mistake in your afirmation:
“However the article is a study of IBPhoenix, the company that develops and supports Firebird.”
Reading this, a normal user will understand that Firebird is developed by IBPhoenix, and this is wrong. Firebird is developed by a number of developers all around the world. Some of them works for IBPhoenix, but most of them don’t.