Happy 11th Birthday, Firebird!
I have updated last year message (+1) from Philippe Makowski, President, Firebird Foundation (Incorporated)
Firebird Foundation members and sponsors, Firebird developers and users,
I wish everybody a happy Firebird project’s 11th birthday.
Past and Present
As you may know, in July 2000, Borland Software Corp. (formerly known as Inprise) released the beta version of InterBase 6.0 as open source. The community of waiting developers and users preferred to establish itself as an independent, self-regulating team rather than submit to the risks, conditions and restrictions that the company proposed for community participation in open source development. A core of developers quickly formed a project and installed its own source tree on SourceForge. They liked the Phoenix logo which was to have been ISC’s brandmark and adopted the name “Firebird” for the project.
So, July 31 2000, the Firebird Project was born.
11 Years On
The Firebird project has a lot of active members. Of course, that doesn’t mean that there are all developers working directly on Firebird code. Some people volunteer for various tasks that surround the core development work, such as documentation, building, testing and packaging on various platforms, mentoring and providing technical advice, web site maintenance etc. Many members are dedicated to a particular sub-project, or to particular problem area. The Firebird Team consists of many skilled and enthusiastic members including primary Interbase developers, former Interbase engineers, experienced Interbase users, and complete newcomers keen to lend a hand in any way they can. This diverse, multi-talented, and ever-growing community is our greatest asset — one that guarantees a very healthy future for the Firebird Project.
In 2002, Firebird 1.0 was released, and the Firebird Foundation was created to support the project. Firebird 1.5 came in 2004, Firebird 2.0 in 2008, Firebird 2.5 in 2010.
The project won Source-Forge awards in 2007 and 2009.
As a 11th birthday gift, we are about to release Firebird 2.5.1 and the work on Firebird 3.0 started.
The Firebird Project is a lively community, open to everyone. We want this community to be a nice place for both newcomers and current members, where everyone feels comfortable and accepted. In the Firebird Community, participants from all over the world come together to create a Free Software RDBMS. This is made possible by the support, hard work, and enthusiasm of thousands of people, including those who create and use Firebird.
As you see, the Firebird community is well alive – the recent Firebird Day in Brazil had more than 500600 attendees – and, 11 years on, it is really a challenge that we can be proud to take up. I would like to thank all the past and actual core developers, contributors, sponsors, Foundation members for that.
The Future
Taking up the challenge of the project’s growth is our main concern for the next years. Obviously, to make an even more successful project, we need more contributors, more sponsors, more Foundation members.
Key Points
MindTheBird!
I want to thank the “MindTheBird!” initiative. It’s a good point to have Firebird ambassadors around the world. The Firebird project will work in coordination with “MindTheBird!” leaders to see how to consolidate this.
Our Web Site
The Firebird web site it is revamped, with the help of past donors. This new web site will be a place where you can find more information and ways to contribute to the project.[ED: you can still contribute by finding missing pages or missing manual pages : that means we need you to help with documentation writing and updating the old guides]
More of Everything!
We always need people to write code, documentation, review and triage bug report submissions, maintain the servers that run the Firebird Project and create new applications to make development of Firebird go smoother, develop marketing strategy to promote the usage and support of Firebird worldwide, support other users, give money to the Foundation, setting up Firebird events …
Maybe we’ll drink a beer together at one of our future events …
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