Advocates say there's a real need now for a solid open source database for Linix. The current contenders, MySQL and PostgresSQL, aren't commercial-grade products, while InterBase has been on the market since 1985 and runs on NT and Solaris, as well as Linux. In other words, it's a database that can be integrated within other applications - invisible itself, but acting as a crucial underpinning. However, if the original development team breaks apart and Inprise itself loses interest, InterBase will enter the growing category of open source abandonware. Without a dedicated recourse to push development and marketing, it will go the same way as the other open source databases.
Some history is needed.
Originally an independent company, InterBase was acquired over the course of a few years by Ashton Tate, which was itself swallowed up by Borland in the early '90s. Boeing, Motorola, Nokia and the US army are among its largest users. And at the end of the year, five of the key development tools quit the company, having been told that research and development budgets were to be cut. Within the course of a month, staff at the database unit is said to have dwindled from 40 to around five. But then Fuller responded to suggestions that InterBase be released as open source.