(veja em português) - (index of all previous reports)
The 7th edition of the Firebird Developers Day was held in in the city of Piracicaba-SP-Brazil, at July, 17 2010, in the UNIMEP university campus, with the presence of 580 attendees.
The conference had a total of 16 talks, presented by Mauricio Longo, Carlos H. Cantu, Alexandre Benson Smith, Rogério Cordeiro and Roberval Ranches, Eduardo Jedliczka, Bruno Lichot, Dmitri Kouzmenko (IBSurgeon), Erick Sasse and Douglas Tosi. The grid of talks can be seen at the bottom of this page, as well the letter from Philippe Makowski, currently Firebird Foundation president.
As always, many authors of Firebird tools and components offered to the attendees the oportunity to aquire their products with very high discounts, up to 50% over the standard prices!
This year, we commemorated the 10th Firebird anniversary, and many of the FDD attendees joined forces and donated to the Firebird Foundation the biggest amount of money ever collected in all the FDD editions! This is a sign that the community is aware of the importance of contributing with money to the Foundation, to assure a bright future for the Firebird Project.
I would like to thanks all the speakers, sponsors, attendees, UNIMEP and all the other people that was involved in some way with the realization of this conference.
I hope to see you again in the next year, at the 8th FDD!
Carlos H. Cantu
(18/July/2010)
 Theater entrance |
 Theater entrance |
 Registration |
 Luiz Paulo de Oliveira Santos |
 Wagner Correa |
 Green room |
 Eduardo Jedliczka |
 Douglas Tosi |
 FireBase's stand |
 ActiveDelphi's stand |
 Maurício Longo |
 Alexandre Benson Smith |
 Rogério Cordeiro |
|
 Carlos H. Cantu |
 Bruno Lichot |
 Dmitry Kuzmenko |
 Coffee Break |
 Coffee Break |
|
|
 Theater with public in both floors |
Dear attendees of the 7th Firebird Developers Day,
I'm really happy that you are more than 500 today, that's a very good way to celebrate the
Firebird project's 10th anniversary.
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.
The Firebird project has currently around 60 plus active members. Of course, that doesn't
mean that there are 60+ 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.
The project won Source-Forge award in 2007 and 2009.
As a 10th birthday gift, we are about to release Firebird 2.5 and the work on Firebird 3.0
started.
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, and you are a good example of that, the Firebird community is well alive, and
10 years after, it is really a challenge that we can be proud to took up.
I would thanks all the past and actual core developers, contributors, sponsors, Foundation
members for that.
Taking up the challenge of the project growth is my main concern for the next years.
Obviously, to make an even more successful project, we need more contributors, more
sponsors, more Foundation members.
There some key points that are on the way.
I would thanks 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 consolidated this.
The Firebird web site will be revamped, with the help of past donors. This new web site
will be a place were you can find more information, and ways to contribute to the project.
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 ...
So we will take initiative to help newcomers to join us, but don't hesitate to contact us.
Long live Firebird !
Have a nice Firebird Developers Day
best regards,
Philippe Makowski
Firebird Foundation President
