FreeTDS Development Group

[Bob Kline <bkline AT rksystems.com>]

On Fri, 9 Jun 2000, Craig Spannring wrote:

> Stefan Bodewig writes:
>  > 
>  > After I had read in the FAQ that Sybase will give you their TDS
>  > details "for free" - there are enough magic values in TDS 4.2 already
>  > - I went to their web site and read their license. It's scary.
> 
> One does have to wonder how much of the license is what Sybase wants
> and how much of the license is implicitly required by contracts Sybase
> has with MS.  Certain Sybase people (at least up to the VP level)
> seemed to want to release it unconditionally.  My understanding is
> that the corporate lawyers said that wasn't possible.
> 
> I tend to think that Sybase was barred by previous agreements (probably
> with MS) from a "free" release.
> 

Now, that would certainly be in character.  Publicly claiming that it
can't comply with the court order because they aren't free to release
proprietary Sybase information while privately forcing Sybase to treat
the information as proprietary. :->}

-- 
Bob Kline
mailto:bkline AT rksystems.com
http://www.rksystems.com