Category: General news

This week IBM became the latest proprietary database vendor to add a free offering to their lineup, according to ZDNet:
Source: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-6032676.html

It would be difficult to estimate the balance between appealing to developers and the influence of Open Source databases such as MySQL, but I would tend to believe that competetion from Postgres, Firebird, MySQL, et al. to be a significant factor in the decision to release free versions of proprietary databases.

Source for this news/blog of the day
http://www.openwin.org/mike/index.php/archives/2006/01/ibm-introduces-a-free-as-in-beer-version-of-db2/

Open-source database deployments rose dramatically in the last half of 2005, and as one might expect, as more IT pros get acquainted with these non-proprietary systems, security is a chief concern. Open-source database makers like MySQL and PostgreSQL [ED: and Firebird] simply must answer some of the most prevalent security-related questions in order to win more market share.

One of those questions is, with recent headlines suggesting customer data stored on organizational databases is at risk, should those who opt for open-source database applications be worried? Not according to data suggesting proprietary database software is breached more often. But data alone is not enough. What IT executives really want to know is what specific technological security precautions open-source DB developers need to take.

“We continue to see the maturation of open-source databases reflected by the continually increasing levels of adoption,” said John Andrews, President, Evans Data. “In a number of our ratings categories, we’re seeing open-source databases meeting or exceeding proprietary databases.”

Read this full article at TechNewsWorld

Hello all,

A new list has been started on Yahoogroups – a job board for devs
with Firebird skills and for employers looking for them. 🙂

It’s a pretty tightly moderated list.

You can look it up from the Lists and News Groups page of our main
website, or go straight there if you like.
http://www.yahoogroups.com/community/firebird-job-board

All you’ll see in the archives right now is a couple of messages
posted by Calin Pirtea, who’s helping with the
moderation. (Actually, you won’t see the archives at all if you’re
not a member…)

Feel free to link to the list from your own websites. It all helps
for getting us “out there”.

Helen

Carlos Guzmán Álvarez has announced a new version of the Firebird ADO.NET Data Provider 1.7.0b is available for download.

· 1.7.0b ( 2006-01-30 ) ·

(Please read the Changelog for details)

2006-01-28 Carlos Guzman Alvarez

* FirebirdSql.Data.Firebird/DbSchema/FbViewColumnUSage.cs:

– Fixed minor bug.

Heisse Online reports that IBM will release a free (gratis) version of DB2 Express this month. The authors says that it is from a reliable, verified source in IBM. It worked like this: Firebird forced MS to release a free SQLServer (MSDE, later renamed Express) to compete in VB/Delphi space, Oracle had to match with the release of SQLServer2005 and now DB2 has to match Oracle. Isn't it amazing how a determined community can make giants jump?

Read more here

An article posted on SearchOpenSource.com discusses the result of a survey where users had to compare Windows x Linux regarding many aspects, including their differences, strengths and weaknesses.

Firebird is mentioned in the article:

“On the flip side, Windows security IT professional Andy Canfield wrote about two security weaknesses in Linux that he thinks should be addressed.
Canfield is a member of Firebird Foundation Inc., which is a group that supports and advances the development of the open source Firebird relational database engine. He works on the Firebird Relational Database Project and is a long-time SuSE Linux user.”

Article shows how Coverity worked with linux kernel developers in the past sending them patches

“For now, Coverity plans to publish the defect reports on a semi-private Web site so that any developer associated with a particular open source project can examine the list, determine if something actually needs to be fixed, and then create a fix and submit it to the project lead. This is currently the model used by Coverity for the defects they published for the Linux kernel.”

http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/6146/1/

Alexey (from IBSurgeon) just informed me about a funny link! Register yourself there and let’s populate the “world” with Firebird users!

The government is here to help open source by ZDNet‘s Dana Blankenhorn — Sounds like a win-win-win. Tell me it’s not.
How they will help scanning for security bugs in open source projects (firebird included)

You can now download the slides from Stefan Heymann’s talk “What Developers Should Know about Character Sets, Unicode etc.”.
It was presented at Firebird Conference 2005 .

Dmitri Kovalenko, LCPI wrote about unicode in September issue of The Firebird Developer Magazine:
Working with UNICODE in InterBase/Firebird

Related to unicode is Joel Spolsky’s article The Absolute Minimum Every Software Developer Absolutely, Positively Must Know About Unicode and Character Sets (No Excuses!)