Firebird

[Andrzej J. R. Hunt]

Hi Miguel, Javier, Andres

I've just seen that you are working on a Firebird DB connector for
LibreOffice -- I've just been selected to work on this as part of the
Google Summer of Code -- it would be cool if I could also work with you
on implementing this! (I'm currently still studying for exams but will
be working full time on this from roughly the 10th June.)

The major issue I can see at the moment is selecting which version of
Firebird to use, which I see is also being discussed on the
Firebird-devel list [1]. All the details are in that thread -- but
basically it looks like FB3 won't be out until next year and there isn't
much documentation of the new API, on the other hand it looks like FB3
will be easier/cleaner to use. Personally I'd favour implementing 3.0
for those reasons, but that would mean that it couldn't be shipped as
the default DB in LibreOffice until FB3 is stable, which I can see as
being a convincing argument for using 2.5 instead. As far as I can tell
the API should be stable from the first alpha release of FB3 [2], i.e.
API changes shouldn't be an issue if using 3.0.

I'd be interested to know what your views are on this / which version
you've been using so far? I guess the LO developers in general might
also have some input on which is preferable?

Also have any of you looked at integrating Firebird into the LO build
system yet, as this was one of the first things I was planning on doing
(although that is dependent on the choice of FB 2.5 vs 3). I think
Andres mentioned he was concentrating on developing on Linux at first --
I could look into the Windows specifics for Firebird to ensure things
are as cross-platform as possible from the start (although I should
probably mention I don't have too much Windows experience yet, and my
system isn't the fastest for building stuff there).

I've create a wiki page where I'm putting down some notes on whats
happening here -- I've also extracted the technical discussion and the
estimated timeplan from my GSOC application in case that's useful to
anyone else:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Base/FirebirdSQL . Feel
free to add to/edit that if you wish.

All the Best,

    Andrzej

[1]: http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.db.firebird.devel/2969
[2]: http://www.firebirdsql.org/en/roadmap/