some kind of backward compatibility [was: Update to Firebird 3.0]

[Rene Engelhard]

Hi,

On Fri, Jun 10, 2016 at 03:05:57PM +0200, Lionel Elie Mamane wrote:
>  - Ship (embed) both firebird 2.5 and 3.0 and use the embedded fb2.5
>    only to do the gbak dump, and load the result with firebird 3.0.
>    We break forward compatibility but avoid to wait for two LibO
>    release cycles.

That would mean you still need to build fb2.5 so you haven't won
much *and* distros will have to use internal fb2.5 and fb3.0 from the system?
I don't like that :)

>  - We make a utility separate from LibO that converts the fb2.5 data
>    to archive format within an odb. We can even compile that utility
>    (and fb2.5) with an older MSVC and be done with it. Or we "require"
>    a system-installed firebird 2.5. Hum.

But then you require basically fb2.5 and fb3.0 at runtime, or at least 
to convert this. Which is even worse, and either of both might not exist
(anymore)

I doubt e.g. Debian will provide both so they can be installed parallel....
See the current state where firebord-dev 2.5 is in sid and firebird-dev in
experimental is 3.0

>  - We cop out and say the Firebird was an experimental feature
>    anyway.

I could live with that even though I shipped it already
(https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=libreoffice-sdbc-firebird)

Regards,

Rene