FreeTDS Development Group

[Brian Bruns <camber AT ais.org>]

Hi all,

I've put a 0.52 tarball up on iBiblio,
ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/ALPHA/freetds/freetds-0.52.tgz

I'm still working on the RPM packaging (it's giving me fits
actually). But, once I get that straightened out, I'll announce to the
world.

-

And now for something completely different.  

We've been moving from Sybase to DB2 at work.  So, I got to thinking
"Wouldn't it be nice to have a FreeTDS-like library for DB2?".  A
dangerous thought this turned out to be.

After doing some research it appears that DB2 supports a private protocol
for client to database connections, but also supports something called
"DRDA", and DRDA has been submitted to the OpenGroup as a standard
(publications C911, C912, and C913). So having a couple of spare hours
this weekend, I decided to see if I couldn't make something happen.  So,
long story short, I was able to exchange attributes with the server (the
equivalent of capabilities negotiation in TDS) which curiously happens
prior to logon.

I see some pretty amazing potential for DRDA. I'd like to see it supported
by FreeTDS as a gateway product, accepting DRDA client connections and
mapping them to TDS.  I'd also like to see all the major open source
databases (Postgresql, MySQL, mSQL, Interbase) support it natively.  Just
imagine using a single client to connect to any database!

Once I get it a little further along I'll be setting up a project and
releasing the code...probably under a BSDish license (BSD license are
very useful for propagating standards).

Just thought I'd let ya know what I've been up to. ;-)

Brian