FreeTDS Development Group

["ZIGLIO Frediano" <Frediano.Ziglio AT vodafone.com>]

> > James expect a stable version (0.62) in September or October but we 
> > haven't fixed roadmap.
> 
> We're doing a few big things at once:
> 
> * ct-lib.  Bill Thompson is working on ct-lib, including 
> server-side cursors.  I think as a by-product of that effort, 
> FreeTDS will become almost interchangeable with Sybase's 
> libraries for Perl's DBD::Sybase.  
> 
> * iconv.  I think the iconv underpinnings are now working, 
> but several modules need their FIXME's addressed.  The stated 
> goal is to support UTF-8 clients in 0.62.  
> 
> * ODBC.  Prepared statements and RPC stuff.  We also have 
> Steve's large patch.  
> 
> Plus, there are the documentation issues described in TODO.  
> 
> As I see it, there's positively no chance of a September 
> release.  I hope to have UTF-8 clients working in September, 
> at which point I'll update the documentation and begin 
> preparing for a release.  If large patches arrive at that 
> time (or before), we'll obviously want to include them.  
> Otherwise, 0.62 will go out the door with its many 
> accumulated improvements, not least of which will be better 
> character set support.  
> 
> I don't normally see myself at center stage, but in this case 
> I'm the one who undertook the iconv work, which significantly 
> destabilized the code for awhile.  Meantime, several 
> low-level improvements have been added, such that today our 
> usual advice for problems in the release is (once again) to 
> use the latest snapshot.  I'm eager to tidy up and make those 
> improvements available to the whole FreeTDS community.  
> 
> That's my take on things.  We could have a release in 
> October.  If so, it would be well to have any patches for it 
> applied by the end of September. Subject to discussion and 
> consensus, of course.  
> 

Hi James!
Good summary.

Some addition... 

Only brave users should test in this period. Charset require still many
fix. Although CVS is not so stable I think James did a good thing.
Charset was a user request since ages...

I think one of the lacks of FreeTDS is documentation. However I think
that user should write documentation, not developers. When I wrote some
documentation on ODBC I though all user known terms like "DNS-less"...
this is not true and this is the reason why documentation is not so
good. If anyone thing that our userguide contents should be rewritten or
have idea for new manuals don't esitate.

freddy77