FreeTDS Development Group

["Michael Sims" <michaels AT crye-leike.com>]

Sorry if this has been brought up before; I searched the archives and found
no reference to it.

I was just wondering if anyone here has seen some of the FUD about FreeTDS
on the following site:

http://odbcrouter.com/FAQfreetds.shtml

I discovered this after this company posted a patch to the PHP internals
list which adds support for their "ODBC Router" software to PHP.

Example:

<quote>
Third-party "wire-level" products depend upon a third-party
reverse-engineering of the database server's network protocols, meaning they
can crash your database server. Customers may lose data and experience
downtime trying to recover when so-called "wire-level" drivers are used
either intentionally, or as Internet viruses like "SQLSlammer". Actually
paying someone for a "wire-level" driver may even encourage the spread of
such viruses since quite often, they are releasing their reverse-engineering
work out into the "open source" world.

...

Moreover, using an "unauthorized" client like FreeTDS with your proprietary
database server may be a violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, a
new federal law prohibiting financial benefit from the unauthorized reverse
engineering of licensed materials, such as the TDS protocol owned by the
shareholders of NYSE:SY.
</quote>

The page also cites an excerpt from a FreeTDS release note warning against
problems with Sybase 12.5 as "proof" that using FreeTDS in general is
dangerous.

I've probably already given these people more attention than they deserve,
but I just thought it was funny how they decry the open source development
model while they attempt to profit from it.

Disclaimer: The opinion expressed above is my own, and does not necessarily
reflect that of my employer.