FreeTDS Development Group

["James K. Lowden" <jklowden AT schemamania.org>]

"Michael Sims" <michaels AT crye-leike.com> wrote:
> Sorry if this has been brought up before; I searched the archives and
> found no reference to it.

News to me, Michael.  Thanks for pointing it out.  

> <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.

"Interesting" use of quotation marks, I must say.  

> 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.

One of the things I positively love about free software is its honesty and
lack of puffery.  Proprietary software is riddled with bugs: I have
written, for proprietary products, valid C++ that won't compile and valid
SQL that returns invalid results, yet nary a disclaimer or warning do I
find.  Free software strives to make clear its flaws, that the user may
avoid them.  

It is disheartening to see one's own words used to attack one's own work. 
Our other competitors, if they can be called that, don't cast aspersions
on FreeTDS; Microsoft itself recommends FreeTDS to its, ahem, Unix
customers (and produced its own guide to it, cf.  
http://www.schemamania.org/projects/freetds/patches/ms.pdf).  

Their insinuation that the DCMA might apply is libelous specious nonsense.
 The DCMA of course "protects" encryption technologies from reverse
engineering, but, evil as it is, it doesn't outlaw all reverse
engineering.  

I am left to wonder if www.freetds.org should contain a reply.  You'd
think by now, given, say, Microsoft's and SCO's experiences that
commercial interests would know better than to wantonly attack free
software projects.  

I suppose a letter is in order....

--jkl