FreeTDS Development Group

[Steve Teale <steve.teale AT britseyeview.com>]

Ken,

Well I'm assuming so. ODBC driver a fairly well-defined term - a library
that provides implementations of the C functions defined in sql.h and
sqlext.h. I can't see how they would think of creating a library that
would be restricted for the Linux environment when there's FreeTDS
around, and they _are_ using the community word. Also presumably their
objective is to sell their server OS's and SQL Server. I guess they
envision mixed installations with SQL Server ousting the 'M' in LAMP
servers. To go there the driver is going to have to be unencumbered.

Unfortunately in the first instance they are building the 64 bit
version, which was supposed to be available mid November with a 32 bit
version at some unspecified time in the future.

They got themselves into something of a hole by following the ridiculous
OLE DB track. The last stand for that was the SQL Native Client DLL,
which provided the support for OLE DB and ODBC in a single library -
what a strange idea! But OLE DB is now to be dumped. The Linux ODBC idea
is probably also to strengthen the credibility of ODBC, since that will
then remain as the only interface that ordinary mortals can use to
access SQL Server. The documentation for both ODBC and TDS is like a
maze though, and it would not at all surprise me to see MS come up with
a simple C or C++ API along the lines of those offered by MySQL and
Postgres.

All pure speculation on my part ;=)

Steve

On Sat, 2011-11-19 at 13:56 -0500, Ken Collins wrote:
> >>> I see that MS are threatening a Linux ODBC driver, but only a 64 bit 
> >>> one at the moment.
> >> 
> >> Interesting.  Do tell!  
> >> 
> > http://blogs.msdn.com/b/adonet/archive/2011/10/13/announcing-microsoft-sql-server-odbc-driver-for-linux.aspx
> 
> Interesting. I wonder if this means there would be something to build and 
> link against for other languages to use?
> 
>  - Ken
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