Hi,

Basically, the firebird 1.0 is fully compatible with IB 6.0. Most of
the developers who choose Interbase as the database are using
Borland's products like Delphi or C++ builder to build front end
applications. At the meantime, I can use DBX to access Firebird 1.0
easily without any problem, just like what I did with Interbase 6.0.

The problem is borland has decided to support DBX as their future
database access engine. BDE will not be enhanced anymore. Thus, we
can foresee the DBX will be the favorite database accessing
components. Althought there are third part tools like IBObjects and
others which can or may continue support firebird 2.0, but there are
not the mainstream nor they are free or shipped with Delphi.

To make the Firebird widespread and finally replaced the Interbase, I
think we should develop an DBX engine for Firebird. As time pass,
the gaps between Interbase and Firebird will be larger and larger and
we won't be able to access Firebird 2.0 using DBX's IB driver anymore.

Firebird just can't survive by itself, it has to accompany with
powerful development tools and a group of developers who support it.
Besides DBX, I think there should be more access engine available for
firebird like ODBC, ADO, JDBC and others. This will make
programmers' life easy by just use this engine instead of calling the
API.

Besides this, MySQL that already got a large group of users will be a
competitor of Firebird as MySQL already has DBX engine. I can
foresee MySQL that was largely used by internet based applications
will be the most fast growing database in the market.

I am not critise on Firebird's strategy, I just wish the firebird's
developers has a good understanding of the market and the needs of
users. I love the versioning of Interbase/Firebird that other
database don't support.

Perhaps it is now the time to think about how can firebird used its'
advantage to conquer the database market.

--
Best Regards,
Chau Chee Yang