> > As I wrote a long time ago, gbak must become a stupid utility
> > that just receive binary stream from engine and store it in file(s).
>
> One question. How do you suggest to perform database downgrades? Now
> we run gbak from ODS N-1 installation against ODS N engine. But in
> your proposal, backup will be done by the ODS N engine and its gbk
> file cannot be restored by the ODS N-1 engine.

By the data pump utility. Why should it be done via the secret backup
format that changes from version to version? This is nice workaround
for the time being, but in fact you need something more open - an
application that creates new database from the metadata and pumps
records from one place into the other. We need only data - indexes can
be recreated by the engine itself.

The gbak v. n-1 running against fb v.n has its limitations - you
cannot change anything in the "compile request" & co. routines, you
can't even drop the support for these routines, since all gbaks will
cease operating. How do you plan deprecate BLR if it is a publically
available facility used by one of the most important utilities?

Roman