Quoting "Chad Z. Hower" <chad-jm@...>:

> :: If we could get a similar library or get that one in a opensource
> :: version we could use freepascal or gnu-pascal to write a gui.
>
> This might be a very good option for non Windows platforms, but it will
> still feel "alien" to Windows users.
>

Last week Trolltech released version 3.3 of their framework. Among other
changes now they provide an Interbase driver:

" Two new database drivers have been added to the SQL module: Interbase and
SQLite. The SQLite database is included in the Qt 3.3 distribution and can be
enabled by passing -qt-sql-sqlite or -plugin-sql-sqlite to the configure
script on Unix. SQLite is an in-process database and does not require a
separate database server. The Interbase plugin also works with Firebird, the
open source version of Interbase. "

http://www.trolltech.com/products/qt/whatsnew.html

The QT framework is very portable (Linux, Windows, Mac, Solaris).
Unfortunately, the free edition (GPL) is not available for Windows.
But Trolltech has worked well with the open-source community in the
past and maybe some special arangements can be made or a licence could
be paid from the foundation money. Or forget about the Windows version
and go STR8 for the Linux platform where is a real lack of administra-
tion GUIs (I've tested IBAccess and I've had some problems installing it
and besides that it's no match to the windows counterparts like IBExpert).
Just my 2 eurocents.