On 5/10/2005 at 1:13 AM syntap0 wrote:

> Has anyone researched the issue of the legality of using prior
> Interbase client licenses against Firebird?
>
> I'm in a situation where I have an app in Interbase 5.6 and I'd like
> to replace the server with Firebird 1.5. The client apps (Delphi
> apps) are installed with a the Interbase 5.6 client, and all tests
> seem to indicate that this setup works fine after backing up all
> database files in 5.6 and restoring to Firebird 1.5. I want to keep
> the 5.6 client because I have a reserved word compatibility issue (a
> field named "TYPE") using the Firebird client and the built-in
> versioning parser in Firebird makes this a non-issue.
>
> The Interbase 5.6 license text doesn't address this issue well... it
> talks about the requirement for the proper number of concurrent
> licenses for the server (which we have for the 5.6 server), but with
> Firbird this isn't an issue for obvious reasons.
>
> The Interbase 5.6 client also works well as a Firebird database manager.
>
> Any thoughts?
>

Based on my perusal of the license agreement, all Interbase licensing is based upon server licenses. You are allowed to install client software onto as many clients as desired, but only the licensed number of clients may connect at any one time to the server. Indeed, one is allowed to have a 5-client license with 10 clients, but only 5 can connect at one time.

Thus, I do not see any licensing issue at all from my reading of the license. Having said that, I am not an attorney, and I have great respect for an attorney's ability to twist plain language into utter nonsense and get away with it.

HTH,

Dan.