We run an ISP in Phoenix, Arizona and have offered Firebird hosting for
about 3 years now. Its not a burden to host Firebird at all, but there are
a lot of reasons why it is not as simple to host FB as MySQL and PostgreSQL:

1. ISPs make money by being able to compete in a VERY competitive
market with low priced (ie. $5 a month) hosting companies, but it comes down
to volumes. If you have thousands and thousands of customers, you can just
make it. If not, its not worth trying. Anything you offer has to have some
return on investment for them in such a competitve environment.

2. MySQL is the biggest demand for hosting, mainly because the
applications that customers want to host are written with MySQL in mind.
Once you get to the point where 90% of the PHP apps out there assume MySQL,
its hard to see value in offering anything different. This is what
customers want.

3. The only way an ISP gets to make money is to pass on the
adminstration and configuration of the DB to the customer. Because MySQL &
PostgreSQL are options in user administration interfaces such as cPanel, you
can afford to host those databases because the user can be allowed to admin
their own database (to a degree)

4. ISPs fear security vulnerabilities and often favor technologies like
MySQL and PostgreSQL because of the massive user base - they assume
vulnerabilities are caught quickly and therefore their own hosting security
won't be at risk as much as other DB alternatives. This, IMHO, is pure fear
on the ISPs part, but judging from recent security vulnerability
announcements for FB, it doesn't help the case for FB hosting.

5. We have found that about 50% of customers who want to host FB
databases, also want to host their own UDFs for it, which is a no-no for an
ISP. ISPs simply can't justify the execution of client code directly on
their server when there is the risk of bringing down a DB because of a
memory leak or bug in a client UDF.

Even with all of these things stated, we STILL offer FB hosting and will
continue to for years to come. Since we are small and can adjust to all of
this quickly, we have no problem doing it. Also all of our PHP applications
are written for FB, so it’s a no-brainer for us. But for most other generic
hosts, FB = headaches that are not justified by a huge user market demanding
that they host it. Clearly if the customer base out there wanted FB
hosting, they'd adjust to it. But if they are not being asked for it, they
aren't going to do it because it doesn't make them any more money to.

My $0.02 worth.

Myles

============================
Myles Wakeham
Director of Engineering
Tech Solutions USA, Inc.
Scottsdale, Arizona USA
www.techsolusa.com
Phone +1-480-451-7440

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