> That error occurs in 1.5.5, what about the NPE in 2.0?

The NPE should be fixed in HEAD, but it will not solve your problem.

Driver uses "services" concept in Java, which in turn relies on the fact
that context classloader is set correctly. You have to add to you code:

Thread.currectThread().setContextClassLoader(classLoader);

before calling Class.newInstance() method of FBDriver class. The same
problem you will encounter when trying to access, for example, JAXP provider
loaded from URL.

Roman