Giovanni Premuda wrote:

>> "All FB 2.1 binaries requires MSVC8 run-time dlls on *any* OS."
>>
>> Obviously, he meant, any _Microsoft_ OS ;)
> I'm not really interested in that kind of OSes any more :) so i failed
> to see this new requirement.
> And I still think it's an ugly hack, even though it is an
> institutionalized ugly hack.
> Is this dependency necessary?

I'm also a Linux guy, so I really can't tell if it is absolutely
necessary. Maybe if there was a separate Firebird installer for each
version of Microsoft operating system (WinXP 32bit, WinXP 64bit, Vista,
etc.), but I don't think Firebird developers would spend their time on
having 2-3 versions of MSVC and building separate packages - I think
their time would be better spent developing new features and fixing bugs.

BTW, most Microsoft software I installed has the same problem, so it is
not 'invented' by Firebird. Perhaps users of Microsoft platform would
like 32bit Windows XP to last forever, but I'm not sure this is what is
going to happen.

> It looks like it severely limits the
> possible uses of fbclient.dll.

Not sure what you mean? You can install MSVC8 run-time almost anywhere.
Some users might need to upgrade their systems, but let's be honest
here: If someone is using 5+ years old operating system and does not
want to upgrade, maybe he doesn't need Firebird 2.1 in that case. Things
move forward, old things get obsolete.

--
Milan Babuskov
http://www.flamerobin.org
http://www.guacosoft.com