I have some questions regarding different Versions between the
interbase/firebird-Server and the client gds32.dll.

My Application uses Firebird 1.0.3 but is fully interbase 6.0 compatible (no
spezial firebird-features used). But I don't install it on my customers
computers myself. They get it from the internet and normally they have no
admin and no idea about C/S and "database-servers". So I have to provide an
easy setup that installs my application and the firebird-database as a
single task. I call the Firebird-setup if there is no Interbase (6.0+) or
firebird installed - so far so good.
But my clients are in a business where a groing number of other
software-developers is using interbase/firebird and (of cource) in different
versions. In addition most of these apps are not designed to be installed on
a server so the interbase/firebird-server is installed on every desktop -
including the gds32.dll.

So, my questions are:

What happens, if someone connects to an Interbase- or Firebird-Server using
a gds32.dll with a different Version? Are there any problems (as long as the
application is IB6.0 compatible)?

What about mixing Interbase and Firebird Versions (Server and Client)?

What about the newer "Varchar TCP/IP compression" capabilities. I know that
there can't be a compression but what I mean is does a Server and a client
work together if one of them doesn't support this kind of compression?

Thanks
Thomas