> Back on topic, but on another tack, MS SqlServer allows for
> encryption of stored procedure statements. From a developer's
> perpective, this is a great benefit and one which I would
> love to see in Firebird. It is in fact one of only two
> reasons where I prefer SQLServer. There are of course other
> reasons for where I prefer Firebird.

And this comes back to my article that was being discussed
before: http://www.firebirdsql.org/manual/fbmetasecur.html
which is exactly this topic, attempting to hide metadata.

Provide a useful way in which an open-source project can
attempt to hide metadata and I am confident you will have
an audience.

I do not know enough about the technical side of SQLServer to
give a fully reliable assessment, but given what I know of
encryption I would have to guess that they are relying on being
a closed-source project to obscure the procedure statements.
If the server cant read the procedure it cant execute it, if
the server can read the procedure then with access to the
source I can build a version to output the procedure in
clear-text, ergo: no protection in open-source (and only
limited protection in closed-source).

--
Geoff Worboys
Telesis Computing