Posted by
CmdrTaco
on from the come-one-come-all dept.
Dacta writes "At last, Interbase 6.0 is available (with source) for download.
The announcement is here, with dowload mirrors in Chicago, Herndon and San Jose
You may also be interested in the licence - basically it is MPL with "Interbase" substituted for Mozilla/Netscape."
If you can be hurt by others commercializing your software then the choice is obvious.
GPL doesn't prevent commercializing of software.
A number of times I've seen the "if anyone's going to make money off my software it's going to be me" argument in favor of the GPL. Meanwhile, Red Hat (just one example) makes a bunch of money selling GPL'ed software.
GPL legally requires the source code be made available, but it doesn't otherwise prevent commercialization by third parties.
Slashdot ignores release of Source Navigator
by
SurfsUp
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· Score: 2
"While I'm here, did Slashdot miss [Red Hat]'s GPL release of Source Navigator?"
No, they just chose to ignore it. I've submitted the story.
This shows an extreme degree of cluelessness in the Slashdot editorial suite. Source Navigator is probably one of the most significant releases of the year for kernel hackers, let alone regular application developers. Well, it just shows you the difference between a journalist and a true geek.
Moderate this down as usual - for some reason this always seems to happen when I criticize Slashdot's editorial policy. --
-- Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
Re:Effects on other free databases
by
bero-rh
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· Score: 2
I wonder how this is going to affect PostgerSQL and MySQL?
Probably in 2 ways - the good side: stealing^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H sharing code.
The bad side: losing users (and possibly developers) to Interbase.
While I'm here, did Slashdot miss [Red Hat]'s GPL release of Source Navigator?
No, they just chose to ignore it. I've submitted the story.
-- This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
Actually, it is good insurance :-)
by
glitch!
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· Score: 2
At first glance, this seems to be going to extremes. After all, when was the last time the number 128 changed to, say 127? Or 129? Odds are, most numbers won't change values on us...
On second thought, though, what about the social and political ramifications? Suppose that we wake up one morning and find that 128 has been declared "hate speech"? (It was nice knowing you, 128!) Now what do we do with the zillions of lines of code that have to be changed, in order to avoid jail time for "hate speech" or some other felony? The answer, of course, is to abstract these potentially hateful numbers as #define statements so that we can change them later to politically approved numbers. Like "the number formerly known as 128". Or "127 plus 1".
IMHO, the end user isn't usually interested in source code. I think that the MPL just makes it much easier for the people developing the product. They usually don't have an obligation to make software for people anyway. If they are doing it to provide a product for free, they should control it how they want.
No. You can just create a patch, and give it back to the owner of the copyright. Whether he cares to distribute it is his business.
But whether you do that or not is irrelevant. You did not distribute the binary, so you don't need to give anyone the source.
Effects on other free databases
by
azz
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· Score: 3
Wow! Thanks, Borland. I'm going to enjoy playing with this tonight.
I wonder how this is going to affect PostgreSQL and MySQL? It'll be interesting to see if it sucks developers away or not. I suspect it won't, as database specialists are few and far between...
And while I'm here, did Slashdot miss Redhat's GPL release of Source Navigator (Cygnus's IDE)? Hmmmm... I don't think I'm going to get any sleep tonight.:)
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR "All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
Seriously, after getting those indexes right and designing your relations with care, it should be fast enough.
How much does it cost?
by
Carnage4Life
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· Score: 2
I've searched the site for 10 minutes and have not been able to find anything so can someone please provide a link or answer how much it'll cost for a support license for DB that will be used by 20 to 30 employees who will all be accessing it over a local intranet via a web interface?
I am working on my final project for school which involves writing a project management application for a local business and unfortunately all the current RDBMS costs for Windows are in thousands of dollars (Oracle, SQL Server, DB2). We do not plan to support the software after the project is done so a support license is necessary.
PS: I didn't mention mySQL because it isn't an RDBMS. Read the definition of an RDBMS as well as that of a relational database or simply read C.J.Date's reviews of E.F. Codd's seminal 1970 work on relational DBs. Here's part two and part three of C.J. Date's work for anyone who's interested.
There is no per-user costs for Interbase 6.0. According to their new license, you are free to distribute and modify the database.
Interbase does provide optional support contracts. Last I looked it was US$100 for 30 days of installation support, US$250 per support incident, or US$3150 per year for unlimited support.
MySQL's documentation is bad?? I always thought it was pretty good.
Interbase, on the other hand, looks sparse in the documentation department. There are no books available (one old hit at FatBrain that was never published) and I cannot find anything online at www.interbase.com. There is a grassroots effort here but there is no content!
I haven't installed the RPMs yet - anyone know if there is any documentation installed? I hope I don't have to read man pages to administer this thing.
According to LWN, RMS was trying to persuade Debian that the QT licence was OK. They disagreed with him, so it's official: Debian is more anal about licenses than RMS!
HH
Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.
-- Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes. She's just dressing, goodbye windows, tired starlings.
This license is even less restrictive than the GPL... It's not every day we get software of this quality under a license this non-restrictive. Lets all write to Borland and thank them, maybe it will send a message. If they got good feedback it could mean more quality open-source.
Actually, I think the original post got it correct. When they said end-user, I think they meant the developers who end up receiving the modifications. Under BSD, no such modifications need ever be made available whereas under GPL, such modifications are mandatory if the binaries are distributed.
So, the GPL imposes more restrictions on a developer who wishes to modify and distribute in binary form a GPL'ed piece of code. But it provides increased access to that code by the developers who would use the modification and perhaps extend it.
BSD style licenses, on the other hand, provide more freedom to the developer who makes a modification to source code and wishes to distribute the binaries, as they may still choose to not distribute the source modifications. The developers who use/develop the original work no longer are guaranteed access to the changes made.
Quite simple, really. Of course, this comment will probably be lost in the noise... _lpp
A "pure end user" is somebody who will never look at the source. Therefore, unlimited distribution, in binary form only, is maximum freedom for the pure end user. Anything else is superfluous.
If it could be demonstrated that GPL, or any other Open Source license tended to increase the distribution of a program, then your argument might make sense from the point of view that the end user would have more software. Empirical data neither confirms nor denies this. Yes, Linux is widely distributed, but so are Internet Explorer, Napster, and a lot of other closed source programs.
The argument that GPL enhances end user freedom makes the most sense when applied in the long run, where binaries go "stale" and open source remains viable. However, there are many cases of open source going "stale" too. If the developers lose interest in developing a piece of software, and move onto something else, this is just as detrimental to end users as Microsoft's planned obsolescence.
-- For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
"Home users and small mom-n-pop businesses are left high and dry."
Mom and Pop and all the consumers in general always take it in shorts. Your typical Mom and Pop will be left high and dry by commercial vendors too but at least with Open source they did not pay for the privledge.
Except, with open source, you can hire a programmer to keep your system alive for long enough to either replace it/get it stable.
Only wealthy end users can do this. Home users and small mom-n-pop businesses are left high and dry.
If the upgrade cycle were a "wall function" that immediately required you to upgrade from x to y, then there would be a strong advantage to Open Source.
However, the upgrade cycle is not a wall. If I wanted to, I could still surf the net with Netscape 3.x and Windows95, and most of it would work.
I've seen legacy apps in business last even longer than that. Everybody poo-pooed them, but they worked, and the primary road block to getting them replaced was the expense of the custom programming and system integration that had to be done. An off-the-shelf solution, proprietary or otherwise, would have been preferable.
-- For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Re:Nice License choice
by
Segfault+11
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· Score: 2
The MPL and the BSD license are more free for the developer. The GPL is more free for the end user.
So if I download a piece of real-free software and fix a minor bug that only manifests itself with my particular configuration, then I'm obliged to set up and maintain a public FTP site so everybody can download my fix? Man, that's a heck of a lot of freedom... --
Depends entirely on your viewpoint and the circumstances. If you can be hurt by others commercializing your software then the choice is obvious. If you want any developer for any reason then the choice is equally easy. If you have a deep personal belief that all code should be and remain free then the choice is again easy.
GPLed software is not free in the anyone can do what he/she pleases view. It is free in the sense that no one can subvert it for his/her own public uses.
With (almost)truly free licenses like the BSD license the thing people seem to object to is the purpose of the license. You are allowed to make your project closed and commercial. This is not a drawback nor a feature. It is entirely dependant on your position and point of view. If you think all code should always be available then you of course dislike this license.
Software ultimately fulfills the needs of a customer. Sometimes that customer is the developer, other times it is end users, and sometimes it is both develoepr and users. I fail to see how the GPL is more free to the end user. The end user is not even involved with the code (maybe to compile it). It is however, sometimes, more *beneficial* to the end user. This is entirely dependant on having competent developers.
It seems to me that the vast majority of "Open" licenses are targeted almost entirely at developers. As others have said, the end user (unless a developer) doesn't care what the license is. They want a working product so they can get work done or have fun.
-- Fsck cluebie moderators. I'll say what I want, offtopic or not. And fsck having to qualify every bloody statement just
FWIW - PHP 4.0 also supports native Interbase connections.
--
-- "You're gonna need a bigger boat."
- Chief Brody
Interbase Performance (Re:MySQL vs Interbase ?)
by
MZamora
·
· Score: 3
We've been running our stock trading system with Interbase for over four years, with great results and performance: 150 *heavy* simultaneous users, over 8000 avg daily financial transactions, over 800,000 avg daily db transactions on a midrange HP-UX machine, avg response times for interactive operations are sub-second (simultaneous with other heavy batch stuff).
Unfortunately, we *might* have to move over to Oracle because we're still not convinced that Borland takes Interbase seriously, and most big-iron development tools vendors aren't convinced either: they're *not* updating their support for Interbase (most still support up to Interbase 4.0C).
Let's see what develops in the open source community. I'm hoping that much of the functionality lacking in Interbase that commercial DBs already have will be integrated by "open sourcerers", and then we might not have to use Oracle:-).
Interesting. Now that it's out people are having problems trying to build the thing. Apparently it has some weird conf tool.
Although everything you say is true I am afraind it has fallen behind in many ways. Even a cursory glance at a feature list shows that postgres has many many more features then IB. OTOH IB probably has the most imortant feature of all stability and speed. It will be interesting to see how many developers jump on and what they do with it. On my list of do it yesterday features are. Limit clause, nullif/coalesce, editable joins, better autoincrement support, longer object names, case insensitive collation, replication, clustering, raw device support. is that too much to ask for?:).
Oh yea make Delhi the SP language.
--
War is necrophilia.
Re:Connectivity from other apps?
by
drinkypoo
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· Score: 2
I'm sure I'll get moderated down for this, but I have karma to burn. Hell, just to give all the misguided moderators something to do, I'll leave my +1 bonus turned on.
The above posting was not a troll. This message that I am posting now is off-topic. The person who moderated my above post down for being a Troll is a bozo.
I asked questions, and three different people were kind enough to put answers to my completely valid questions below my post. They could obviously tell that I had real concerns. However, the clueless moderator decided I was trolling.
By the way, asking "How much does the C library suck" was a completely valid question. Other vendors (I'm not going to mention any names, *cough*Oracle*cough*) have been known to have BADLY BROKEN libraries for making db calls via C. Oracle's library was responsible for many of the bugs in the database layer in Tivoli TME10, an enterprise management package now owned by IBM.
So, to all moderators: Think before you moderate. Don't use your points until after you've considered whether or not you're just being pissy, or whether a post has really said something interesting, insightful, or informative - I've seen plenty of bad up-moderating, too. And don't carry out personal vendettas. The post above this one should not have been moderated. This one should probably be moderated down as offtopic, and I suspect if anyone with points reads it, it will be.
-- "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Didn't get the source quite cleaned up
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 4
:)
/* these constants are purely idiotic; there's no point in having a predefined constant with no meaning, but that's Ed Simon the master programmer for you! */
Re:Didn't get the source quite cleaned up
by
Anomalous+Canard
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· Score: 2
/* these constants are purely idiotic; there's no point in having a predefined constant with no meaning, but that's Ed Simon the master programmer for you! */
But, they do make it much easier to grep the source looking for potential buffer overflows to exploit. Thanks, Ed!
-- Anomalous: deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
-- Anomalous: deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected Canard: a false or unfounded repor
Re:MySQL is an RDBMS, as stated in your references
by
morzel
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· Score: 2
An RDBMS is a program that lets you create, update, and administer a relational database. An RDBMS takes Structured Query Language (SQL) statements entered by a user or contained in an application program and creates, updates, or provides access to the database. Some of the best-known RDBMS's include Microsoft's Access, Oracle's Oracle7, and Computer Associates' CA-OpenIngres.
MySQL (notice the capital M) lets you create, update and administer a relational database through SQL statements. According to both your references, it is a full RDBMS.
You are probably referencing ACIDity, which can be achieved with a transaction logging RDBMS, and which is a completely different beast. Either you just experienced a brainfart after a long caffeine driven coding session, or you should have studied a bit harder.
Okay... I'll do the stupid things first, then you shy people follow.
-- Okay... I'll do the stupid things first, then you shy people follow.
[Zappa]
Would love to see someone throw up even a seat of the pants review of the three open source databases that have been getting a lot of attention. Interbase, MySQL and PostrgreSQL. Would be great if it included a mix or performance, scalability information, and a look at the feature sets offered.
There was a discussion in this vein in the mers.interbase.list NG located at news.mers.com you might want to peruse their archives. go here to search or sign up.
In a nutshell IB compares very well with potgres and mysql. It all depends on the features you need.
The event alerters are a way to communicate information to database clients. For example:
I have an alerter on the insert or update trigger of a particular table. Any application that listens to that alerter will get a notification when an insert or update of that table happens. This can be very useful. You don't need to keep polling the database when there are no changes.
Go to www.borland.com, and take a look at the announcement. See the slogan? "The OPEN Source Database". Okay, you can argue that MySQL has only just gone GPL, and isn't really much of a database program. But what happened to postgresql? This kind of, uh, "marketing" does not inspire confidence.
Someday I hope the open source world will progress to the point where it will stop getting excited every time some corporation tosses a failing product over the wall.
Incidentally, from eavesdropping on the postgresql developer list, I gather that their take on interbase is that postgresql will be as good or better by around 7.1 or 7.2 (the current release is 7.0). I believe the only key feature postgresql is missing at the moment is outer joins.
(Warning, blatant religious evangelism follows.) Postgresql is BSD liscensed, and has a really good team of open source developers actively working on it, including Tom Lane and Bruce Momjian... (unlike Inprise, which is now in the position of trying to drum up community support using an MPL-style license).
Postgresql has been making rapid improvements over the last year or so (though it still has the worst name of any software project, ever...). Bruce Momjian has a book coming out about postgresql and the full text is available online. Commercial support for postgresql is available from places such as Great Bridge.
(And whatever you do, don't mention Perl in this thread, or you'll have the Python fanatics in here too.)
Dalton Calford has written Robots or agents that listen and react to IB events in different languages. This aspec tof Interbase is a potential goldmine for developers.
Dalton in a fit of immense generosity and goodwill has posted some other tips, tricks, musings here.
BTW a very poweful one two three punch is Delphi IBObjects, interbase or soon to be klyx, ibobjects, interbase.
One more thing. Have you downloaded the documentation yet? it ROCKS!. This is best documentation for a open source project I have ever seen (well maybe php is pretty awsome too).
Make no mistake this a serious contender for the database sweepstakes.
--
War is necrophilia.
Re:How is it in practice?
by
Malcontent
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· Score: 3
Well it's no Oracle but then what is? No clustering, no incremental backups, no raw device support, almost no tuning options (no really needed though), no JVM in the database etc. If you are not using the very high end features of Oracle switch otherwise you might need to stick with oracle.
The directories they chose for the RPM file are pretty bad.
They put files into a directory called/opt/interbase. Most Linux boxes don't have an/opt tree. That seems to be a Solaris thing.
Second, they stick their libraries and headers into/usr/include and/usr/lib. This is OK I guess, but they stick a single program into the directory/usr/local/sbin. Why not stick to the pattern they established and put it into/usr/sbin?
That's just a nit though. I suppose all that will be fixed once Debian includes it.
That's because most linux distibutions ignore the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard. I believe that this is part of the Linux Standard Base which has most of the major distributions as members so IMHO they should be using/opt.
Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.
-- Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes. She's just dressing, goodbye windows, tired starlings.
They already have a JDBC client look for "interclient". I am not sure about the version though.
--
War is necrophilia.
Re:Thinning of Developers
by
Malcontent
·
· Score: 2
Interbase (and Borland/Inprise) have a pretty loyal following of developers using Delphi and C++ builder. My guess is that this product along with Klyx will actually increase the developer pool of open source projects by luring them from the windows world.
--
War is necrophilia.
Re:That Stallman guy.. eh?
by
Malcontent
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· Score: 2
Apparently there is nothing wrong with bad mouthing people who disagree with you either. Hey aren't you doing exactly what you are complaining about? So RMS speaks his mind and critisizes people who disagree with him so what? So his followers also speak out what of it? At least he does not pay people to pretend they agree with him, hire advertising agencies, or PR firms like every single corporation does. At least he does not spend a billion dollars a year telling you that GPL is better then MPL like coke and pepsi do.
He believes something passionately and speaks his mind. He is convincing and other people choose to help him carry his message. Hos is this different then Rush Limbaugh or Dubya bush? I guess it's OK for corporate lackeys to rail against Unions but not OK for RMS to speak out against insane IP laws.
I'm glad that they finally released the source to this; I've been looking at databases for a while, and out of the top three choices Interbase was my first, followed by MySQL and then closely thereafter by PostGre.
I was kind of forced to go with MySQL because I had to have my system up and running a couple months ago, but perhaps now I can re-evaluate them.
I am a bit concerned about the MPL and how long it has taken for the Mozilla builds to be released; I know they essentially had to rewrite the entire code base, but two years? Come on. Anyway, hopefully Interbase is well-written enough that it will only require minor modifications and developer extensions, and can avoid the two or three year development cycles.
My biggest issue with MySQL vs Interbase vs PostgreSQL is kind of overlooked, though; it's not transaction support, concurrent sessions, etc, although those factors are important.
The worst part of MySQL is the absolutely horrid documentation. It is the worst document set I have ever encountered that didn't come from Redmond. If I knew MySQL better I would rewrite it myself; lord knows it needs it.
I personally hope that the Interbase code release forces MySQL to completely rewrite their documentation. I'm just glad we have choices and competition.
Interbase has some very awesome features. The overview took the tone of a semi marketing type item yet it was infomrative and if you read through some of the garbage its rather clear to see as a programmer/developer what Interbase offers.
Some of the features that stuck out in my mind from the over view.
-Small memory footprint -Triggers -Stored Procedures -User Definable Functions with some 'libraries' per say already defined for math and string handling -Alert events EX:A certain item goes below xyz dollars it can send an alert using some sort of constant polling method. I am not sure exactly what this one was.. but basically it looks like whenever changes are done to the table if certain criteria are met it can call up a stored proc/UDF or something. This is a bit more powerful than a trigger or a stored procedure since you do not have to do any speical coding on a insert/update/delete.
Some other interesting things... There was a *LOAD* of case studies on the interbase site.
As far as I'm concerned, InterBase is a pretty good piece of software. In my experiences with it, it's always performed up to expectations and it does everything I've ever needed it to do. I'm not saying it's right for everyone, but definitely check it out if you haven't done so yet.
If, on the other hand, you're already a devoted or knowledgable user, make sure you visit the Interbase developer's handbook. It's a worthwhile project that could use your help.
I'm excited about this version of Interbase. (Insofar as one can conceivably be exciting about a database -- sign of a true geek, huh?)
Humm - I wonder if it wouldn't be worth switching my sites from MySQL to Interbase. I could certainly use the transactions, row level locking, constraints, etc... anyone knows how slow/fast Interbase is ?
MySQL vs Interbase vs PostGreSQL
by
Eric+Green
·
· Score: 2
I don't know how fast Interbase is. But there is one limitation of Interbase that made it useless for my purposes: the lack of an indexable TEXT field type. I am dealing with a piece of character data that can be anywhere from 1 character to 1024 characters in length, and there can be a million of these puppies in my database. I am *NOT* going to declare a VARCHAR(1024), I don't have enough disk space for a million VARCHAR(1024) records! (this allocates 1025 bytes for each string, regardless of how many bytes are actually needed for a particular string). PostGreSQL has had indexable TEXT forever (as well as most other features of Interbase), PostGreSQL's big problem for my purposes is insert speed (we are getting approximately 400 inserts per second on a blank database, w/fsync turned off, vs. 2400 inserts per second on MySQL). MySQL 3.23 allows indexing the first characters of a TEXT BLOB, which arguably is more useful even than the PostGreSQL version (do I *REALLY* need to index the whole bloody name, when there's only 5 people in the database whose name starts with MUNS ?!). And MySQL 3.23 has the beginnings of transaction support, though it's still six months or so before I would actually trust it for real deployment:-(.
Regardless of how fast Interbase is, I doubt it's anywhere as fast as MySQL. MySQL gets blazing speed at the expense of referential integrity support. Interbase's real competitor in the Open Source database world is PostGreSQL, not MySQL. From my preliminary look, query speeds are slightly faster than PostGreSQL, insert speeds are *MUCH* faster, and with the exception of the rather lame selection of types and built-in functions (PostGreSQL has a much richer types and functions system), it compares reasonably well feature-wise. On the other hand, PostGreSQL *DOES* have a much richer set of types, as well as a much richer set of extension languages and better interfaces from most scripting languages.... if it were a bit faster, PostGreSQL would blow Interbase out of the water.
In short: Interbase appears to fit somewhere between MySQL and PostGreSQL. It is not as full-featured as PostGreSQL (though most of the PostGreSQL feature set is utterly incomprehensible to mere mortals, and even to many of those who are working on improving it!), but, as with MySQL, it is faster. It is not as fast as MySQL, but it has many highly-desirable features that are currently only on MySQL's wish list. There is a large range of applications where it will be very valuable. It's too bad that lack of an indexable TEXT BLOB type means that my application isn't one of them... I would have loved its combination of decent speed and decent features, otherwise.
... whereas weak typing is for those with strong stomachs.
It fits between PostGreSQL and MySQL
by
Eric+Green
·
· Score: 3
Interbase fits between MySQL and PostGreSQL on the features-vs-performance scale. MySQL is very small and fast, at the expense of having few features (lack of transaction support, in particular, being a real issue for many applications). PostGreSQL has just about every feature under the sun nowdays, it has a set of standard types and functions that would be the envy of any database, it has a huge number of server side function programming languages (you can program stored procedures in Perl or TCL!), it has language interfaces to every popular scripting language and programming language, but it is rather sluggish and its database files use a lot of disk space.
Interbase fits quite well between them. Interbase has the most-desired features wanted in MySQL (transactions in particular), though these features slow it down in comparison. But it is still quite a bit faster and more compact than PostGreSQL in many applications, at the expense of having a rather limited selection of types and predefined functions.
If I were using MySQL 3.22 and needed stable transaction support, I'd probably switch to Interbase. If I were using PostGreSQL and needed more speed, I'd probably grit my teeth and wait until the next revision of the PostGreSQL storage manager, which is promised for Real Soon Now -- unless its current speed was utterly unacceptable, in which case I'd strongly look at Interbase, while gritting my teeth. Not that Interbase is a bad database. It's just that PostGreSQL has gotten much, MUCH more featuresome over the past couple of years, and many of those features, such as an indexable TEXT type (which Interbase lacks), are quite useful in the kinds of applications that I write. Having to go back to fixed-size VARCHAR records would be a step backward for me. Even MySQL 3.23 doesn't make you do that (you can index the TEXT BLOB type in MySQL 3.23, or, rather, you can index the first {n} characters of it).
Why so many licenses? Now, this custom-written license for ONE specific product, Interbase. Does this imply that Borland is never going to release source under such an open license? Or will they carbon-copy-and-rename the license for every other "IPL" licensed product?
It's hard to have solid comparisons when the products themselves are shifting like jello. For example, MySQL now has an indexable TEXT type. Lack of that was one of the things that drove me to PostGreSQL a couple of years ago (I did not need transactions for that particular application, but I really did want an indexable TEXT type).
Now, if you want a jello comparison -- Interbase fits between MySQL and PostGreSQL on the features spectrum (that is, it has more features than MySQL, but lacks some features of PostGreSQL). Interbase also fits between MySQL and PostGreSQL on the speed spectrum, but is closer to MySQL speed-wise (PostGreSQL is a pig, especially on inserts... even selects are a good 10-20% slower than on most "name" databases). On the scalability spectrum, MySQL sucks (2gb limit on file size on 32-bit Linux), even the new RAID functionality is a kludge that's not going to change that significantly because it's too inflexible (have to pre-detirmine that "yes, I want to have 5 files for a max of 10gb", and woe to you if that is not enough), while PostGreSQL will happily build 50-gb database files and handle them all day long (on machines with a 2gb limit on file size, PostGreSQL automatically handles creating additional files as needed to handle the table's "data heap"). I did not have a chance to closely examine Interbase's specs on the scalability side, I know it will handle more than 2gb of data on Linux, but I don't know whether you have to pre-define how big it can get, like with MySQL. (Note that MySQL does not have the 2gb limit on OS's that properly support 64-bit filesystems).
Best bet: Download them all, create a sample database, try some sample queries, slam the @#$% out of them. Note that PostGreSQL's big speed problem for most people is going to be insert speed and its sluggishness at opening connections. Select speed will probably not be a problem for most people, because PostGreSQL is plenty fast there for the typical application. Interbase may be the solution to those woes if you need transaction support and speed too. Or you could wait for MySQL 3.23 to mature, it too has alpha-quality transaction support, though it will never have the more advanced features of Interbase or PostGreSQL ("never" is probably a strong word here, but given the MySQL author's desire for speed rather than features, it probably will remain accurate).
An application crashing every three months is not the same thing as a database crashing every three months.
Regarding speed, MySQL is and always will be the fastest SQL database on the planet, bar none. It gets that speed at a cost, though -- tossing out every feature that might possibly slow down the database. For many people, Interbase hits a very sweet point on the features vs. performance spectrum, it is faster and more compact than most "full-featured" databases, while still having the majority of functionality that most reasonable people would consider nice to have.
one thing to note is that the release version of Interbase does include the threaded database engine for Linux, which should significantly increase multi-user performance as compared with the ancient version tested in that article.
Also worthy to note that the user-friendly DBMS management tool is apparently written in Pascal, and is not going to be usable on Linux until Kylix is up and going.
We're looking at paying our Oracle tax in a few months, and I'm not looking forward to it.
We're building a portal on EJB, and we need a rock-solid backend. Everyone of course trusts Oracle, but my GOD do you ever pay for it.
What've been people's experiences so far with this DB?
Re:Connectivity from other apps?
by
apropos
·
· Score: 2
There is a new ODBC driver in the works from Jim Starkey (the original architect of Interbase). Yes, there's a perl module. There's a python module. There's a zope module in the works. The C library is based on DB2 since it was the closest thing to a standard when they were writing it.
Check out www.interbase2000.org, there's even an alpha quality DB-OLE (or whatever the heck it's called) driver.
Free Pascal support seems to be in the works, but since Inprise open-sourced the IB-Express objects for Delphi, maybe they will eventually compile under FPC as well.
The sweetest way to connect is through Jason Wharton's IBObjects using Delphi or BCB. Hopefully these will eventually migrate over to Linux when the Kylix project releases Delphi 6 for Linux in late September.
Interbase's best attributes are: size (this is not bloatware, people!) and reliability (one of the case studies refers to usage in a tank because when the big gun goes, the computer reboots).
The super-niftiest feature is the multigenerational architecture where readers never block writers and writers never block readers. I'm sure other DBMS's have something like this, but Interbase was the first.
Jim Starkey, the "Big Bad Wolf" of Interbase and original author claims to have invented the concept of a BLOB (binary large object) stored in a relational database.
This database has been around for more than 15 years. It's interesting looking at the code - you can compile for some quite rare platforms. What is the Apollo?
Cobalt RaQ4 ships with Interbase
by
dagnabit
·
· Score: 3
Slashdot Mirror
Being a developer myself, I think my answer would be biased. :-)
Frankly, I don't think most true end users care about licenses or source code. They just want software that more or less works.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
GPL doesn't prevent commercializing of software.
A number of times I've seen the "if anyone's going to make money off my software it's going to be me" argument in favor of the GPL. Meanwhile, Red Hat (just one example) makes a bunch of money selling GPL'ed software.
GPL legally requires the source code be made available, but it doesn't otherwise prevent commercialization by third parties.
"While I'm here, did Slashdot miss [Red Hat]'s GPL release of Source Navigator?"
No, they just chose to ignore it. I've submitted the story.
This shows an extreme degree of cluelessness in the Slashdot editorial suite. Source Navigator is probably one of the most significant releases of the year for kernel hackers, let alone regular application developers. Well, it just shows you the difference between a journalist and a true geek.
Moderate this down as usual - for some reason this always seems to happen when I criticize Slashdot's editorial policy.
--
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
I wonder how this is going to affect PostgerSQL and MySQL?
Probably in 2 ways - the good side: stealing^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H sharing code.
The bad side: losing users (and possibly developers) to Interbase.
While I'm here, did Slashdot miss [Red Hat]'s GPL release of Source Navigator?
No, they just chose to ignore it. I've submitted the story.
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
At first glance, this seems to be going to extremes. After all, when was the last time the number 128 changed to, say 127? Or 129? Odds are, most numbers won't change values on us...
On second thought, though, what about the social and political ramifications? Suppose that we wake up one morning and find that 128 has been declared "hate speech"? (It was nice knowing you, 128!) Now what do we do with the zillions of lines of code that have to be changed, in order to avoid jail time for "hate speech" or some other felony? The answer, of course, is to abstract these potentially hateful numbers as #define statements so that we can change them later to politically approved numbers. Like "the number formerly known as 128". Or "127 plus 1".
See, it all makes sense now.
A dingo ate my sig...
IMHO, the end user isn't usually interested in source code.
I think that the MPL just makes it much easier for the people developing the product. They usually don't have an obligation to make software for people anyway. If they are doing it to provide a product for free, they should control it how they want.
But whether you do that or not is irrelevant. You did not distribute the binary, so you don't need to give anyone the source.
I wonder how this is going to affect PostgreSQL and MySQL? It'll be interesting to see if it sucks developers away or not. I suspect it won't, as database specialists are few and far between...
And while I'm here, did Slashdot miss Redhat's GPL release of Source Navigator (Cygnus's IDE)? Hmmmm... I don't think I'm going to get any sleep tonight. :)
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR
"All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
Well, The City of New York Department of Health is using it, :)
with the size of the database adding 5 Gb in a year.
Don't know if it's enough for you, though.
Seriously, after getting those indexes right and designing your
relations with care, it should be fast enough.
I've searched the site for 10 minutes and have not been able to find anything so can someone please provide a link or answer how much it'll cost for a support license for DB that will be used by 20 to 30 employees who will all be accessing it over a local intranet via a web interface?
I am working on my final project for school which involves writing a project management application for a local business and unfortunately all the current RDBMS costs for Windows are in thousands of dollars (Oracle, SQL Server, DB2). We do not plan to support the software after the project is done so a support license is necessary.
PS: I didn't mention mySQL because it isn't an RDBMS. Read the definition of an RDBMS as well as that of a relational database or simply read C.J.Date's reviews of E.F. Codd's seminal 1970 work on relational DBs. Here's part two and part three of C.J. Date's work for anyone who's interested.
MySQL's documentation is bad?? I always thought it was pretty good.
Interbase, on the other hand, looks sparse in the documentation department. There are no books available (one old hit at FatBrain that was never published) and I cannot find anything online at www.interbase.com. There is a grassroots effort here but there is no content!
I haven't installed the RPMs yet - anyone know if there is any documentation installed? I hope I don't have to read man pages to administer this thing.
-tim
RMS' eyeball is going to explode if any other companies release an Open Source program (under a QT-ish or MPL-ish) license and call it Free Software.
This license is even less restrictive than the GPL... It's not every day we get software of this quality under a license this non-restrictive. Lets all write to Borland and thank them, maybe it will send a message. If they got good feedback it could mean more quality open-source.
Depends entirely on your viewpoint and the circumstances. If you can be hurt by others commercializing your software then the choice is obvious. If you want any developer for any reason then the choice is equally easy. If you have a deep personal belief that all code should be and remain free then the choice is again easy.
GPLed software is not free in the anyone can do what he/she pleases view. It is free in the sense that no one can subvert it for his/her own public uses.
With (almost)truly free licenses like the BSD license the thing people seem to object to is the purpose of the license. You are allowed to make your project closed and commercial. This is not a drawback nor a feature. It is entirely dependant on your position and point of view. If you think all code should always be available then you of course dislike this license.
Software ultimately fulfills the needs of a customer. Sometimes that customer is the developer, other times it is end users, and sometimes it is both develoepr and users. I fail to see how the GPL is more free to the end user. The end user is not even involved with the code (maybe to compile it). It is however, sometimes, more *beneficial* to the end user. This is entirely dependant on having competent developers.
It seems to me that the vast majority of "Open" licenses are targeted almost entirely at developers. As others have said, the end user (unless a developer) doesn't care what the license is. They want a working product so they can get work done or have fun.
Fsck cluebie moderators. I'll say what I want, offtopic or not. And fsck having to qualify every bloody statement just
FWIW - PHP 4.0 also supports native Interbase connections.
--
"You're gonna need a bigger boat." - Chief Brody
We've been running our stock trading system with Interbase for over four years, with great results and performance: 150 *heavy* simultaneous users, over 8000 avg daily financial transactions, over 800,000 avg daily db transactions on a midrange HP-UX machine, avg response times for interactive operations are sub-second (simultaneous with other heavy batch stuff).
:-).
Unfortunately, we *might* have to move over to Oracle because we're still not convinced that Borland takes Interbase seriously, and most big-iron development tools vendors aren't convinced either: they're *not* updating their support for Interbase (most still support up to Interbase 4.0C).
Let's see what develops in the open source community. I'm hoping that much of the functionality lacking in Interbase that commercial DBs already have will be integrated by "open sourcerers", and then we might not have to use Oracle
Interesting. Now that it's out people are having problems trying to build the thing. Apparently it has some weird conf tool.
:).
Although everything you say is true I am afraind it has fallen behind in many ways. Even a cursory glance at a feature list shows that postgres has many many more features then IB. OTOH IB probably has the most imortant feature of all stability and speed. It will be interesting to see how many developers jump on and what they do with it. On my list of do it yesterday features are.
Limit clause, nullif/coalesce, editable joins, better autoincrement support, longer object names, case insensitive collation, replication, clustering, raw device support. is that too much to ask for?
Oh yea make Delhi the SP language.
War is necrophilia.
I'm sure I'll get moderated down for this, but I have karma to burn. Hell, just to give all the misguided moderators something to do, I'll leave my +1 bonus turned on.
The above posting was not a troll. This message that I am posting now is off-topic. The person who moderated my above post down for being a Troll is a bozo.
I asked questions, and three different people were kind enough to put answers to my completely valid questions below my post. They could obviously tell that I had real concerns. However, the clueless moderator decided I was trolling.
By the way, asking "How much does the C library suck" was a completely valid question. Other vendors (I'm not going to mention any names, *cough*Oracle*cough*) have been known to have BADLY BROKEN libraries for making db calls via C. Oracle's library was responsible for many of the bugs in the database layer in Tivoli TME10, an enterprise management package now owned by IBM.
So, to all moderators: Think before you moderate. Don't use your points until after you've considered whether or not you're just being pissy, or whether a post has really said something interesting, insightful, or informative - I've seen plenty of bad up-moderating, too. And don't carry out personal vendettas. The post above this one should not have been moderated. This one should probably be moderated down as offtopic, and I suspect if anyone with points reads it, it will be.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
:)
/* these constants are purely idiotic; there's no point in having
a predefined constant with no meaning, but that's Ed Simon the
master programmer for you! */
#define BUFFER_LENGTH128 128
#define BUFFER_LENGTH155 155
#define BUFFER_LENGTH256 256
#define BUFFER_LENGTH360 360
#define BUFFER_LENGTH400 400
#define BUFFER_LENGTH512 512
#define BUFFER_LENGTH80 80
#define BUFFER_LENGTH60 60
#define BUFFER_LENGTH120 120
#define BUFFER_LENGTH180 180
MySQL (notice the capital M) lets you create, update and administer a relational database through SQL statements. According to both your references, it is a full RDBMS.
You are probably referencing ACIDity, which can be achieved with a transaction logging RDBMS, and which is a completely different beast.
Either you just experienced a brainfart after a long caffeine driven coding session, or you should have studied a bit harder.
Okay... I'll do the stupid things first, then you shy people follow.
Okay... I'll do the stupid things first, then you shy people follow.
[Zappa]
Would love to see someone throw up even a seat of the pants review of the three open source databases that have been getting a lot of attention. Interbase, MySQL and PostrgreSQL. Would be great if it included a mix or performance, scalability information, and a look at the feature sets offered.
The event alerters are a way to communicate information to database clients. For example:
I have an alerter on the insert or update trigger of a particular table. Any application that listens to that alerter will get a notification when an insert or update of that table happens.
This can be very useful. You don't need to keep polling the database when there are no changes.
Someday I hope the open source world will progress to the point where it will stop getting excited every time some corporation tosses a failing product over the wall.
Incidentally, from eavesdropping on the postgresql developer list, I gather that their take on interbase is that postgresql will be as good or better by around 7.1 or 7.2 (the current release is 7.0). I believe the only key feature postgresql is missing at the moment is outer joins.
(Warning, blatant religious evangelism follows.) Postgresql is BSD liscensed, and has a really good team of open source developers actively working on it, including Tom Lane and Bruce Momjian... (unlike Inprise, which is now in the position of trying to drum up community support using an MPL-style license).
Postgresql has been making rapid improvements over the last year or so (though it still has the worst name of any software project, ever...). Bruce Momjian has a book coming out about postgresql and the full text is available online. Commercial support for postgresql is available from places such as Great Bridge.
(And whatever you do, don't mention Perl in this thread, or you'll have the Python fanatics in here too.)
Dalton Calford has written Robots or agents that listen and react to IB events in different languages. This aspec tof Interbase is a potential goldmine for developers.
Dalton in a fit of immense generosity and goodwill has posted some other tips, tricks, musings here.
BTW a very poweful one two three punch is Delphi IBObjects, interbase or soon to be klyx, ibobjects, interbase.
One more thing. Have you downloaded the documentation yet? it ROCKS!. This is best documentation for a open source project I have ever seen (well maybe php is pretty awsome too).
Make no mistake this a serious contender for the database sweepstakes.
War is necrophilia.
Well it's no Oracle but then what is? No clustering, no incremental backups, no raw device support, almost no tuning options (no really needed though), no JVM in the database etc. If you are not using the very high end features of Oracle switch otherwise you might need to stick with oracle.
War is necrophilia.
IB documentation is awsome over 10 megs of PDF files. When you installed it they giave you a URL to the docs do yoursef a favor and download them.
War is necrophilia.
If you need both go with Interbase
War is necrophilia.
The directories they chose for the RPM file are pretty bad.
/opt/interbase. Most Linux boxes don't have an /opt tree. That seems to be a Solaris thing.
/usr/include and /usr/lib. This is OK I guess, but they stick a single program into the directory /usr/local/sbin. Why not stick to the pattern they established and put it into /usr/sbin?
They put files into a directory called
Second, they stick their libraries and headers into
That's just a nit though. I suppose all that will be fixed once Debian includes it.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
They already have a JDBC client look for "interclient". I am not sure about the version though.
War is necrophilia.
Interbase (and Borland/Inprise) have a pretty loyal following of developers using Delphi and C++ builder. My guess is that this product along with Klyx will actually increase the developer pool of open source projects by luring them from the windows world.
War is necrophilia.
Apparently there is nothing wrong with bad mouthing people who disagree with you either. Hey aren't you doing exactly what you are complaining about? So RMS speaks his mind and critisizes people who disagree with him so what? So his followers also speak out what of it?
At least he does not pay people to pretend they agree with him, hire advertising agencies, or PR firms like every single corporation does. At least he does not spend a billion dollars a year telling you that GPL is better then MPL like coke and pepsi do.
He believes something passionately and speaks his mind. He is convincing and other people choose to help him carry his message. Hos is this different then Rush Limbaugh or Dubya bush?
I guess it's OK for corporate lackeys to rail against Unions but not OK for RMS to speak out against insane IP laws.
War is necrophilia.
I was kind of forced to go with MySQL because I had to have my system up and running a couple months ago, but perhaps now I can re-evaluate them.
I am a bit concerned about the MPL and how long it has taken for the Mozilla builds to be released; I know they essentially had to rewrite the entire code base, but two years? Come on. Anyway, hopefully Interbase is well-written enough that it will only require minor modifications and developer extensions, and can avoid the two or three year development cycles.
My biggest issue with MySQL vs Interbase vs PostgreSQL is kind of overlooked, though; it's not transaction support, concurrent sessions, etc, although those factors are important.
The worst part of MySQL is the absolutely horrid documentation. It is the worst document set I have ever encountered that didn't come from Redmond. If I knew MySQL better I would rewrite it myself; lord knows it needs it.
I personally hope that the Interbase code release forces MySQL to completely rewrite their documentation. I'm just glad we have choices and competition.
Free music from Jack Merlot.
http://www.interbase.com/op en/research/ib_overview.html
I found myself wondering exactly what Interbase could do for me
So I dug through their site (not hard to find) and found this lil gem
Interbase Product Overview
Interbase has some very awesome features. The overview took the tone of a semi marketing type item yet it was infomrative and if you read through some of the garbage its rather clear to see as a programmer/developer what Interbase offers.
Some of the features that stuck out in my mind from the over view.
-Small memory footprint
-Triggers
-Stored Procedures
-User Definable Functions with some 'libraries' per say already defined for math and string handling
-Alert events
EX:A certain item goes below xyz dollars it can send an alert using some sort of constant polling method. I am not sure exactly what this one was.. but basically it looks like whenever changes are done to the table if certain criteria are met it can call up a stored proc/UDF or something. This is a bit more powerful than a trigger or a stored procedure since you do not have to do any speical coding on a insert/update/delete.
Some other interesting things... There was a *LOAD* of case studies on the interbase site.
Case Studies
I looked at some of these and they were real industry proven case studies IMO.
Its Free.. and it has a good reputation
You can buy support for it
It appears to be VERY ANSI Compliant and supports all the trappings of MS SQL Server..
It also claimed to be self optimizing... anyways hope this provided a little information.
Jeremy
If you think education is expensive, try ignornace
As far as I'm concerned, InterBase is a pretty good piece of software. In my experiences with it, it's always performed up to expectations and it does everything I've ever needed it to do. I'm not saying it's right for everyone, but definitely check it out if you haven't done so yet.
If, on the other hand, you're already a devoted or knowledgable user, make sure you visit the Interbase developer's handbook. It's a worthwhile project that could use your help.
I'm excited about this version of Interbase. (Insofar as one can conceivably be exciting about a database -- sign of a true geek, huh?)
yours,
john
Humm - I wonder if it wouldn't be worth switching my sites from MySQL to Interbase. I could certainly use the transactions, row level locking, constraints, etc... anyone knows how slow/fast Interbase is ?
Regardless of how fast Interbase is, I doubt it's anywhere as fast as MySQL. MySQL gets blazing speed at the expense of referential integrity support. Interbase's real competitor in the Open Source database world is PostGreSQL, not MySQL. From my preliminary look, query speeds are slightly faster than PostGreSQL, insert speeds are *MUCH* faster, and with the exception of the rather lame selection of types and built-in functions (PostGreSQL has a much richer types and functions system), it compares reasonably well feature-wise. On the other hand, PostGreSQL *DOES* have a much richer set of types, as well as a much richer set of extension languages and better interfaces from most scripting languages.... if it were a bit faster, PostGreSQL would blow Interbase out of the water.
In short: Interbase appears to fit somewhere between MySQL and PostGreSQL. It is not as full-featured as PostGreSQL (though most of the PostGreSQL feature set is utterly incomprehensible to mere mortals, and even to many of those who are working on improving it!), but, as with MySQL, it is faster. It is not as fast as MySQL, but it has many highly-desirable features that are currently only on MySQL's wish list. There is a large range of applications where it will be very valuable. It's too bad that lack of an indexable TEXT BLOB type means that my application isn't one of them... I would have loved its combination of decent speed and decent features, otherwise.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
... whereas weak typing is for those with strong stomachs.
Interbase fits quite well between them. Interbase has the most-desired features wanted in MySQL (transactions in particular), though these features slow it down in comparison. But it is still quite a bit faster and more compact than PostGreSQL in many applications, at the expense of having a rather limited selection of types and predefined functions.
If I were using MySQL 3.22 and needed stable transaction support, I'd probably switch to Interbase. If I were using PostGreSQL and needed more speed, I'd probably grit my teeth and wait until the next revision of the PostGreSQL storage manager, which is promised for Real Soon Now -- unless its current speed was utterly unacceptable, in which case I'd strongly look at Interbase, while gritting my teeth. Not that Interbase is a bad database. It's just that PostGreSQL has gotten much, MUCH more featuresome over the past couple of years, and many of those features, such as an indexable TEXT type (which Interbase lacks), are quite useful in the kinds of applications that I write. Having to go back to fixed-size VARCHAR records would be a step backward for me. Even MySQL 3.23 doesn't make you do that (you can index the TEXT BLOB type in MySQL 3.23, or, rather, you can index the first {n} characters of it).
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Why so many licenses? Now, this custom-written license for ONE specific product, Interbase. Does this imply that Borland is never going to release source under such an open license? Or will they carbon-copy-and-rename the license for every other "IPL" licensed product?
;)
Is the IPL approved by the Open Source Initiative?
Methinks all these new licenses are bloating the license namespace
--
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
Now, if you want a jello comparison -- Interbase fits between MySQL and PostGreSQL on the features spectrum (that is, it has more features than MySQL, but lacks some features of PostGreSQL). Interbase also fits between MySQL and PostGreSQL on the speed spectrum, but is closer to MySQL speed-wise (PostGreSQL is a pig, especially on inserts... even selects are a good 10-20% slower than on most "name" databases). On the scalability spectrum, MySQL sucks (2gb limit on file size on 32-bit Linux), even the new RAID functionality is a kludge that's not going to change that significantly because it's too inflexible (have to pre-detirmine that "yes, I want to have 5 files for a max of 10gb", and woe to you if that is not enough), while PostGreSQL will happily build 50-gb database files and handle them all day long (on machines with a 2gb limit on file size, PostGreSQL automatically handles creating additional files as needed to handle the table's "data heap"). I did not have a chance to closely examine Interbase's specs on the scalability side, I know it will handle more than 2gb of data on Linux, but I don't know whether you have to pre-define how big it can get, like with MySQL. (Note that MySQL does not have the 2gb limit on OS's that properly support 64-bit filesystems).
Best bet: Download them all, create a sample database, try some sample queries, slam the @#$% out of them. Note that PostGreSQL's big speed problem for most people is going to be insert speed and its sluggishness at opening connections. Select speed will probably not be a problem for most people, because PostGreSQL is plenty fast there for the typical application. Interbase may be the solution to those woes if you need transaction support and speed too. Or you could wait for MySQL 3.23 to mature, it too has alpha-quality transaction support, though it will never have the more advanced features of Interbase or PostGreSQL ("never" is probably a strong word here, but given the MySQL author's desire for speed rather than features, it probably will remain accurate).
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Regarding speed, MySQL is and always will be the fastest SQL database on the planet, bar none. It gets that speed at a cost, though -- tossing out every feature that might possibly slow down the database. For many people, Interbase hits a very sweet point on the features vs. performance spectrum, it is faster and more compact than most "full-featured" databases, while still having the majority of functionality that most reasonable people would consider nice to have.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Also worthy to note that the user-friendly DBMS management tool is apparently written in Pascal, and is not going to be usable on Linux until Kylix is up and going.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
We're looking at paying our Oracle tax in a few months, and I'm not looking forward to it.
We're building a portal on EJB, and we need a rock-solid backend. Everyone of course trusts Oracle, but my GOD do you ever pay for it.
What've been people's experiences so far with this DB?
There is a new ODBC driver in the works from Jim Starkey (the original architect of Interbase). Yes, there's a perl module. There's a python module. There's a zope module in the works. The C library is based on DB2 since it was the closest thing to a standard when they were writing it.
Check out www.interbase2000.org, there's even an alpha quality DB-OLE (or whatever the heck it's called) driver.
Free Pascal support seems to be in the works, but since Inprise open-sourced the IB-Express objects for Delphi, maybe they will eventually compile under FPC as well.
The sweetest way to connect is through Jason Wharton's IBObjects using Delphi or BCB. Hopefully these will eventually migrate over to Linux when the Kylix project releases Delphi 6 for Linux in late September.
Interbase's best attributes are: size (this is not bloatware, people!) and reliability (one of the case studies refers to usage in a tank because when the big gun goes, the computer reboots).
The super-niftiest feature is the multigenerational architecture where readers never block writers and writers never block readers. I'm sure other DBMS's have something like this, but Interbase was the first.
Jim Starkey, the "Big Bad Wolf" of Interbase and original author claims to have invented the concept of a BLOB (binary large object) stored in a relational database.
This database has been around for more than 15 years. It's interesting looking at the code - you can compile for some quite rare platforms. What is the Apollo?
Cobalt Networks' new RaQ4 is shipping with Interbase preinstalled...