[ Thanks to Dariusz
Zelichowski for this link. ]
“In the open-source world, much has been made about the need for
a full-featured, robust and reliable database that can handle
substantial loads and yet be able to play well with such
open-source tools as Perl and PHP. The two main contenders are
PostgreSQL and MySQL, but a new arrival in this arena is the
Firebird RDBMS. It offers a substantial feature set, a mature code
base and a proven track record in its previous incarnation as the
Borland InterBase RDBMS. As discussed later in this article,
Firebird provides a lot of the features available in commercial
databases, including stored procedures, triggers, hot backups
(backups while the database is running) and replication. As with
many mature products, Firebird carries some amount of legacy
baggage, which can be a bit confusing to a new user. So before we
plunge into exploring the features this database provides, let us
look at some common issues that may confront a new user.“Firebird originally started its life as the Borland InterBase
database. As the product reached version 6.0, Borland decided
Borland the product was going to be aged out, and so the code was
released under an open-source license. Later on, however, Borland
apparently had a change of mind about aging out the product. To
this day, internally, Borland continues to develop the InterBase
database, with the latest version being 7.1. Firebird 1.0
essentially was the open-source code behind InterBase 6.0. As of
this writing, the first major development effort of the Firebird
branch is Firebird 1.5…”