Notícias
Foi lançado mais um release candidate do Firebird 1.5 contrariando o que se havia dito anteriormente quando se falou que o RC7 seria o último release antes do final. Isso demonstra a preocupação da equipe do Firebird em lançar uma versão altamente estável. O que vem atrasando o release final do firebird não são bugs ou problemas no servidor e sim a adequação dos instaladores nos diferentes ambientes e sistemas operacionais. As principais diferenças entre o RC7 e o RC8 são:
1) Some important bugfixes.
2) Debug information (in PDB format) is distributed as a separate package.
3) New tool (instclient.exe) is introduced to handle deployment of both fbclient.dll and gds32.dll. The latter one is not distributed anymore.
4) Version number of the public interface is added to ibase.h.
Jim Starkey, o criador do InterBase e atualmente casado com Ann Harrison, uma das proprietárias da IBPhoenix anunciou hoje na lista de discussão de firebird-devel que ele estará desenvolvendo nos próximos 3 meses uma versão derivada do FB 1.5 com as características de ser thread-safe e de rodar em processadores de 64bits - o projeto está sendo chamado de Vulcan. Isso vai gerar várias mudanças estruturais em algumas partes do código do Firebird e a boa notícia é que essas mudanças serão incorporadas no próprio Firebird assim que o projeto estiver finalizado! Veja a mensagem de anúncio:
I've been hired by IBPhoenix to product a 64 bit, SMP-friendly
reference port for Firebird. The formal deliverable will be for 64
Sparc, though I plan to produce AMD64/Opteron versions for WinXP and
Linux on the way. I'm calling it Project Vulcan (I wanted to call it
IBAlbuquerque but Mozilla is already using the name).
The requirement is for a thread-safe, embeddable, 64 bit versions
capable of 3X performance on a four processor system (or run out of
disk bandwidth trying) in a three month period. The resulting code
will be released under the standard Interbase Public License.
Given the aggressive schedule, I'm going to deviate somewhat from the
normal development methodology. I'm starting with the Firebird 1.5
code base (as of last Thursday), but will be working out of a private
CVS tree. If folks are interested, I'm will to grant read-only access
to the tree as long as things don't get too crazy. The plan is for
IBPhoenix to re-integrate the code bases at the end of the project. If
there are volunteers, it may be possible feasible to migrate changes
from Vulcan to Firebird enroute, but the schedule dictates that I work
without external dependencies. My goal is to produce a working,
maintainable, fast, lightweight system. If folks want to have a brawl
over the political correctness of my code, they can do so after I'm
done. Ann has been designated by IBPhoenix to lead the reintegration
phase.
I'd be more than delighted to talk and argue about the project as we
go, treating the process as an extended masters class. If folks are
happy, we can do it here on the developers list. If not, I'll start up
an ad hoc list for the duration of the project.
My primary development platforms will be WinXP (32 and 64) under MSVC
with frequent checkouts on Linux (RedHat 32 bit and probably Suse 64
bit), and finally Solaris.
Subject to delivery of my development hardware, my plan of attack is:
- Clean up the layering: server / Y-valve / subsystems. I will rewrite why.c to use a canonical C++ class as the sole interface to data management systems, which can be either linked or dynamically loaded. There will be only one Y-valve component shared by client and server processes. During the rewrite I will sanitize the code base of modules not under the Interbase Public License.
- Introduce thread synchronization technology (fast lock shared/exclusive monitors) from Netfrastructure.
- Remove dead code from the Firebird code base. GDS_VAL, WAL, thread_enter/thread_exit are all endangered.
- Reconstitute major engine components as proper C++ objects. The cache manager (CCH) is the priority candidate.
- Add monitors for major data structures. Note: delivery
requirements dictates 64 development version before thread safety, so
there is a race condition between hardware delivery and thread safety.
The monitor code will be in mainline, not conditionalized.
- 64 bit compilation and execution on Microsoft, gcc, and probably Sun compilers. Crap and dead conditionals that get in my way will be dealt with ruthlessly.
I think this is going to be fun. And I think it will be a bang-up product at the end. I think the AMD 64 bit architecture is the best thing since the death of the PDP-11.
Jim Starkey
Netfrastructure, Inc.
978 526-1376
Foi criada uma promoção para grupos de 4 ou mais pessoas para participar do próximo Delphi Developers Day à ser realizado em Sorocaba no dia 13 de Dezembro. O valor da inscrição cai de R$ 17,00 para R$ 12,50 por pessoa! O evento contará com palestras e mini-cursos sobre temas atuais e interessantes, incluindo Firebird e InterBase! Faça sua inscrição online!
O código do banco de dados Yaffil, projeto Russo derivado do Firebird e que até agora era distribuido comercialmente, vai ser incorporado ao código do Firebird 2.0 trazendo inúmeras melhorias (novas funcionalidades) que já haviam sido implementadas no Yaffil mas não no Firebird. Os times de desenvolvedores também vão se unir. A mensagem anunciando o ocorrido foi postada por Helen Borrie na lista Firebird Devel e pode ser vista abaixo:
Yaffil Merges Source Code with Firebird
=====================================================
Moscow, St Petersburg and The World, 2 December 2003
The Firebird Project and the principals of the Yaffil project are very pleased to announce the merging of the Yaffil project with Firebird. Former Yaffil chief developer Oleg Ivanov is welcomed as the newest member of the Firebird core developer team.
Yaffil, a Russian, Windows-only version of the Firebird database engine, was built originally from the open source Firebird code with a number of additional features. It began life as a private project, before becoming available as a commercial distribution from iBase.ru, of Moscow. Separate Yaffil development has since ceased, product sales have been stopped and all the sources have been released for merging into the Firebird 2.0 code base by the Firebird development team.
For Firebird, the homecoming of the little red bird is welcome news. First, it allows the two closely-related codebases to be united in a single tree. Both will gain strength by moving forward in a single direction. Secondly, it brings into the design scheme a number of significant enhancements, optimizations, architectural improvements and character sets/collations.
For Yaffil users *, the proprietor of iBase.ru, Dmitri Kouzmenko, says
migrating to Firebird 2.0 will benefit them by enabling them to
* work with the cross-platform database server
* use the new features
* have access to full project source code.
He also notes that, as Firebird is being developed by a big team of
developers, partly financed by the FirebirdSQL Foundation, the combined
project will continue to develop and progress.
Coordinated efforts between the Firebird core developers and Oleg Ivanov will ensure that Yaffil users will be able to migrate easily to Firebird 2 with only minor changes to their applications and databases. To Dmitri, this means that users will have Yaffil's advantages of better performance and lower CPU load along with the benefits of the cross-platform server, an open source product and a number of unique features. He considers that, rather than having two teams spending energy on implementing conflicting features, it would be more productive for them to work together on new features and bugfixes.
The FirebirdSQL Foundation is discussing a proposal to grant some funds to assist with an early merger of Yaffil's most useful special features into the codebase for a forthcoming post-version 1.5 sub-release of Firebird.
No dia 13 de Dezembro será realizado em Sorocaba-SP o 2º DDD onde estarei ministrando uma palestra sobre as novidades do Firebird 1.5. Haverá também mini-cursos em paralelo com as palestras. Mais informações em www.dugbr.com.br/ddd.
O site LinuxQuestions.org abriu uma votação para escolher o banco de dados do ano. Vote através do endereço http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?s=&threadid=116360. Para votar você deve se registrar no forum (o link para registro está na mesma página).
Está disponível uma nova versão do que deverá se tornar o instalador oficial do Firebird 1.5 para Windows. Entre as mudanças está o fato de que o instalador tenta identificar instalações prévias do IB/FB e avisa o usuário para que ele tome as devidas precauções. O endereço para download é http://www.ibphoenix.com/downloads/Firebird-1.5.0.Win32-test.exe
Para a surpresa de alguns usuários, a RedHat anunciou que não lançara mais nenhuma versão do RedHat Linux (free). A empresa agora está focada no RedHat Enterprise Linux, que não é distribuido gratuitamente. Os que quiserem continuar nas trilhas do RedHat Linux poderão migrar para o Fedora, projeto tocado pela comunidade Open Source em conjunto com a RedHat para substituir o RedHat Linux.