FreeTDS User Guide: A Guide to Installing, Configuring, and Running FreeTDS | ||
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Prev | Chapter 1. What is FreeTDS? |
FreeTDS was and is developed by observation and experimentation, which is to say, by trial and error.
In early 1997, the only option for connecting to a Sybase server from Linux or other free systems was an aging Sybase-released version of OpenClient. Unfortunately it had a few problems. The original release was a.out based, although Greg Thain did a great service in converting the library to ELF. Secondly, it included only the newer ct-lib API. The older db-lib API was missing.
Brian Bruns, a Sybase DBA and originator of the FreeTDS project, had some db-lib programs he wanted to run under Linux, and thus began the FreeTDS project. The original work focused on