Author: mariuz

Open-source database deployments rose dramatically in the last half of 2005, and as one might expect, as more IT pros get acquainted with these non-proprietary systems, security is a chief concern. Open-source database makers like MySQL and PostgreSQL [ED: and Firebird] simply must answer some of the most prevalent security-related questions in order to win more market share.

One of those questions is, with recent headlines suggesting customer data stored on organizational databases is at risk, should those who opt for open-source database applications be worried? Not according to data suggesting proprietary database software is breached more often. But data alone is not enough. What IT executives really want to know is what specific technological security precautions open-source DB developers need to take.

“We continue to see the maturation of open-source databases reflected by the continually increasing levels of adoption,” said John Andrews, President, Evans Data. “In a number of our ratings categories, we’re seeing open-source databases meeting or exceeding proprietary databases.”

Read this full article at TechNewsWorld

Hello all,

A new list has been started on Yahoogroups – a job board for devs
with Firebird skills and for employers looking for them. 🙂

It’s a pretty tightly moderated list.

You can look it up from the Lists and News Groups page of our main
website, or go straight there if you like.
http://www.yahoogroups.com/community/firebird-job-board

All you’ll see in the archives right now is a couple of messages
posted by Calin Pirtea, who’s helping with the
moderation. (Actually, you won’t see the archives at all if you’re
not a member…)

Feel free to link to the list from your own websites. It all helps
for getting us “out there”.

Helen

Article shows how Coverity worked with linux kernel developers in the past sending them patches

“For now, Coverity plans to publish the defect reports on a semi-private Web site so that any developer associated with a particular open source project can examine the list, determine if something actually needs to be fixed, and then create a fix and submit it to the project lead. This is currently the model used by Coverity for the defects they published for the Linux kernel.”

http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/6146/1/

The government is here to help open source by ZDNet‘s Dana Blankenhorn — Sounds like a win-win-win. Tell me it’s not.
How they will help scanning for security bugs in open source projects (firebird included)

You can now download the slides from Stefan Heymann’s talk “What Developers Should Know about Character Sets, Unicode etc.”.
It was presented at Firebird Conference 2005 .

Dmitri Kovalenko, LCPI wrote about unicode in September issue of The Firebird Developer Magazine:
Working with UNICODE in InterBase/Firebird

Related to unicode is Joel Spolsky’s article The Absolute Minimum Every Software Developer Absolutely, Positively Must Know About Unicode and Character Sets (No Excuses!)

I saw firebird in the list of targets

“Through its Science and Technology Directorate, the department has
given $1.24 million in funding to Stanford University, Coverity and
Symantec to hunt for security bugs in open-source software and to
improve Coverity’s commercial tool for source code analysis,
representatives for the three grant recipients told CNET News.com.”

http://news.com.com/Homeland+Security+helps+secure+open-source+code/2100-1002_3-6025579.html?tag=nefd.lede