Why would this be necessary? MSDE from Microsoft is already free and doesn't require any programmatic changes from FogCreek. They support Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and thus get MSDE support for free. Whereas with Firebird, there will need to be changes to code to support it.

Why would a developer want to support Firebird (and thus take the hit for design and support costs) rather than just relying on a free version of SQL Server (MSDE)? Granted there is a hardcoded batch limit in MSDE, but unless you are really hammering the server (and the code is written correctly), you should really never see this limit until you grow to need an enterprise level committment of SQL Server.

This isn't meant to be a troll-bait...I'm working on a project right now where one of the requests was support for a free database, in which I suggested MSDE. Would there be an instance where Firebird would be a better solution (let's ignore deployment for this discussion)?