The Firebird Project is pleased to announce the release today of the first Firebird 2.0 public Alpha kits for immediate download and testing. This version of Firebird 2 is an alpha version, meant for field testing only and not for use in production. All changes and new features are subject to further change and/or withdrawal in subsequent alpha and beta releases, leading up to final release. Do not assume that databases created by or upgraded to the on-disk structure of this alpha will be upwardly compatible with subsequent test builds/releases. Bugs, problems, etc. can be posted to the Field Test bug tracker or to the Firebird Development List. This release contains a large number of new features, including derived tables, support for Execute Block, increased table sizes, new improved index code (the 252-byte index length limit is no longer applicable), expression indices, numerous optimiser improvements, enhanced security features, support for on-line incremental backups along with numerous other improvements and bug fixes. Please read the Release Notes for more details. Downloads of builds for Linux-i686 and Win32 are currently available, with others to follow soon. Feedback, input and comments re this release will be appreciated, as they will help to speed up the cycle for the full Firebird 2.0 release. Happy testing! Firebird Project

The Firebird Project will soon be releasing the first public 'alpha' release of Firebird 2.0. Version 2.0 is a long-awaited important major release of Firebird with many new features, enhancements and bugfixes. In number of changes, the jump in this release is equivalent if not greater than the transition from version 1.0 to version 1.5. You know that we care about quality, and that we will not release the final version 2.0 until it meets our strict QA requirements. For version 1.5, it took about a year before we were satisfied. But this time we are in a slightly different situation... Read more