Frontbase now free for all use

[Bernard]

I am not an experienced user of Frontbase, but they have now made it free for all use (enterprise and embedded) - see the news item on their front page. Looking at the technical specifications, it is a very capable database (with quite a lot of features unmatched by MySQL and PostgreSQL) - http://www.frontbase.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/FrontBase

The db still requires a license key, but they provide it freely when you give them the IP address or MAC address of the server where the db will live. It appears that for the free license for embedded use they want developers to talk to them - they say they like to know who is using their db. Their web site is a little confusing on the issue (it still has a 'buy' section), but I have contacted them and they re-iterated that the db was now free for all use.

Considering they have a native Rev driver for Frontbase (http://www.frontbase.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/FrontBase) it means that even Rev studio users could develop applications that talk natively to a db that rivals Oracle in many of its features.

If anyone has further questions, I would recommend they talk to the people at Frontbase. I have emailed them a coupld of times in the past with technical enquiries and they were always prompt, knowledgeable and curteous.

I hope this is of use to some people. I have seen in the past that a coupld of people were put off Frontbase precisely because the licensing costs seem so high.