unixODBC is an

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

project that implements the Open Database Connectivity (

ODBC In computing, Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) is a standard application programming interface (API) for accessing database management systems (DBMS). The designers of ODBC aimed to make it independent of database systems and operating systems. An ...

)

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. The code is provided under the

GNU GPL The GNU General Public Licenses (GNU GPL or simply GPL) are a series of widely used free software licenses, or ''copyleft'' licenses, that guarantee end users the freedom to run, study, share, or modify the software. The GPL was the first ...

LGPL The GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) is a free-software license published by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). The license allows developers and companies to use and integrate a software component released under the LGPL into their own ...

and can be built and used on many different operating systems, including most versions of

Unix Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

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Mac OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

, IBM

OS/2 OS/2 is a Proprietary software, proprietary computer operating system for x86 and PowerPC based personal computers. It was created and initially developed jointly by IBM and Microsoft, under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci, ...

and Microsoft's Interix. The goals of the project include: *Provide developers with the tools to port

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

ODBC applications to other platforms with the minimum of code changes. *Maintain the project as a vendor neutral interface database SDK *Provide people who write ODBC drivers the tools to port their drivers to non Windows platforms *Provide the user with a set of GUI and command line tools for managing their database access *Maintain links with both the

free software community The free software movement is a social movement with the goal of obtaining and guaranteeing certain freedoms for software users, namely the freedoms to run, study, modify, and share copies of software. Software which meets these requirements, ...

and commercial database vendors, to ensure interoperability

History

1999

The unixODBC project was first started in the early months of 1999 (by Peter Harvey) and was created as at that time the developers of iODBC (another open source

implementation) were not then willing to LGPL the code, expand the API to include the current ODBC 3 API specification, and did not consider the addition of GUI based configuration tools worthwhile. iODBC now has these parts added, and applications that use the ODBC interface may use both iODBC and unixODBC, without change in most cases, as a result of both projects adhering to the single ODBC specification.

1999 July

The original driver manager was very basic. The driver manager was rewritten b
Easysoft's
Nick Gorham soon after the project started. Nick assumed leadership of the project in July 1999 with Peter Harvey continuing work on supporting code. The development of unixODBC progressed since its origin, with contributions from many developers, both in the open source community and also from commercial database companies, including

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

Oracle Corporation Oracle Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational computer technology company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Co-founded in 1977 in Santa Clara, California, by Larry Ellison, who remains executive chairman, Oracle was ...

and SAP. It is included as part of the standard installation of many Linux distributions.

2009

The unixODBC project was split into several projects (all hosted on SourceForge);
unixODBC
("Core" and "Dev" bits)
unixODBC-GUI-Qt
(Qt based GUI bits)
unixODBC-Test
(multiple test frameworks) This split was done to allow faster releases of supporting work while maintaining focus on stability and consistency for the core code.

References

{{Reflist

External links

unixODBC homepage

UnixODBC & MySQL Sample Program
Database APIs SQL data access