14 DAY TRIAL // Firebird 2.5.3, a relational database offering many ANSI SQL standard features that runs on Linux, Windows, and a variety of Unix platforms, has been released after a long hiatus.
Firebird is a very powerful tool, but the developers have waited too long between releases. The last major update was back in November 2012. It seems now that the developers are trying to make up for lost time and they have made quite a few improvements, although there are no new features.
According to the changelog, a number of new context variables have been added to the SYSTEM namespace to retrieve more information, the maximum number of input parameters for external functions (UDFs) is now 15, more details are now reported for “object in use” errors, the relation name has been added to the text of validation constraint error messages, and the error reporting for index and constraint violations has been improved.
Also, the physical backup has been improved in order to speed up the extension of the main database file, the execution of a SET STATISTICS INDEX statement no longer blocks or slows down concurrent attachments, and a few other fixes have been implemented.
A complete list of changes and bug fixes can be found in the announcement. You can download Firebird 2.5.3 right now from the official website.