Further comments! I was thinking in terms of the back-end database structure being public domain, with SQL scripts for the generation of tables, constraints and so on being open source.
<phil@dialsolutions.co.uk> I would argue strongly that special clients should not be required or provided. Once you provide them, then there is a temptation to implement functionality in them that is not available in the web clients, and I believe that in this day and age there is very little that cannot be done with cleverly designed web pages and server side software.
If the project was conducted in public, authors of the database structure would have no control over what clients others may or may not write.
<rjg@ateb.co.uk> I'll second the choice of PostgreSQL for the database engine,
I have come to depend heavily on stored procedures which as I understand it are supported by neither PostgreSQL or MySQL. There are things that such an application would have to do that would seem to me beyond the reach of a database without some programming capability. I could give examples if it would help. This is why I was considering Interbase. Also, as Interbase is available for both Linux and Windows, a project based on it may gain more momentum. Perhaps someone knowledgeable on PostgreSQL or MySQL could comment. regards Richard richard@tortoise.demon.co.uk