[GSOC]Introduction / Implement Firebird SQL connector for LibreOffice Base

Hi everyone,

I'm excited to announce I've been selected to work on LibreOffice for
this years GSOC!

I'll be working on implementing a Firebird SQL connector for Base in
order to replace HSQLDB as the current default, which would allow for
removing java as an LO dependency, allow for more unit-testing etc. (See
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51780 )

The plan is to use Firebird 3 (which is currently an alpha release, i.e.
stable API), since it provides a native C++ api and is considerably
easier to embed than (the currently stable) Firebird 2.5, which only
offers a C api. Work will probably be happening on feature/firebird
which will be born as soon as I have the first bit of code ready to commit.

The first portion of the project is implementing the actual database
connector (and linking Firebird into the LO build system, based on how
other external projects are handled), which should take roughly a month
according to my estimated timeplan; after that I'll be getting onto more
interesting things like looking at migration from HSQLDB, implementing
tests and otherwise polishing things.

I'll be blogging about my progress: you can either see all my LO related
posts [ http://www.ahunt.org/category/libreoffice ] or just my GSOC 2013
posts [ http://www.ahunt.org/category/gsoc2013/ ] (the latter link isn't
up yet). I'll probably also be keeping the mailing-list updated with my
day to progress. (My IRC nick is ahunt.) If desired I can also post my
GSOC proposal/timeplan here/on the wiki.

(During the course of the summer I'll probably also be working on the
Firefox OS port of the Impress Remote I implemented last year, which
will be independent of the GSOC work I'm doing.)

Some less exciting background information: I'm currently in the leadup
to my exams which take place next week (I'll probably be internet-free
that week), after that I'll be free to start full-time hacking on
LibreOffice for the summer, although I'll try and get some work done on
getting Firebird building in LO this week. I'm currently in the second
year of Engineering at Cambridge University, and will probably
specialise in Electrical/Information Engineering from next year onwards.
I'll be based in Cambridge and in Switzerland during the course of the
summer.

    Cheers,

        Andrzej