Re: ODBC. I don't know much about the low-level database adapter stuff in Zope, but AFAIK the problem with ODBC on Linux is one of reliable middleware... I think there is mxODBC or something like that that can talk via... err... CLI?.. to an ODBC datasource on UNIX. But I think it's not really ready for primetime. I might be wrong, maybe it has matured since I last heard of it.
There are reliable solutions to this problem. We had floated the idea of using middleware from Openlink Software (http://www.openlinksw.com) for all our relational database adapters, writing to an interface they provide that abstracts out the connection-layer differences. But it's not open source, and using more than five connections against any particular database requires a license from Openlink. I don't exactly know what happened to this plan. It just sort of fizzled. We don't want to be in the business of maintaining our existing database adapters every time Oracle or Sybase spurts out a new release. It's just not a good use of time here. It would be much better for us to throw this job over the wall to Openlink and write to their interface. But for now, we're stuck maintaining the ones we've written.
In the meantime (assuming that plan still exists), writing an ODBC DA for Zope on Linux is not high on DC's to-do list, and nobody from the community has stepped up to the plate to make it available. This is an excellent opportunity for somebody from the community to contribute a piece of software that people ask for from time to time. It's probably not going to come from DC if somebody else doesn't provide it.
