Comment 24 for bug 240519

The common dependency of both sybase mad mssql Vendor Specific Database Extensions on FreetTDS libs might be advantageous for the package developer or maintainer, but it has disadvantages for the library users:
- if I remove the Sybase DB Extension using synaptic, I also lose the MSSQL Server connectivity.
- it is still confusing to be forced to connect to a sybase database using mssql_connect(), or to call a mssql server with sybase_connect() . - it took me some time to understand the whole issue. However it is next to impossible to communicate the situation to other web developers and new colleagues.

And what will happen if the FreeTDS developer(s) decided someday to drop compatibility for one of the server types, or too fork development?

Instead of using freetds, a linux user can still install the original C Client libraries from Sybase. As part of the ASE DB server developer trial-edition/expres-edition, these libraries are available for free but not as open-source from Sybase in 32bit and 64 bit versions.
(The 32-bit header files are available also free of charge from Sybase, whereas the 64 bit versions of the header files aren't. Here it is indeed an advantage to have a basic 64bit FreetTDS-based sybase client that works)

Seems that I have to do my php with-sybase-ct development on a different machine, than my unix box.