mxODBC chokes on dates! Any Help?

[Owen Ap'Owen]

In article <tcastvrc90ihfd at corp.supernews.com>, spam at spam.com says...

> Questions:
> (i) Did you try to contact him directly ?  He has always been very prompt in
> replying
> to me when I have, and I do *not* pay him a licence fee

No, I posted to this newsgroup first. In my experience it is the quickest 
way to get answers. 

> (ii) Have you actually paid any money for mxODBC.  If not, why do you expect
> that it
> should be perfect and that he should fix it for you quick smart if it aint ?

Where did I say that I expected it to be perfect? Where did I say that I 
expected anybody to fix it? My actual expectation was that I was missing 
something obvious. 

I said that I thought it should be functional and complete if the 
developer expects to be paid a hefty licence fee per user.

> I imagine you probably think that mxODBC and mxDateTime, a fantastically
> useful package
> as well, should be free for you to use and abuse simply because you expect
> to be paid to
> do development work for a commercial company, but you think that others
> should provide
> for free the tools you need in such work.

Why leap to a bunch of conclusions about what you imagine I think? I 
tried mxODBC and found that it would not work for me. I asked for help in 
this newsgroup. Simple. 

I also commented that I believed the commercial license fees to be 
extreme for a fairly lightweight product. 

If I recall correctly I believe the licensing for mxODBC was on the order 
of $60 - $80 per user. If I distribute a python app that uses mxODBC to 
all the users in my business the license fees would add up to more than I 
paid for my entire SQL Server 2000 installation including client access 
licenses.

> If its a problem, why not write your own DB interface and datetime support,
> I'm sure you could
> manage it in a jiffy ;-)

My, aren't we argumentative! Do you really believe that I should never 
criticise a product unless I am able and willing to go out and create a 
better product on my own? 

If I make some critical comments about Red Hat Linux are you going to 
tell me to shut up and go create my own Linux distribution? If I state 
that I believe Oracle 8i to be overpriced are you going to sneer and tell 
me that, if I have a problem, I should just go write my own relational 
database?