The unixODBC Project goals are to develop and promote unixODBC to be the definitive standard for ODBC on non MS Windows platforms. This software includes GUI support for both KDE and GNOME.

ODBC is a specification for providing application developers with a predictable API, with which they can access Data Sources. Data Sources include SQL Servers and any Data Source with an ODBC Driver. unixODBC is a complete open source ODBC solution developed for UNIX or Linux platforms.

The two major advantages of choosing to code applications to the unixODBC API are:

Portable Data Access Code -
The ODBC API, as outlined by X/Open and ISO, is available on all major platforms. Microsoft platforms include many enhancements to this specification; these enhancements are also supported by unixODBC.

Dynamic Data Binding -
This allows the user or the system administrator to easily configure an application to use any ODBC compliant data source. This is perhaps the single biggest advantage of coding an application to the ODBC API and to purchase these applications. Dynamic binding allows the end-user to pick a data source, i.e. an SQL Server, and use it for all data applications without having to worry about recompiling the application.

The unixODBC team has reached this objective by providing the best technical solution to ODBC demands on the Linux platform. All unixODBC development is and will be distributed under the terms and conditions of GPL or LGPL.