Interesting. I have not had any problems using FreeTDS and UnixODBC in large-scale production environments to talk to SQL Server, although I agree that the interfaces of the tools are brittle and pathetically clunky, in a minimalistic sort of way.
I work in VoIP and have several customers who insist on storing all of their production data from open-source Linux telephony app servers in SQL Server because they are otherwise a Microsoft stack shop, and have not had an issue once all the DSNs were correctly set up.
Of course, said organisations are all using relatively old versions of SQL Server and intensely disinterested in upgrading, so who knows what awaits when they finally do and the FreeTDS v8.3 protocol implementation may not work properly anymore.
I work in VoIP and have several customers who insist on storing all of their production data from open-source Linux telephony app servers in SQL Server because they are otherwise a Microsoft stack shop, and have not had an issue once all the DSNs were correctly set up.
Of course, said organisations are all using relatively old versions of SQL Server and intensely disinterested in upgrading, so who knows what awaits when they finally do and the FreeTDS v8.3 protocol implementation may not work properly anymore.