Firebird 2.5.0 RC1

* Other New Features:
- Administrative Enhancements
- Other SQL Language Additions and Enhancements
- Data-handling Enhancements
- API Additions
- International Language Support

* Changes in the Firebird Engine:
- New Threading Architecture
- Thread-safe Client Library
- Other Improvements

* Changes to the Firebird API and ODS:
- ODS (On-Disk Structure) Changes
- API (Application Programming Interface) Extensions

* Reserved Words and Changes:
- Clean-up of Reserved Words
- Newly Reserved Words
- Keywords Added as Non-reserved

* Configuration Parameter Additions and Changes:
- AuditTraceConfigFile
- Parameters Affecting Filesystem Cache Usage
- Authentication
- MaxUserTraceLogSize
- OldSetClauseSemantics
- RemoteAuxPort For Classic and Superclassic
- Use Hostname for RemoteBindAddress
- RemoteFileOpenAbility

* Administrative Features:
- New RDB$ADMIN System Role
- Trace and Audit Services
- Monitoring Improvements

* Security Hardening:
- Windows Platforms changes

* Data Definition Language (DDL):
- Visibility of Procedure Definition Changes on Classic
- CREATE/ALTER/DROP USER
- Syntaxes for Altering Views
- Extensions for CREATE VIEW
- ALTER Mechanism for Computed Columns
- Extensions for SQL Permissions
- Default COLLATION Attribute for a Database
- ALTER CHARACTER SET Command
- Evolution of CREATE DATABASE

* Data Manipulation Language (DML):
- RegEx Search Support using SIMILAR TO
- Hex Literal Support
- New UUID Conversion Functions
- SOME_COL = ? OR ? IS NULL Predication
- Extension to LIST() Function
- Optimizer Improvements
- Other Improvements

* Procedural SQL (PSQL):
- Autonomous Transactions
- Borrow Database Column Type for a PSQL Variable
- New Extensions to EXECUTE STATEMENT
- Other PSQL Improvements

* International Language Support (INTL):
- Default COLLATION Attribute for a Database
- ALTER CHARACTER SET Command
- Connection Strings & Character Sets
- Other Improvements

* Command-line Utilities:
- fbtracemgr
- Retrieve Password from a File or Prompt
- gsec
- fbsvcmgr
- gbak
- nBackup
- isql
- gpre (Precompiler)
- gstat