The Firebird open source database server wins a SourceForge Community Choice Award (in the "Best Project for Enterprise" category). This is certainly a very good sign of its popularity. At the time MySQL future is far from clear, due to multiple project spin-off following Oracle acquisition of Sun (and MySQL), Firebird has a chance to stand out. Maybe its last big chance, I'm not sure.
At the same time, David I while announcing this Award mentions Embarcadero want to support Firebird "in future versions of all of our products", which might as well mean both development tools and database management tools. The first tool to provide such support might as well be the next verfsion of Delphi, which is expected to ship with a specific Delphi dbExpress driver (again, showcased by David I last June, as mentioned in this blog).
This is really a good time for Firebird!
PS. I'm back from my vacation, but will be spending another month or so on the hills, with limited connectivity (a lousy GPRS connection and, only occasionally, a good ADSL), so my online precense will be limited for some time.