FW Editor: What are your plans or objectives in the near future?
Helmut K. C. Tessarek: I'd like to concentrate on other projects, but right now it's hard to find some spare time.

FW Editor: How and when did you start writing the code for mod_authnz_ibmdb2? What inspired you the most? Do you plan to develop new software, or are you more focused on optimizing the current ones?
Helmut K. C. Tessarek: I started back in 2004, because I wanted to use DB2 as the backend database, but there was no working authentication module available for DB2. I'm planning to write a PAM module for DB2, but my spare time is very limited so I doubt that it will be available soon.

FW Editor: Do you plan to improve or change mod_authnz_ibmdb2 in any way? If yes, how are you going to do that?
Helmut K. C. Tessarek: I have some ideas for adding one or two features and as soon as I find the time, I'll implement them.

FW Editor: Mod_authnz_ibmdb2 has quite a strong competition but, so far, it succeeded in making a name for itself. What do you think about the huge success of mod_authnz_ibmdb2?
Helmut K. C. Tessarek: It's hard to tell how successful mod_authnz_ibmdb2 is, but it is the only authentication module for DB2 which is available for Apache 1.3 and 2.0. This is not true for Apache 2.2 anymore, since the APR developers released an APR DBD driver which should work with DB2 as well.

FW Editor: What are the advantages of using mod_authnz_ibmdb2 over any other similar product?
Helmut K. C. Tessarek: The only reason I could think of is, because it works with IBM DB2. :-)

FW Editor: Besides mod_authnz_ibmdb2, is there any application that had a positive impact over you? Why?
Helmut K. C. Tessarek: I'm one of the original designers and developers of the native ibm_db2 driver for PHP. During that time I learned a great deal about PHP internals.

FW Editor: Is there any customer support service for mod_authnz_ibmdb2 users?
Helmut K. C. Tessarek: There are actually 3 trackers available at http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=103064 You can open tickets for bugs, support requests, and feature requests.

FW Editor: Do you have any message or anything to share with mod_authnz_ibmdb2 users?
Helmut K. C. Tessarek: I have published an article which might be helpful besides the documentation: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/data/library/techarticle/dm-0407tessarek/