Using the OLE DB Client code

I was recently asked for permission to use the OLE DB Client library code in a third party application. One of the blog readers asked me about a specific license to go with the code and I pointed him to the CPOL, the permissive license used by most Code Project articles. I'm actually planning to convert the material from these posts into a series of articles to be published in Code Project under this license. This is a very simple license: you can use the code for whatever purposes you like (even in a commercial application) and the only thing you are required to do is to acknowledge who wrote the original code (see the CPOL details).

Now that you know this, should you use this code? If you want to use it to learn about OLE DB and the SQL Compact native provider, please go right ahead and use it (and change it, and tweak it and experiment with it). As to using it in a commercial application, I would say "not right now" for two reasons:

1. The code has not been extensively tested. Although I plan to publish a bug-free (ah ah ah!) library, I cannot take resposibility for any use you make of it. You will be on your own.
   
2. This code will change. Don't start writing your own code based on this library expecting that the library interfaces will not change. They will, and your code will fail to compile.
   

Now that this is clarified, let's have a look at BLOBs and what we need to support them.