The TDS protocol that *is* Open Client is built so that either the client or server will fallback to a common dialect. I suppose that it is theoretically possible that both would fallback for some reason, but it seems unlikely. I was recently working with a client that was using Open/Client 4.2 to speak to a version 11.5 ASE using Powerbuilder 3 and 4! Amazing, it all worked! The main problem that you will encounter is not lack of communication but lack of features. The facility to bcp out of views was added to the 11.1.1 release. You will still be able to connect to servers with old copies of Open/Client, you just won't have all of the features.

There is also another fairly neat feature of the later releases of Open/Client, it has a very good compatibility mode for working with old applications. The client that was running Open/Client 4.2 with Powerbuilder 3 is now connecting to the database using version 11.1.1. Which is not bad when you remember that Powerbuilder 3 only talked 4.2 DBLib!