No - it’s totally database free. At the moment it’s only really supporting a limited number of clusters (mainly associated with lights - dimmers/switches/colour). This can be added to though.
Zigbee is a bit more descriptive than Zwave so it doesn’t need the database. That said, I also plan to remove a large chunk of the dependancy on the database in ZWave as well when I get the chance.
These should work. I did some work with Ubisys a while back so I have a few of their devices and used them for some early testing on the binding. Note that the metering functions aren’t yet supported, but the switches/dimmers work fine (last time I checked anyway).
That would be great - there’s only so many dongles I can run myself 
. Once ConBee is (hopefully) supported, we’ll have 3 different dongles which is quite nice. Thankfully most of the system is common and it’s “just” the low level interfaces that change…