[fpc-pascal] Alternative for Delphi and FPC's RTL and FCL

[Michael Van Canneyt]

Hi,

There are again some threads concerning the RTL and FCL, and in particular the
adherence to Delphi compatibility.

This mail is intended to rally the 'not satisfied' people.

I will therefor repeat an offer I already made several years ago on these
lists.

The solution to many problems is quite simple, actually:

There are only 2 (3 depending on how you work) units that need to be present
to be able to work with FPC (unless you want to work on the compiler itself):

system
objpas
macpas

These units are required by the language itself.

All the other units are entirely optional.

FPC has TP/Delphi compatibility as one of it's goals. That means - among other
things - that we model the language, RTL and FCL on Delphi. This has advantages, 
and disadvantages. I will not discuss them, we all know them.

Now, it is perfectly possible to 'roll your own' RTL and FCL (or LCL, even).
e.g. Martin Schreiber has started such a thing in large part with msegui.
Graeme has done this for a GUI - with fpGUI, and uses tiOPF for other things.

So, there is nothing to stop the FPC crowd from making an alternative RTL.
The only thing it takes is someone doing the design and coding work. 
The FPC team can and will not do this work, there are only 24 hours in a day.

But we also do not stop you from doing the work.

When it exists, I will be glad to act as liaison, and create a distribution
for it together with FPC for a couple of platforms (notably, Windows and Linux).
You can have some resources on the FPC server (Wiki/Version/Webpage/Bugtracker).

So it is up to YOU to get organized. It will be far more satisfying for you
(and us) than the repeated arguments we get now about Delphi compatibility.
You will have full freedom to design everything from A to Z as you want it.

As a bonus, you can even choose your own sourcecode control system.
When/if I act as liaison, I promise to learn whatever system you use.

Now, please stop the repeated arguments, and finally get organized.

Michael.