[fpc-pascal] FPC and Lazarus as a main RAD tool?

[L505]

> > Disadvantages of Delphi:
> > 2. It's closed source, if it's buggy you're lost.
>
> Main problems comes from RTL and VCL, not a compiler - it is
> stable, at least for D7. As D7 Pro+ comes with RTL and VCL sources, it is
> easy to fix and recompile both. And there is many excelent free and
> OpenSource third-party components available.

I would personally pay $50-$200 for a FPC compiler myself, if it came with
sources to RTL/VCL and didn't even include lazarus.
If it came with compiler sources too, that would be a bonus.
I would also buy FPC t-shirts to support the team.

Problem is then how do you split the money? Which person is pulling more weight
than the other and gets a better salary? This is the problem with business: it's
unfair and requires accountants, lawyers, etc.
Then get all sorts of emails on the mailing list from FPC-DEVEL team telling
about how their shareholders are more important than developers. So it's not
really greener grass on the other side.

>
> D7 IDE however is only problematic for non-English users (regarding saving
> it's own translations codes in .DFM when developing applications and using
> executables on different localized machines).
>
> > 6. Runs on machines with relatively low memory, compared to D7 (e.g.
> > 256MB for development, 64MB on target here)
>
> D7 run IDE under 128MB and work without resource problems with any project
> complexity or number of added components.
>
> > 7. Saves you a huge amount of licence costs.
>
> Buying Delphi Studio 7 Pro was good investion so far. As the future is
> unknown for now, serching alternative in FPC and Lazarus.
>
> > 8. Has a mailing lists with a lot of funny people to talk to.
> (As well taking banal insults...)
>
> Even not directly provided personal support, Borland have excellent suppors
> from newsgroups (Delphi users and TeamB people).

Sometimes - but I find they are also full of loonies who keep talking about
shareholders, and the latest stock price of Borland, and why it is wrong to use
any open source software (even though the VCL itself is open source, after you
pay for a copy of Delphi it is truly an open source variant (not GPL but still
opened up source code).