you wrote

dismay in the wording of your press release. Their problem is the "intimation" that Borland and specifically Kylix is not open source when in fact it is.

Afaik (and other people said this too) the Kylix IDE isn't open source. Of course,
the CLX is some kind of open source.

The consequence of this is: if Borland gave up Kylix, you wouldn't have a compiler/IDE
which can be developed further by other people. Just remember TP ...

But of course I won't a confrontation with Borland either, they are the only big company which sells a popular pascal compiler :).

Nope we are fully aware of this. This is because the ide relied heavily on win32 api calls. To speed the port they just linked in wine to satisfy those calls. The CLX library of course is probably only really dependant on clib and a few small others.

Cliff

Me too, but that happens every day. People are really weird on this planet; Where I come from (Betelgeuze 3) people are much more easy going and cooperative.

That said, I think you should allow them to call. Just make a point that Lazarus was started before Kylix was (FPC even earlier), with the same goal: Create Delphi for Linux. Also say that the Compiler, IDE and some of Borland's technology (Midas, DBExpress) are NOT open source, and that this is the gap you're trying to fill.

You know, the kind of 'Pascal guys should stick together in the cruel C world' talk.

Michael.

Possible misconception there. The kylix ide uses winlib, but it is built in. You don't need it in your compiled progams.

Codepunk wrote

First of all Michael, the only important fact in this whole deal is that you, shane and myself started lazarus way before they even thought about porting delphi to linux.

Yes this has been mentioned and I plan on making that fact VERY clear.

This is also even before they started in with their customer surveys.

Then if you recall the surveys results they really aren't providing what the surveys indicated.

Why do these kylix fanatics think Borland even considered the idea of porting? As far as I see it kylix may have never even happened if it was not for community outcry and pressure by us.

I often wondered if we were of any influence.

Of course they are ahead of us in the port, they have the code.

To certain degree they are ahead. There are still many things to add to and debug with the LCL but as a whole it is very complete. Unlike Kylix it has been written to allow the easy use of other Widget sets. What Kylix does have on us is the more complete IDE. But from what I understand it requires Winlib (Wine) to work. So in short they have just tweaked the Windows version to be able to work with Wine. If we had decided to do that we could have been out the door long ago as well. We could have taken Handel and made it work with Wine and compile with Free Pascal and be at about the same stage. But then it would only work with Wine in Linux. As it stands now it is possible to build it in FreeBSD which Marco has proved. I think by going the way of a native application as we have we are more grounded with our product the Borland is.

Also everyone is bitching about the price of kylix, just one more reason for lazarus to succeed. If a high enough quality of tool is generated by the team it will force the inflated value of kylix down making it affordable.

That assumes that a lot of people buy it in the first place. We all know the financial situation that Borland has been in over the last several years. Hopefully they aren't assuming large sales to keep the company going. Don't get me wrong I hope they get them but I personally have my doubts.

Mike how long has borland been hitting the web server? If I remember correctly it was way before the customer survey as well as the kylix announcement.

They started hitting the site way before they sent out any surveys. I have not bothered to check for that in a very long time.

First of all Michael, the only important fact in this whole deal is that you, shane and myself started lazarus way before they even thought about porting delphi to linux. This is also even before they started in with their customer surveys. Why do these kylix fanatics think Borland even considered the idea of porting? As far as I see it kylix may have never even happened if it was not for community outcry and pressure by us. Of course they are ahead of us in the port, they have the code. Borland new very well that it was going to happen if they wanted it to or not. So they did the only thing they could do and start the port.

Also everyone is bitching about the price of kylix, just one more reason for lazarus to succeed. If a high enough quality of tool is generated by the team it will force the inflated value of kylix down making it affordable.

Mike how long has borland been hitting the web server? If I remember correctly it was way before the customer survey as well as the kylix announcement.

I have not contributed in so long my two cents is about worth one but I am throwing it out anyhow.

BTW lazarus will be two years old in a week.

Cliff

Correct. I don't want to start another fire storm. I was refering to just the Kylix IDE. It uses Wine which as you indicate is statically linked in. The point I was making was that because of that it can't be used for FreeBSD, OS/2 or other platforms. Lazarus can go where Free Pascal goes which is getting further and further every day. So Kylix will be great until a client asks for something like a Solaris version of an application.

Man oh man is this show going to be interesting. Can you actually believe that some of the developer community is actually upset and called Borland. :-\

Befuddles me.

That said, I think you should allow them to call.

Oh I aggreed to that right away. In fact I believe it will make the segment more interesting.

Just make a point that Lazarus was started before Kylix was (FPC even earlier), with the same goal: Create Delphi for Linux. Also say that the Compiler, IDE and some of Borland's technology (Midas, DBExpress) are NOT open source, and that this is the gap you're trying to fill.

That is some of the confirmation that I was asking for in my other email.

So what exactly is Kylix? Is it an IDE? Is it a set of class libraries? What is the package that they are calling Kylix? What exactly is the portion that they claim will be open source that has seemed to inrage the community about my press release?

You are right on , but of course. And of course we did consider wine but we wanted nothing to do with it. It may also be interesting to note the stake that MS has in borland also. Next time they need to be bailed out is MS going to help them out and kill Kylix just as they killed the Corel distro? Some interesting things to consider. BTW is still have not even seen Kylix but I sure have a copy of the LCL.

Cliff

And don't forget the free-for-commercial use issue, with Kylix libs being GPL at best, and FPC LGPL