The latest Delphi I have seen s Delphi 6 so some of what I say may not be valid anymore. But in my opinion, Lazarus can not afford to be strictly Delphi compatible if it wants to be a modern development tool. Delphi isn't even Windows compliant. Particularly when it comes to RightToLeft development. BiDiMode has been obsolete since Windows XP. Delphi's lack of support for RightToLeftLayout (introduced in Windows XP) is unacceptable for a modern tool.

I have made modifications to Lazarus units to allow me to write RightToLeft applications, but the modifications I have made are not suitable for the average Lazarus user. For one thing, I had to disable Themes, and I doubt many would be willing to do that. I have also had to modify TApplication and TForm to name a few.

Delphi is a LeftToRight development tool only. I hope Lazarus will choose to be an international development tool.