Well spoken.
-----Original Message----- From: gpc-owner@gnu.de [mailto:gpc-owner@gnu.de] On Behalf Of John L. Ries Sent: Friday, July 30, 2010 11:34 AM To: gpc@gnu.de Subject: Re: Quo vadis, GPC?
On Fri, 30 Jul 2010, Prof. Harley Flanders wrote:
OS PLATFORM STATISTICS
Windows XP is the most popular operating system. The Windows family counts for almost 90%:
You would think from the amount of ink flowing here about Linux that it must be 10 times as popular as it actually is. Note that Windows consistently scores about 88-89%.
That would be the nature of this list. GNU Pascal is part of the GNU project, which has always been UNIX oriented. One would also expect to find in any GNU related project a large number of people who are philosophically committed to free software, which will tend to bias people in favor of Linux, which is the single most important free (FSF definition) operating system. Also, the GNU project has done a very good job, over the years, of writing highly portable software, which is of benefit to all computer users, regardless of the platform (architecture+OS) on which they work (even, IMHO, Windows). GPC has done a very good job of maintaining platform independence, which is a very good thing that I hope will continue. I particularly appreciate this aspect, of GPC, as I routinely develop for multiple platforms and have for nearly all of my professional career.
I should note that while I don't agree with RMS and his followers that free software is a moral imperative, I greatly respect those who believe that strongly enough to act on it by developing high quality software available to anyone who wants to use it, even though they know they'll never get rich doing it. At the very least, they should be thanked for opening up a software market that had become largely noncompetitive.
--------------------------| John L. Ries | Salford Systems | Phone: (619)543-8880 x107 | or (435)867-8885 | --------------------------|