Hi everybody,
since GPC development has mostly stalled, I've thought about if and how its development could be continued. Here are my current thoughts about it. Since the text is quite long, I put it on the web: http://fjf.gnu.de/gpc-future.html
As I write there, I don't see much future in the current way of developing GPC, but also alternative development models will not be a task for a single person. In other words, without some new contributors, there is probably no chance for GPC development to continue.
I don't really know how many of you currently use GPC, and to what extent and in which ways, e.g., do you use it just to maintain some legacy code, or are you actively writing new applications?
So in order to tell whether continuing GPC development is worthwhile, I'd like to know who of you would actually care about major new features in GPC (as opposed to just preserving the status quo), and who would be interested not only in using GPC, but also supporting its continued development, either by actively contributing to it, or -- perhaps in the case of companies that use GPC -- by paying for continued development.
If it turns out there is no sufficient amount of interest, I'm afraid to say it's probably better to put an end to it now rather than further dragging along. (Of course, the existing GPC versions will continue to be available, and anyone who wants to can use and modify them, which the GPL already guarantees, but without prospects for the future, I would then retire from GPC development and start to rewrite my own Pascal programs in other languages.)
Frank