Let me set a couple of things straight first.

  1. Many Delphi programmers love the tools the use and really want it better. With few exceptions they want DevCo to succeeed. That's why the debate is hot. You hardly see the same in other communities.
  2. DevCo is not shy of asking as Borland used to be. This entire debate was spurred by Delphi product manager. I keep seeing messages of appreciations to all the various alternative roadmaps. Nick and John and others are doing a great job, despite some out-of-tone messages. People are really trying to help, as as I said above, with rare exceptions.

Now, let's look at the debate. The non-tech thread that started all this in this very moment has 1,147 messages, and is still growing. The original blog post by Nick, with a huge number of comments, has been removed, but the replacement post has a good feedback as well. My own post ont he subject has 23 comments. Other related threads in non-tech include 121 posts in There is no market for a Delphi for .NET compiler, 217 in The alternative Delphi roadmap to success, 67 in Tech directions for Delphi?, 720 in I really hate .NET especially inside Delphi... and many other shorter threads.

I really think this is impressive. I don't agree with any alternative proposals (I have my reservations also on the Kissel plan), but I think it is important to that DevCo for encouraing the debate (yes, it might have gone a little out of control...) and the community for the (mostly) positive mood. I don't think this will harm Delphi anyway. I don't think Nick is in a nice position... but if the DevCo deal is closed off soon enough and the company can invest enough money in the product to work on multiple lines (Win32, .Net, Kylix) while keeping the product unique and open... Delphi will keep having a relevant role for quite some time in the future. OK, I'm dreaming, again.