I think it is simply misunderstood.

What is wrong with a language that is easy to use, free as in speech and as in beer, and able to interface with a few different languages nearly flawlessly (yes, I said "nearly")?
In my opinion, it is like the Sega Dreamcast, a creation thought to be a complete failure at the time, which is now highly regarded among Sega fans.

I think the objective of FreeBASIC is to create a feature-rich combination of BASIC with C, but without overly complicating it. In other words, make it a combination of QB and C, but with as little confusion as possible, thus keeping it BASIC (pun intended). While the smaller objectives have varied and changed as the language "evolved", the overall goal has remained the same: give QB programmers the chance to program in the familiar dialect while bringing the language up to date. With the way it can now interface with C and ASM (and maybe even C++) so well, it could become a GCB, a GNU Compiler for BASIC! LOL

Anyway, I hope everything goes well because it takes longer than a couple of years to make a language work. MS couldn't get it right, so they invented their own languages: the .NET family ;-) They continue to work on improving their product. The really nice thing about FB though is the fact that it doesn't cost anything, and it uses a lot of free open-source software to help it out when it can't help itself and you can't help it either, like Allegro, libSDL, OpenGL, OpenAL, wx-c (wxWindows, iirc),... That is just naming a few that I've heard have been used in projects, such as games.

What they need is a version of FB compiled for OS X. If the FB developers could do that, they'd have it made, pretty much...