except that it's not free as in beer, as much as it's free as in basing

it's not easy to do much of anything in freebasic, unless you want to add to it. that's the thing, they don't have any priorities, they don't have any plan, they just go off on tangents that break the previous version over and over, and expect users. and don't get me started on free as in speech. did i not already mention the cult thing? there's free as in speech for a few people... anyone that has a suggestion is a critic, all critics are trolls, all trolls are "scum-" even v1c all but gave up on freebasic, didn't he?** i stand by what said, and i think the reality of freebasic and its "community" are closer to my description than your wistfully optimistic one... but you knew that already.

you can paint a happy picture about freebasic from here on, but not without throwing out MOST of what i've already said. it's going to take more than: "yeah but you can add c and basic compatibility" etc. etc. because that's just a loop back to "it's not a good thing or a bad thing" in theory, not necessarily. but we're past theory, looking at a glimpse of the final product (or lack of one.) i could be wrong, i'm probably not. freebasic keeps abandoning itself, it's only a matter of time before everyone else does what the language does. **yeah, not entirely...