Conforums closing down

[Mike Lobanovsky]

I see nothing unusual or unexpected about it. IMO that's what's going to happen with every indie developer who dares challenge a commercial product with a free and, ultimately, open-source competing alternative. And if such an alternative appears better (faster and/or more versatile and/or less buggy), so much the worse for that indie developer.

Now I'm starting to stock up popcorn for a similar show when a line of alternative 32- and 64-bit compilers and/or translators are going to emerge by the end of this year as it becomes apparent that Drake Software's acquisition of defunct PowerBASIC has been made with nothing more in mind than just withdraw that instrument from the reach of the company's potential or existing competitors.

[ScriptBasic]

I think it's much simpler than that.

Drake picked up PowerBASIC in a fire sale. All Bob left Vivian was debt. Like Sage who thought they could make money selling ProvideX to non-associated customers and in the end it would pay for the purchase and they get ProvideX free with no royalty or by the seat fees. Unfortunately it didn't work out that way as the liability was far more than the revenue it produced.

It looks like Drake is stuck with a compiler only a dead man can compile. You can't fill a sink hole with a pale and a shovel.