RE: open source rpg compiler

Rob,
<Snip>
IBM has that partly right.  You can target any of their current OS 
releases also.  They just keep the definition of current pretty tight.
</snip>

No they do not. You CAN NOT compile back to a previous release with any of
the new compilers, never could. IBM simply ships the OLD compilers with the
new ones. You therefore CAN NOT use any of the NEW stuff on a previous
release. And that's what the problem is. Why should I need to go to VxRy
just to use the LIKEDS keyword? Why does that require upgrading my OS to the
next release? 

<SNIP2>
So, can you develop the latest Visual Basic on Dos 4.0?  Windows 2.0? 
That's pretty cool!
</SNIP2>
Rob, I suppose this was a tongue-in-cheek remark. :)
I can install and run their stuff on back releases. I can install, for
example the latest Visual Studio .Net on Windows 98 and later. Since I use
Windows 2000, I can also install it there. My point was/is that I do NOT
have to upgrade to Windows XP just to use the new compilers. I do not have
to target Windows XP to use the new functions--the ship new runtimes for the
older OS's such as Windows 2000 and even Windows 98 occassionally.  About
the only thing IBM's done in this area is allow OPTIONS(*NODEBUGIO) to be
PTF'd back to V4R1 or something like that.

-Bob