Hello List,

seeing that everyone is very busy coding and exploring FB^3 I almost dont
dare to ask: is there anyone out there - with some spare time left and
interested to participate in a project-idea I have? Ideally someone with
experience in porting FutureBASIC programs to other plattforms...

Project: Professional Flightlog Program for the MacOS - with some special
add ons for a particular airline.

Problem 1 - 'Target Audience':
this airline will give a Sony Vaio 'WorkPad' to every pilot during the
next couple of months; on its HD there is 6 GBs reserved for company files
and applications under Windows 2000. There is a second partition of 2 GB,
running under Windows '98, which is available to the user for own purposes.

That means, that every pilot, even those with a Mac at home, will be
forced to use a Win-Machine for their job-duties. So, to be at lease
'used', the program should be available x-plattform?

Problem 2 - 'Mac/Win-ratio':
I already wrote three programs with FutureBASIC for some special purpose
to be used by the above audience; the programs were quite well received,
but not _that_ successful. And last september I published another program,
made x-plattform with 'that other basic'. The download ratio of the latter
is 1 Mac-download to 20 Windows-downloads until today. (Quite surprising
to me: the same number of Mac and Win users actually registered the
program.)

Problem 3 - 'Preference':
I like FutureBASIC very much and I prefer to use it for this project. But
I am not sure that I can afford to develop this program, only to realise,
that it will never be used by one of the 3500+ people it was written for
(other airlines-pilots and freelancers might also be interested, so there
is a quite large possible userbase out there - minus not Mac-users).

Problem 4 - 'Pressure':
Adding to the above, I am really busy translating the FB-manuals to german
- so I really dont have much time to actually do the coding. And there is
the timing problem: when the Vaios are distributed this year, the program
should be available, because it is very unlikely for these people to
switch after having made a decision for another program.

Questions:

Am I thinking in a wrong direction? Should I just calm down and say:
"...look, you want to use the Mac because it fits your needs: then promote
it by writing a MacOS-only solution. On top: you know something about
programming the MacOS, but almost nothing about Windows development."

Or should I accept 'another reality': "...if you target this audience, you
have to use another environment. Go ahead and use XX {XX|C, FileMaker,
Omnis, RB, etc.}."

And most important: Would someone be interested in participating?

I know that there a some people on this list, who have very distinct
opinions regarding the content of this message. Would you please
contribute one sentence or another to help me out?

TIA!

chris henkel