What is xHarbour ?

CCH : So, what is xHarbour ? I first came accross it in 2006 when I was looking to upgrade one of my 16-bit FiveWin processing engines to pure 32-bit Windows. BTW, I succeeded in doing so with the help of Ron Pinkas, Patrick Mast and othere users from the x-Harbour User Groups

From http://xharbour.org/

xHarbour - the Project

xHarbour is an Open Source Project. Developers around the world are working together to achieve a common goal.

xHarbour - the Product

xHarbour is a practically 100% backwards compatible Clipper Language compiler and preprocessor. Find detailed information in the product section.
Visit also the third party product list, the applications section and this list of other xHarbour related useful links.

xHarbour - the History

xHarbour (extended Harbour) was started by Ron Pinkas late 2001 as a fork off of the Harbour Project in which he was one of the leading developers. xHarbour was established to provide a more aggressive alternative to the conservative style of development in the Harbour Project.
The Harbour Project was launched in December 1999 by Antonio Linares. Naturally, the developers of the Harbour Project have contributed large amounts to xHarbour, since xHarbour originated from the Harbour code base. You can find a list of those developers at SourceForge. The Harbour Project is still active, too - and some developers work on both projects.
In its short life, xHarbour already established itself as the favorite tool of the xbased programmer in general, and has attracted many loyal users.

Why two Projects?

Ron started the project with this sentence [source: sourceforge ]:
"As a result of some conflicts regarding current and future development direction, xHarbour will offer an alternative for those interested in a more aggressive & less conservative approach."
One major benefit of Open Source - it encourages the natural evolution process!