Well I just started to try to compile The portable Apps Menu source codes, and realized that the Main Suite (Menu & Backup) is programmed in Borland Delphi, and even that we can find a "lite delphi flavor" for free use (like Turbo Delphi).
It is not OPEN SOURCE. And that focus the app to just windows too.
My opinion is: to develop the PortableApps Menu program in an OS (Open Source) Languaje to "make it a TRULY OS sofware".
The 99.99% of the Portable Apps you can OFICIALLY download from the site, are OPEN SOURCE PROYECTS programmed in C++, Java or GKT+. (I think the only one is not is the Portable apps menu & Portable Apps Backup 
LOL )
Migrating the source to a OS languaje like GKT+, will grant an other advantage, PORTABILITY, GKT+ proyects like GIMP, can be compiled nearly with no changes in Windows, Linux and Mac(osx). And with the fact that all the Portable Apps are OS proyects, they also had their own versions in Linux, Mac & windows.
What do you think??
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We'll eventually move to an open source development environment. But we wanted something that would support rapid application development in an easy to use language (Pascal in this case) that worked on Windows 95 through XP (and now Vista) as well as Wine on Linux/Unix/Mac OS and there simply wasn't a comparable tool in the open source world. We'd love to use Lazarus, for instance, but it's not there, yet. We're going to explore other options in more details soon (including C++, wxPython, etc) but getting solid working bits in user's hands was the priority.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
My point was that as far the proyect is now the First phase is overseed and passed with honors. But thinking in a future development. I think is time to think in the posibility of portability.
And the first step sould be the choice of the languaje, for me PASCAL is not a well known langueje (I had like a 50hours course at the university, some years ago, so im rusty in Pascal), I think to get a better help from developers that want to contribute with the proyect, it solud be programmed in a more wide and extended known languaje, that has the ability to migrate his apps in as many Operating systems as he can.
I suggest GKT+ because is a languaje that I think has a very low learn curve, but is not the only option, there are TONS of languajes and flavors and all are OpenSource. (java, GCC, GKT, Pure C++, etc...).
Continuing developing in Pascal with the idea of "in the future we will change to an other languaje", for me is a little silly and a whaste of time, because if you grant 100 hours to the proyect in pascal from now... that 100 could be used to create the base of the Program in the oficial new langueje.
With all due respect, a little PASCAL history is in order:
Pascal (programming language)
Delphi History from Pascal to Borland Developer Studio 2006
what about Ada, the government language? It's yet another Pascal derivative...
Say, I just read in the library programming book that Basic and C++ are now equal to and/or better than Pascal now. Technically, pascal isn't really easy to use, it's just really well structured.
Insert original signature here with Greasemonkey Script.
Nonsense. Isn't Miranda Open Source? So try to compile it with something else than Visual Studio. IIRC there's the same thing with Mozilla apps. You're the first I've heard to call them FALSELY OS software...
"Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do." Asimov
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IceApe
I to have a serious issue with the messy Mozilla-license, to me
it seems like they want to eat the cake and still have it .
One of the main-points of real FOSS is that you can freely change it
and distribute your changed version .
Mozilla is using trademarking to restrict what people do with Mozilla-apps and
while it may be legal and all that mumbo-jumbo it is clearly not in the
spirit of true FOSS.
Yeah, right, sb. will screw something in the code, distribute it as FireFox and users will cry over the net that FF sucks. No wonder that they want to avoid it.
"Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do." Asimov
If you have a problem with Mozilla's use of trademarks, you are free to change them and re-release the product under another name, like IceWeasel - oh - someone has already done that! And look at Red Hat; change the trademarks and re-release as Fedora or CentOS.
Since these are also 'real world' examples of true FOSS, and Mozilla seems to work within its bounds, I would think Mozilla et al are valid 'real' FOSS.
Is that it's open. You don't like Delphi? Re-Write the menu. There are currently at least 3 mods/clones of the menu out there now, there's plenty of room for more. Make it good enough and the platform will move in that direction.
That being said, it's important to note that the openness of the platform has nothing to do with the language or platform it is written in. Can you download the source? Yes. Can you modify it? Yes. Is there an OSI license attached? Yes.
I agree that a portable language would be desirable, but that still doesn't make it any less open-source. I would definitely facilitate ports to other operating systems... you'd be able to have launchers for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux that all read the same data, so you can even use individual programs cross-platform without losing settings.
Before you discuss programming lanuages, learn to program
GTK (is isn't GKT... even if you type GKT one thousand times, that won't change the fact that is it GTK) is like Qt. It is, by itself, not a programming language. It is a library providing many functions to programs written in various lanuages (Python, C++, C, Java, etc.)
It is available on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux, so it would be a good way to make things portable (as in able to be ported). Not that I know how GTK is integrated into a portable app, but since Pidgin (and others) use it and are portable, I guess it can be done. Unless they are modified not to use GTK?
GTK has nothing to portability. You could just as well say "they are implemented in C++, so they are portable"(I guess they are implemented in C++ using GTK).
You can write portable program without GTK. You can create not portable with it. When we talk only about portability, not actual functions, both things are very easy.
"Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do." Asimov