Yes, Colin!  You are correct and we are very excited to announce PUL 9!  In case any of you aren't on the Cincom Smalltalk Digest newsletter subscription, here's the announcement we put out on Tuesday of last week:

PUL 9: A Giant Leap Forward: Now Compatible with macOS!

Cincom is excited to announce PUL 9, a groundbreaking upgrade that brings full macOS compatibility to our personal use non-commercial license version that empowers developers to build and maintain applications seamlessly across platforms.

Beyond this game-changing Mac support, PUL 9 delivers powerful enhancements designed to boost efficiency, scalability, and performance: 
PUL 9 delivers a modern Smalltalk environment with all the latest and greatest features of Cincom Smalltalk.

Ready to Try Cincom Smalltalk? Start Here.

The best way to begin your journey with Cincom Smalltalk is with our Personal Use Non-Commercial License. The PUL 9 is designed specifically for individuals new to our platform. It provides a development environment for you to enjoy Cincom's latest technology.

Please note that our latest commercial version, Cincom Smalltalk 9.5, is currently available to existing customers and partners. If you or your company would like access to this new release, we would love to hear from you. Simply reach out to the Cincom Smalltalk Team, and we’ll connect you with the right person to guide you through your options.

👉 Download our personal use non-commercial version today and start building with confidence.

Also, in the very near future, we will be moving conversations like this one in the VWNC mailing list to cincomsmalltalk.com.  There, we will have a forum where these, and other discussions, can be made in a community setting.  

Jeremy Jordan

Senior Marketing Manager

Office: +1 513-612-2147

Mobile: +1 513-519-6711

cincom.com

cincomsmalltalk.com

From: vwnc-request@lists.siebelschool.illinois.edu <vwnc-request@lists.siebelschool.illinois.edu> on behalf of Colin Sare-Soar <colin.saresoar@terrashape.co.uk>
Sent: Friday, October 3, 2025 9:10 AM
To: Thomas Sattler <tomsattler@gmail.com>; Joachim Geidel <joachim.geidel@posteo.de>
Cc: vwnc@lists.siebelschool.illinois.edu <vwnc@lists.siebelschool.illinois.edu>; pharo-users@lists.pharo.org <pharo-users@lists.pharo.org>; esug-list@lists.esug.org <esug-list@lists.esug.org>
Subject: Re: [vwnc] JNIPort - is there anyone willing to maintain it?
 

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That's all changed today! Cincom have released PUL v9
I've applied for a copy, just waiting for the email now :-)
 
Colin
On 25/09/2025 00:31 +07 Thomas Sattler <tomsattler@gmail.com> wrote:
 
 
Joachim,
 
Cincom has basically abandoned the VWNC distribution.  The "latest" version one can obtain without paying for a license is VW 8.3, which was released in 2017.
 
it's hard to imagine people spending a lot of time and effort enhancing a system that old, when the vendor isn't committed to it.  I'm sure Cincom is committed to the paying customers, but why should we help with that?
 
--Tom
 
 

On Wed, Sep 24, 2025 at 4:36 AM Joachim Geidel <joachim.geidel@posteo.de> wrote:
Dear fellow Smalltalkers,

JNIPort is an interface from Smalltalk to the Java VM which was originally developed by Chris Uppal for Dolphin Smalltalk. It enables Smalltalk applications to use software written in Java seamlessly, locally and with low overhead, without resorting to network based interfaces like e.g. using microservices. Documentation is at https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://sites.google.com/site/jniport/__;!!DZ3fjg!9JVpDqpxcqz6oMahTzP21-BTpfMxRHsi1HUS30Yd6Gm-8j4kRcgBOLmg6z342WonIj_duRg_d-WBWHHLFGX2ohB5doAnD8eNKbqwGQFahg$ .

I have ported JNIPort to VisualWorks and Pharo, and Ben van Dijk, Adriaan van Os and Rolf van der Vleuten have ported it to VASt (https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://vastgoodies.com/projects/JNIPort__;!!DZ3fjg!9JVpDqpxcqz6oMahTzP21-BTpfMxRHsi1HUS30Yd6Gm-8j4kRcgBOLmg6z342WonIj_duRg_d-WBWHHLFGX2ohB5doAnD8eNKbql_CqFlw$ ).

The last time I really worked on JNIPort was in 2014, if I remember correctly. Now that I am retired and haven’t written a single line of Smalltalk code in five years, I am wondering if there is anybody willing to take over.

I haven’t had any enquiries about JNIPort since 2020, so the task would be easy:
- Take over ownership of the documentation site.
- Possibly move the source code for the Pharo version to Gitlab (it is still in the ancient SmalltalkHub repository).
- Optionally integrate any changes from JNIPort users, e.g. when they adapt it to more recent versions of VisualWorks or Pharo. There hasn't been any community input since 2017 (or was it 2019?).

If nobody takes over, then JNIPort will be one of the many abandoned open source projects and disappear sooner or later when SmalltalkHub, the Cincom Public Repository and the documentation site are switched off.

On the other hand, I do not know if there is actually anybody using JNIPort. If it has no users, there is no harm in its disappearance, and maintaining it would be a waste of time.

Cheers
Joachim Geidel