>> I agree with most of your conditions, however there are instances I think when just because the improvement is available with a 3rd party tool does not mean that it should be rejected.
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>I would agree with you if Sedna was a traditional product release. But given the reality of a tiny, tiny, tiny team that will have lots of .NET future distractions, I think we need to be very, very focused on what we ask for.
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>There's no benefit to asking for 10 improvements, none of which get implemented, vs. asking for 3 improvements that the team can actually manage.
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>> Of course, perhaps MSFT could purchase the 3rd party tool and incorporate the features to the base product (that has been done in the past as well).
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>That's a WONDERFUL IDEA !!!!!
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>... and there's good precedence for it, ala the stripped down versions of Installsheild, Crystal Reports, and 3rd party ActiveX products that ship with many Microsoft developer tools.
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>Advantages to Microsoft:
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>1. Bundling one or two 3rd party tools into Sedna would be a wonderful gift to the VFP community and a great way for MS to say thank you for the community's 12+ years of loyalty. Much more effective than spending a ton of money on marketing .NET to this community which should wait until VFP features begin to show up in .NET.
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>2. Bundling 3rd party tools into Sedna would not take any resources away from the Sedna development team. More features for Sedna. No impact on development schedule. Sounds good to me!
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>3. Microsoft could re-coup some/all of the costs of its bundling efforts by charging (or charging more) for Sedna. Microsoft also gains revenue by having more of the community upgrade to VFP 9 in order to enjoy the benefits of the Sedna bundles. Spreading the cost of high quality product bundles across the entire Senda purchase group sounds like a great strategy. How much extra could be included in Sedna if it was priced $50, $100, or even $150 more???
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>Your idea sounds like a WIN - WIN - WIN scenario for Microsoft, the VFP community, and the VFP vendors selected to participate in this promotion.
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>BTW: My vote for a 3rd party product bundle would be Xitech Cryptor.
>
>I wonder if this discussion should move to a re-captioned thread?

I see many cool suggestions spreaded in many threads. How about getting a new section on SEDNA in the VFP forum. That way we'd know where to post new threads. And also there could be a place on the UT where every suggestions could be gathered.

By the way regarding third party tools. I vote for InnoSetup. A very nice (free) installation tool.