Thanks for that, Randy.

I stand by my own conviction that no amount of money can make any kind of "community" as evolved with FoxPro.

To me, the fact that Microsoft recognized its effect was smart, but to set out to duplicate it was just plain silly. No one was "bought" to make the VFP community what it became. Money can do many things, but I hope it never reaches the point that one can buy community spirit.

cheers, and good luck in your next endeavour.


>> I'm tired of the VFP is a special community unlike any other mentality. Get real,VFP is good, there are many friendships made here, but IT IS NOT UNIQUE. Had Bob simply said, "it was a great success, etc... " you would never have heard a peep from me. But there are other communities with just as much to give as the fox community.
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>I’d like to shed some light on this community discussion since it appears that you may not have a very good understanding of the Fox community…
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>The Fox community began many years ago during the days of Fox Software. It was a total grass-roots effort orchestrated by members of the community who chose to volunteer their free time in evangelizing a great product (FoxPro). And I think it was something that even shocked Dave Fulton.
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>What does this mean? Well, the free online community-based support you see on the UT today evolved from the efforts many of us helped create during the early years of online forums. The Fox CompuServe forum was one of the most successful of any of the early computing forums (Apple ones were successful too). Like today, folks gave their free time to help others, offer tips, share code and just chat about whatever was on their minds. And like today, we had our share of wise-asses to deal with too <g>.
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>The annual Devcons became more than just a conference where one went to learn about a product. It was (and still is to some degree) actually the annual gathering event for friends in the community. Hanging out with old friends until the wee hours of the morning was the thing to do -- the sessions were secondary!
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>One of the other unique aspects about the Fox Community is that the Fox Team has always been highly involved with the community. And I should note that this is something that the Team chose to do voluntarily. Fox Software and Microsoft have invested very little in terms of helping to create and maintain the community – which in hindsight was good because it allowed for the community to have its own abstract independence. Fortunately for Fox, much of the longevity of the product is due to its loyal community. In fact, many of the features in the past 3 versions of VFP were those suggested by members of the Fox Community (a great number were those via the UT’s VFP Wish List).
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>While some of you may have had the privilege to be part of VFP Beta, you will certainly know that this is just an extension of the community where the team has an opportunity to interact highly with the community. I can’t recall when a VFP Beta did not have a Chatter section <g>.
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>Let’s talk a little about the .NET community. Unlike the Fox one, it was not a grass-roots effort. Microsoft has invested millions in trying to create a community similar to Fox. Yes, I said similar because much time and effort was made to study the success of the Fox one. The weekend CodeCamp is just one example of Microsoft investing Marketing budget in evangelizing .NET and along the way helping to promote the community. Microsoft is also highly involved with many of the .NET user groups. While I applaud the effort, I know there are also concerns as to who is really controlling the community and what directions to take it.
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>Another major factor is how involved the folks on .NET teams are involved with the community. Until recently, it was like pulling teeth to get folks involved with community efforts and when it finally started to happen, it certainly was not voluntary. Again, I applaud Microsoft for making great improvements in community interaction over the past year or two, and hope that they continue these efforts, but I think it is important that folks at Microsoft who choose to interact with the community that they do it out of passion for their product and not because it is part of their job description. Do you really think that Calvin Hsia posts most of his blog entries during work hours or even on material he is working on at work? On a positive side, Microsoft has invested significantly into cool tools integrated into the product that allow for better interaction between community members and folks on the product team. With a huge budget and small army of developers you can do things like this
><g>.
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>One last thing you might consider: Would you still stick by your product even when it appears that Microsoft no longer considers it a favored developer product and only gives it minimal marketing efforts?
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>So I hope you can see that a community is a little more than just friendships and there are significant differences between Fox and any other one (pros and cons to each).
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>RB