I must say that I actually enjoyed John’s interview although I’ve always had an appreciation for IP law ever since my ex focused on it at law school. I do wish though that Andrew could do something about the recording because John sounds as if he’s coming from a tunnel -- how was it recorded?

John offers good advice for developers in terms of protecting themselves and not making false claims. I guess it would be hard for one to state realistically how many developers would be around in a year or even 5 years to support one’s product since those numbers are not easily available and Microsoft doesn’t publicly release absolute numbers. Nonetheless, I think a major point he makes which most people never bother to do is to seek legal advice when needed (maybe folks don’t realize when they need it or just don’t want to spend the money).

As for the whole VFP/Wine EULA deal, I think his point that a EULA should stand by itself is right on. I don’t think he takes either MSFT/Whil’s side on the issue in the past, but rather how folks should view a EULA. If a EULA can’t stand on its own, then maybe it wasn’t written very well. However, that determination is best done by someone with a real Legal background not "joe" developer. And I would expect that someone requesting from Microsoft further clarification on content within a particular EULA would be responded to with a recommendation to seek outside Legal advice.

I thought John was very fair in his assessment on business matters of VFP and Sedna as well as the community role. I guess some folks around here don’t agree with all that he says <g>. But does that really merit childish insults from folks around here. Hey, John and I have had our spats in the past, but I think good solid debates can be healthy. And he has been around long enough to have a little bit of wisdom, although his new found Legal side might mess that up a bit <g>.

My whole point here is that for Fox to succeed going forward (and more than ever now), the community really needs to wake up and support each other. Certainly there will be naysayers – so what! Certainly the time has come for some to move on to other products – so what! If folks want to move on to .NET – so what! If they want to move on to Java – so what! If they want to move on to Filemaker – cool! If they want to stay with Fox – even cooler! Like Paul says … “Let it be.” Whatever the reason and I’ve heard most of them, folks move on – change is good sometimes. But there is still plenty of interest out there with Fox to keep a healthy community going for a long time. I can say that during the past few years many of us from the Fox team would quietly lurk on the forums often wondering if there was still a community left after reading some of the degenerative crap online. Of course, if it wasn’t for the community, we might not have done the last few versions <g>. But times have changed and as indicated by the Sedna roadmap, there is likely to be less emphasis on features going into the core product (in fact, Sedna really requires VFP9). What will become of VFP is really what the community wants it to become. I think some of the future SednaX work collaborated on by other community folks like Craig Boyd is the real future for Fox (and not Sedna – don’t take that one personally Ken <g>). It is almost as if things have come in a complete circle where years ago in the early dawn of FoxPro many of us contributed freely to community efforts with samples, solutions, tools and other fun code bits that might benefit out fellow developer.