Dude, I feel your pain but having announced this decision Microsoft is not going to change its mind. They have enormous cash reserves and don't need to run a fund drive or bake sale to keep a product going. They decided it's a non-strategic product they don't want to continue updating. End of story.


>Seems to me that Microsoft is more of a "show me the money" company than a "make developers happy and engender loyalty" type company.
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>How about we create a "Retain the team" fund similar to those PBS fund drives. Essentially, MS MUST receive lnX dollars a year to keep the team together and to keep VFP moving forward. I would donate, would you? How much do you think the VFP team really costs Microsoft a year? 1 million US? 2 million US? Throw in a little profit, and voila, MS needs 1.25*lnX per year (substitute your profit margin as you see fit... 25% seems reasonable to me, but we are talking about the 8 billion pound gorila here, it might have to be 2*lnX :).
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>Instead of a barrage of e-mail compaints, let's send a barrage of e-mail monetary pledges.
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>I pledge to donate lnY dollars to the keep VFP alive fund.
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>What would your lnY be? How much is it really worth to you to keep VPF alive?
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>As the saying goes, money talks, bull$#!t walks.