You seem to have concluded that VFP MVPs are the only ones who can provide leadership and that I must be making demands, but that's not the case.

People like Ed Leafe may have sought greener pastures, but he is eminently qualified to participate in discussion of topics like Dabo, Python and probably PHP from a VFP perspective. He seems to enjoy it. Why don't we invite him to participate in a thread or online discussion? I see he's giving a presentation on Dabo at one of this year's VFP conferences, so he must be reasonably favorably disposed towards us.

We've already had some fairly interesting discussions on UT about NET, dLinq, Stored Procedures and RVs involving NET MVPs including at least two who used to use VFP, so maybe we need to invite them as well. At least one of them has taken a particular interest in VFP-style issues and has blogged about it. Also I see that Martin Salias has written a highly relevant article in the latest Level Extreme Journal. Maybe we should all read that article, then invite him to a comparison thread to ask questions? Again, he seems to enjoy passing on information and seems well disposed towards the community.

I don't know about dBase. However, I feel sure that nobody is demanding that you have to learn up all about it and dish it up to an entitled critical audience. ;-) Maybe we should be cheeky and send Katz an e-mail. They're advertising their "dBase competitive upgrade for VFP users!" on UT now, so they already know about us.

You mentioned RealBasic: if you've already told him the community would appreciate assistance, maybe he'd be willing to get involved too?

Which brings us to VFP. IMHO it *would* be insulting to ask VFP MVPs to provide leadership in VFP because that would imply that you've stopped, which isn't the case... is it?

As I said in my post, IMHO this sort of stuff is far more constructive for empowering people and "accentuating the positive/eliminating the negative" which has to be the best sort of leadership in the current scenario. I guess I'm saying we need to fix the problem, not the blame. The problem is "Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt" and as far as I can tell it's making people as edgy as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, so lets get it sorted quick.