>>I think MS's practice of frequently changing course on their technology focus and related best practices is very hard on small/independent developers. With VFP we've enjoyed general compatibility across all versions for something like 15+ years. Now many of us need to learn new stuff, and eat the loss of productivity while we do so. This isn't news to most non-VFP MS developers, I can almost hear them muttering "grow up" :-/
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>Now suffering the powerlessness and bending over is somehow a grownup feature, whereas standing one's ground is childish?
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>That doesn't even count as brainwash. Unless hyperspeed tumble drying is included.
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>Every time I hear something like that (no matter whether it's OS politics, tools politics, politics politics - whichever), I wonder whatever happened with the libertine traditions of the West. Everyone's supposed to acknowledge M$ as The Boss Of What We Do.
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>After that, Feingold's bill (Federal gov't owns all the water in the country) comes naturally.

I'm not lauding MS, I'm merely pointing out reality for those who've drunk the MS Kool-Aid. That includes VFP developers, much as we'd like to think we're not beholden, or that we're somehow special, or exempt.

As for powerlessness and bending over, no-one's stopping you from "standing your ground", whatever that means in practice. If it just means whining and not doing anything else, well, that's easy to do, children are good at it, it is childish. There's been tons of that already, over many years, and poppa MS has stopped listening.

Adults take concrete action. For developers, an obvious first step is to evaluate alternative platforms. If you have courage and vision you may start a project like eTec or Guineu. That's how adults shape the debate.

In the IT world, the libertine tradition passed to FOSS long ago - unless you're SO libertine that you reject FOSS as too mainstream.