>>Hi Russell,
>>
>>> However, they could give themselves rights to use the technology as they see fit, but still make VFP open source. They could . . .
>>
>>They couldn't. VFP contains code that is patented by other companies, as well as code covered by their own patents. They can't give away someone else patents for free, nor could they charge for their own patents if they given them away as open source.
>
>This contradicts information posted on the UT previously that indicated a number of things that you might expect to be patented actually aren't. Such as Rushmore. I'd be curious to know what outside technology they used that is patented. Naturally, anything that Fox Software patented, M$ now owns and so that issue would be moot. But, there is always a way. The question is do they have the will and I doubt that, unfortunately.

IIRC, there was an implementation of CDX for Clipper, as an add-on library. So, it probably wasn't patented.