>>>>If you look at who is on the committee, anyone from here selected for the new spot is probably going to be one dissenting vote. It's going to be an old timer who has been active on the speaking / book writing circuit. In fact I have a pretty strong suspicion who it is going to be. (No, I am not going to speculate publicly, so please don't ask).
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>>>There's no point in speculating since the process has just started: first we finalize the committee, then we ask for nominations from the community, then the committee selects from those nominations.
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>>Doug, you are one of my favorite people in the FoxPro community. But I stand by what I said. I was not making any specific predictions other than saying I think it will be someone from the relatively small "old boys club." You notice I did not reply to Naomi when she asked something much more specific. (This is as close as I will come to specifics -- no, Naomi, I did not mean Craig). The whole thing strikes me as a necessary pageant before announcing the agreed-on recipient.
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>>If the new committee member is truly sought to bring a new perspective, as opposed to PR re "openness," then I am wrong. And I will have no problem admitting that when the winner is announced.
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>>UPDATE: Okay, maybe I was being too cynical. Maybe it really will be a democratic vote. I respect every one of you on the existing committee.
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>Another example. Have you ever noticed that you have a habit of prefacing an insult with: "You are one of my favorites......but"
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>??
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>The insult: The whole thing strikes me as a necessary pageant before announcing the agreed-on recipient.
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>However, given past pageants (*G*), I do not think you are being too cynical. Having written that, I truly believe that everyone mentioned so far (other than the youtube ones) are deserving so it doesn't really matter one way or the other. :o)
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>My vote would go to Les Pinter, Rick Strahl, or Sergey (in that order) for this year. George Goley would be deserving is not for that fact that he abandoned VFP too early in the game (didn't he leave VFP entirely when he went to work for MSFT?) He was definitely energetic and brought a lot of excitement to the field. However, while everyone else is deserving, only one can win each year.

Doug is one of my favorite people. That doesn't mean I have to like the selection process. Adding a new voter to the committee strikes me as a cynical ploy to give the appearance of democracy.

Rick is a previous recipient.

I did not even know George went to Microsoft. They hired his wife, Melissa Dunn, around the time VFP 3 came out, so I guess it's not surprising.