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>>>A heathen and a commie, don't forget ;-) (If anyone doesn't know I'm joking, I am).
>>>
>>>To me the decision was always just business. They didn't hate FoxPro and in fact kept it alive for about 15 years. I doubt Fox Software could have managed a Windows version that looked just as polished as any other Windows development tool. As another luminary, Ken Levy, said, the sales and the revenue just weren't there. If anything they kept it going longer than they should have. I have absolutely no quarrel with MS's stewardship of FoxPro.
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>>What I was told was a major reason that microsoft purchased fox, was for Rushmore technology. The Ashton Tate lawsuit against Fox had such a great outcome for the Fox development community. What do you mean that dBase was in the public domain?
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>>Ashton Tate was such a pain! When microsoft took over the fox, they did put effort into improving it. They had some outstanding help too. However, when microsoft introduced the term “evangelist” into their vocabulary, things changed.
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>>The microsoft sales staff in the San Francisco Bay Area told every customer not to use any version of FoxPro. You were instructed to use Basic and later Visual Basic, with SQL Server. I am talking about major companies who had in house programming staffs. These were and are big customers of microsoft. There will always be a product called Basic available from microsoft, as long as Bill Gates is connected to that company. That goes back to the S-100 bus days. SQL Server costs money and brings in revenue. Not every application requires SQL Server or its equivalent.
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>>Business is about money. The fox did not generate enough nor have the blessing of Mr. Gates. But it sure is fun to use! :)
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>
>I completely agree with your conclusion. Well, not sure about Bill Gates having a personal animus. I have never met him and he has not written a memoir. Too busy fighting world hunger, I guess. (Applause).
>
>Whoever said dBase was in the public domain, it wasn't me.

dBase was not in the public domain, but portions were and that was apparently enough to allow others to build a product that uses the same syntax for the same functionality. Ashton was simply not able to stop others, with the help of the law, from doing that.