Rick,

I wanted to reply somewhere in this thread -- especially after the genocide/Hitler business -- but I was afraid I would not be able to find the right content and tone. Glad I waited, your reply was perfect and I thank you.

I also wish to apologize to Doug Henning, who started a thread about saving SW Fox and instead of replies about that was inundated with irrelevant replies. Doug's efforts within the VFP are well documented and need no endorsement from me. I only hope he was not too discouraged.

p.s. Doug, your message was acted upon at least by some. I got 7 registrants to sign up now -- they might have come anyway, but hopefully if others did the same we will once again dance in the halls of the Doubltree in October . . .

>Why don't you just stop talking out of your a.s.s., Rick?
>
>Seriously... you are a newcomer to this community and you don't know crap of what the people who have been involved and promoted and pushed this community beyond any reasonable reason to continue to do so for many, many years. In case you hadn't noticed FoxPro isn't exactly a shining beacon of fresh new progress. This is a dying community. And it's not because conferences are making the promoters of said conferences rich. Quite the opposite in my opinion - Southwest Fox is one of the few things that has held this community together over the last few years.
>
>And what are you doing? You come here and talk trash about the conference promoters, who you don't even know personally, whom you've never met, to talk about things you've never actually experienced (ie. attended one of these events). Instead what you're doing is trying to drive a wedge between an already decimated community with your ignorant religious blather and blind ideology, totally ignorant of or willfully ignoring the negative impact you are having.
>
>In short, you're not helping... all you're doing - as most religious freaks do - is to sow dissent and animosity and distracting with a "I know better" attitude and distract from what this forum is good at.
>
>All of this might be a totally different discussion if FoxPro had a huge vibrant and growing community. But it does not. Suggesting anyhing now that would fracture what little common community there is left into even smaller splinters is not going to leave much of anything worth doing. Putting on a national conference (even a small one) is a totally different story than hosting a local user group meeting or swap meet down the street.
>
>It's one thing to have an opinion - quite another to talk trash and tear down others based on your opinion. Maybe you should review those religious principles you hold so dear and review what it means to have compassion and tolerance.
>
>+++ Rick ---
>
>>>>That conferences also offer a chance to network is indeed useful although I have not attended many
>>>>myself. There are certainly people from this forum that I would enjoy to meet and share time with, share
>>>>a drink and a meal with, and get to know better and perhaps even call "real-life" friends one day but
>>>>time, distance, opportunity ... maybe one day :)
>>>
>>>I would enjoy that as well. I would not enjoy the prohibiting of the free exchange of digital information,
>>>nor of the presenters making a profit above expense.
>>
>>
>>I've been thinking about this. I think that such events should not be organized by a few people who profit from the endeavor, but it should be a community effort where the costs are shared by all, and the people show up to help setup tables do all of the things to make it happen, thereby not only sharing in the cost and labor, but also in the rewards, as a thing that they have contributed to in bringing forth.
>>
>>It's like a community bee. Everybody brings a dish, helps setup, helps tear down, and the enjoyment and fulfillment is thereby increased for all. No one (or a few) individual(s) particularly gain, but rather the gain is more communal.
>>
>>I believe in those sorts of things. I think the Liberty Software Foundation will sponsor Coding Bees or Community Bees which have a theme, where we get together expressly for those purposes, to meet up face-to-face, to have a communal exchange of information, sharing, growing, but that all of it will rest atop the solid foundation of having the entirety of the digital portion conveyed as close to real-time as is possible, free for all to download, copy, distribute, and like everything else LibSF will produce, there will be a donation mechanism for anyone who wishes to give something back beyond labor.
>
>
>>>>That conferences also offer a chance to network is indeed useful although I have not attended many
>>>>myself. There are certainly people from this forum that I would enjoy to meet and share time with, share
>>>>a drink and a meal with, and get to know better and perhaps even call "real-life" friends one day but
>>>>time, distance, opportunity ... maybe one day :)
>>>
>>>I would enjoy that as well. I would not enjoy the prohibiting of the free exchange of digital information,
>>>nor of the presenters making a profit above expense.
>>
>>
>>I've been thinking about this. I think that such events should not be organized by a few people who profit from the endeavor, but it should be a community effort where the costs are shared by all, and the people show up to help setup tables do all of the things to make it happen, thereby not only sharing in the cost and labor, but also in the rewards, as a thing that they have contributed to in bringing forth.
>>
>>It's like a community bee. Everybody brings a dish, helps setup, helps tear down, and the enjoyment and fulfillment is thereby increased for all. No one (or a few) individual(s) particularly gain, but rather the gain is more communal.
>>
>>I believe in those sorts of things. I think the Liberty Software Foundation will sponsor Coding Bees or Community Bees which have a theme, where we get together expressly for those purposes, to meet up face-to-face, to have a communal exchange of information, sharing, growing, but that all of it will rest atop the solid foundation of having the entirety of the digital portion conveyed as close to real-time as is possible, free for all to download, copy, distribute, and like everything else LibSF will produce, there will be a donation mechanism for anyone who wishes to give something back beyond labor.