>>>FoxInCloud is a VFP + JS software layer that enables VFP applications to run the same code on a desktop or a web server with a browser-based GUI (using HTML+CSS+JS+AJAX)
>>>
>>>It's up to the software vendor using FoxInCloud to comply with this clause of EULA.
>>True. True. You also have an equal responsibility to honor and comply with the terms of the EULA.
>>For example, your product takes VFP content and puts it on the web, a feature Microsoft purposefully
>>left out of VFP.
>Where is such a purpose (if such a thing existed or "vfp content") stated in the EULA in a legally
>binding way?


It's the design of the product. Microsoft would not allow the runtime distribution version of VFP to be used on Linux or Macs, even though it would run there through WINE.

Microsoft's goals with FoxPro were money:
(1) You buy one copy of Visual FoxPro developer edition per machine to run on Windows (or Linux, or Mac)
(2) Or you run it on Windows, meaning you bought Windows.

With FIC, this is being bypassed.

>>Microsoft had intended VFP to be a desktop app run on Windows only, meaning you have
>>circumvented its technical limitations.
>
>the ability to create activeX components was often cited - also running those activeX middleware
>on web servers - by MS and their publications.


Microsoft provided for those abilities natively in the product, as per features they exposed to all people who bought VFP. That's them making a decision to do something which is well within their right (not a third party trying to do it).

>>Per Microsoft's design and license, the people who use VFP runtimes would have to be running
>>Windows, part of Microsoft's goals for a closed ecosystem, and additional revenue as even today
>>it is illegal to run VFP runtime apps on Linux or Macs, unless you run the full developer install.
>
>true, but where does FIC go against these rules?


It's circumvented the obvious technical limitation Microsoft imposed upon VFP -- no native web abilities. VFP3 was released at a point and time when the web was becoming significant. It would be a few years and the browser wars would take hold. By the time VFP6 came about, the web was a phenomena and Microsoft had a solid foothold. Had they wanted VFP to have web abilities, they would've added them. They didn't, which means they made the purposeful decision to leave it out, thereby introducing a technical limitation in the product.

FIC bypasses that technical limitation through its use of the West-Wind framework.


>>Your product takes that a step further.
>>Not only do FoxInCloud users not have to have VFP developer or the VFP runtimes installed, or
>>even be running Windows, but the running version of VFP is on a server, being used by whoever
>>hits the site, as a commercial service by you, and by FoxInCloud users.
>
>they either hit a runtime running on windoze or something generated out of metadata not hitting fox
>runtimes - where is the problem?


Microsoft designed VFP to:
(1) Be a desktop app
(2) Running on Windows if in runtime form
(3) or running in the full developer version if on other platforms.

FIC makes your VFP apps and code:
(1) Not be a desktop app,
(2) Not be running upon installed runtime DLLs,
(3) It does not require the user (client) to be running on Windows at all,
(4) and it does not require the user to be running a developer version.

This system cuts Microsoft out of all aspects of the ecosystem they tried to create with Visual FoxPro:
(1) A desktop app
(2) Running in Windows
(3) Or selling developer editions for other platforms

Microsoft's goals were about money, and they designed their system to be that way. They left web support out of Visual FoxPro so developers would be forced to turn to their other products to introduce those abilities -- which was their goal, and their purpose, because VFP was not part of their long-term strategy as was indicated by their shutting down the project. VFP offered too much power, too many features, for too little revenue, with too little ability to control both the developer and user bases. What we're seeing with their .NET systems and Windows 8 is a completely controlled ecosystem, one which buries you in. With VFP there was true flexibility, and it would be obvious to people with technical knowledge that the limitations being imposed upon VFP's abilities (or inabilities) were not the result of technical limitations, but were, rather, political decisions as per the needs of the money making machine they were putting in place.

As I say, I do not like this system I am citing and calling out here. In fact, I hate it. I have a long history of hating Microsoft's money-making-above-service practices, which was why I chose the name Exodus for my operating system back in the late 90s, some 6+ years before I was a Christian -- because I was looking at my offering as a hope toward a "mass departure from evil".

While these things I cite are not desirable for users or developers, they exist as they do. I am trying to educate people to the damaging nature of being part of EULAs and closed ecosystems. And .NET, Win8, and other Microsoft products today are NO BETTER at all. They are just slicker, more polished, more seemingly open, while actually being completely closed, controlled, monitored, especially if you look out 20 years to trends and where it is Microsoft's taking us, compared to where copyleft-protected FLOSS world would go, as per the many minds contributing.

There is an addendum to this section posted under Religious Chatter. See Message ID:1587649


>MS is often critised for FUD. FUD from other sources is not better.

Agree completely.