>>>On the legal side, EULA is a contract submitted by each party's national, and international law. A lawyer would probably argue that, whenever the editor no longer services the product, users de facto have the right to tamper it.
>>>
>>>On the practical side, no one at microsoft has ever cared, and cares about VFP being decompiled; it's no longer strategic, if it ever was.
>>
>>I've contacted Microsoft's legal department to get their official position on VFPA's legality for use in VFP9 Professional by U.S. entities (citizens, corporations).
>
>What a miserable thing to do! You had no obligation to do this, and you've chosen to try to create trouble.

I'm not sure what life you live, or what values you possess, but I had forgotten about Chen's work until it was brought back up on this board. When I saw someone doing something illegal, I was under direct obligation to call it out. I did not do it to create trouble, but to rectify a wrong being perpetrated on countless people, a sort of carrot leading them each astray likewise as it's very tempting to grab hold of the shiny thing before your eyes even if it's wrong to do so, than it is to go the more difficult path of maintaining truth and integrity and moving toward a real resolution to the issue you face.

My goals are to maintain that truth and integrity and to move toward a real resolution to the issues I face with Microsoft ... all of them. I have designs on an entire hardware and software stack (hardware like CPU, GPU, networking, etc., up through the OS, kernel, drivers, system layer, on up through end-user apps like Visual FreePro and office suites). I do this from the foundation I do it from, and not in and of myself or my own goals because then it's just Rick espousing Rick's philosophy. Instead, I go to a deeper bedrock and proceed.

And it is very difficult to do it. As I proceed in all facets of my life, save the smallest handful, I encounter this type of resistance from everyone, comments like yours telling me I'm doing a miserable thing in following closely after the law, and upholding legality and truth and justice-based intents. I am not doing a miserable thing, and shame on you for claiming such a thing.

We each have choices to make, Tamar. We are each accountable to those choices. Some will seem here on this Earth like they don't matter, like we've actually achieved gain, like we've gotten ahead ... but those aren't the only accounting that's before us. Our own conscience bears witness to who we are and what we're doing ... when we silence all other voices / drives, then we know what's right.

I saw the movie Hoosiers last night, and there's a scene where one of the players gets injured and has stitches. A player on the opposing team purposefully knocks into the stitched area and breaks some stitching loose. The coach initially told the injured player to go ahead and keep playing, but as he walked away from giving that instruction he bowed his head and placed his hand on the back of his neck and he knew he was doing something wrong, as the boy needed to be tended to by a medical doctor. He paused for a moment contemplating, and finally called time out and had the boy stop playing and put in another team member.

We each must make those kinds of decisions based on what's right as we go through life. When I saw Chen violating Microsoft's EULA I could not maintain silence. I spoke out about it years ago on Foxite, and had since forgotten Chen even existed. But then when I saw it again I had to again speak up.

My hope is Microsoft does not reply, or if they do they reply with "Visual FoxPro 9 is no longer a going concern of Microsoft. It is abandoned software," or something similar, indicating we are all free to move forward modifying it as needed. It would open up the doors for me to also contribute fixes to errant vfp9 exe and dll code.

>Tamar

I have two books on my bookshelf written by you (Hacker's Guide to Visual FoxPro 3.0 and 6.0). I regard you / your skills / abilities fondly and remember you from time to time out of the blue. I wonder what you're doing with Southwest Fox, for example.