> Free and open software is better in all regards…

Depends on the target market (sorry for this word, replace by 'audience' if you prefer).

Considering that a very few proportion (say .01%) of users of a software are capable, and willing to cooperate to its development, and most of them lie either in the academic environment, or employees of large companies having an interest in getting the shit done, you can gather enough people to setup a viable open source project ONLY if the software targets 100ks, maybe millions of users, IOW has a very broad purpose: web stuff, office software, games, etc.

In the VFP world, large software like West-Wind Web Connect, xFRX, FoxInCloud and others could not exist as open source.

eg. I proposed 2 times (once in '06, once in '08) to release the backbone of FoxInCloud as an open source project, with exactly no reply or interest whatsoever.

What exists in the VFP community are pieces of software that some member have done for themselves, without dependencies, that they decide to release to the community. I visited several times similar project page on Bitbucket or Github, and never see any other contribution than from the original author.

You seemingly faced the same reality with Visual FreePro, and something similar happened with almost all modules in VFPx.

I would be delighted to participate in an VFP open source project… What I saw on projects like JavaScript libraries, and I think would require probably some resilience from our community members is:

• Natural acceptance of coding standards (probably learned from college)
  
• Ability to discuss without arguing to be the only one right
  
• High level in computer science, eg. design patterns
  
• Ability to design upfront, and to discuss that design (which requires a high level in English)
  
• Heal from the non-invented-here syndrome
  

I would really be delighted if WWWC and FoxInCloud went open source, multiply their user base, with the ability to sell $1.5K/day services…