>>> I found the discussion interesting and think that Rick raised very good points, and all the mockery and disdain of the answers I found very... intolerant.
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>How ungrateful people are not to express delight when accused of being crooks, or subjected to repetitive know-all scolding from somebody who see-saws from "I forgot VFPA exists and have no intention of using it" to "I want to use it, but I'm too moral, unlike you."
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>The most relevant legal advice is that legal action involving a corporate with a legal department always involves losses, even if you win. I have no appetite for US court activity. None, and wouldn't even wish it on an enemy.
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>The telling point is that if I ever were to risk such an encounter with MS, I'd do it along the lines of "if somebody were to fix bugs in the VFP runtimes- e.g. tooltips in grids or queries against SQL Server field types like VARCHAR MAX ... would MS object?" There's no need to tattle on others if all you want is an answer.
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>FWIW, MS does know and accept bug fixes and functionality enhancements in products covered by EULA. Apart from Refox that I referred to earlier since it relies on reverse-engineered VFP internals and runtime patches in one of its options, check out the experience with Office Equation Editor in 2018. Rather than fixing an overflow issue, MS used Patch Tuesday to remove Equation Editor dependencies to stop it working,... after which a Slovenian third party stepped in and delivered a fix to great acclaim. According to the third party's CEO, they saw no legal issue in fixing the issue even after MS acted to prevent use of its product which is far more directed than its neglect of VFP. There's been no dissent, so while it's not identical to the situation here, clearly the absolute thundering condemnation "It's immediately and undeniably illegal if there's an EULA! You're a crook whose word is worth nothing if you do this!" is not the reality- which is that no EULA trumps public policy or borders, yet few of us can remain standing if MS chose to dedicate even a tiny fraction of their legal department to it, whether it complies with public policy or not.

John, saying that I think Rick raised very good points does not mean that I agree with them all, the fact that one of the parties is heavy weight Microsoft should not matter, what if someone decompiles and sells your program, or worse, unspeakable worse, mine! (good luck finding something good from me thou, I am just laughing at the list of fixes they would need to implement...). I also think that good points bring good debate and new knowledge, like what you are mentioning about Equation Editor, whatever that is. I can also see him being (sorry I do not know him so this is his on-line persona so a better term is coming as) cocky or arrogant, but does it excuse us from acting similarly? Anyways, I see the thread ballooning out of control...