>>I just want to know if the permission is required. If not, I'd try to target >corporative audiences (Intelligent enterprise/Oracle Magazine, and so on).
>
>To write articles, no, you don't need MS's approval. However, if all you are going to do is write articles, you can do that today.....right?


I'd really like to have enought knowledge about others tools or new technologies to write that!

>>Even if the articles are not published, I could use them in the >internal/external sales proccess, sure.
>
>What value to the sales process is an article that has not been published????? It is the publishing process that gives the piece credibility.....right? I am not saying that valuable content is not in the piece. The goal of an article should be two things:
>
>1. To convey good and accurate technical information that has an audience.
>
>2. To get published.

I have used 2 umpublished articles in the past and they really helped me: The Robert Green's VFP Strategic Paper and a nice VFP-VB comparison in Power Point that I downloaded somewhere.

>I can tell you right now, a VFP article would not get published in Oracle Magazine. At least, I am 99.99% sure of that. Why would the technical editor of the magazine devote 2-4 pages that is of little to no interest to their readership. It is not the job of a technical editor to provide content that you, I , or anybody else things is cool. Rather, the editor's job is to publish relevant technical material. Relevant in this case being defined was what the general readership is interested. Otherwise, the magazine provides no value. >This is why 100's of technical publications exist.

I'm pretty sure somebody has made a really big app using Oracle and VFP. In my country there is a huge gov. office that uses VFP front end and Oracle backend for their core systems!. It could be a nice case study.

>So, to expend the effort write an article that has little to no shot of getting published makes zero sense.
>

As I told you, I think that a good, accurate and informative article can help a lot, even if not published.

>Just my 2-cents...

You are right that there is not a REAL need of VFPDA to do this. I think we need VFPDA to join efforts in one direction, with one strategy and one goal. I wouldn't like to give up if I can do something to change things. Maybe nothing happen, but at least I did my best.

Best Regards

Victor Chigne