>People don't pirate software because it is expensive. Software is expensive because people pirate it.
>
>(Although I also think the market dictates the price of software. But, if I am sure, the more copies a software company expects to sell, the lower the price. Of course we are talking about shrink wrap software here mostly.)

OK, I think a point of view from somebody living in a hardly industrialized country (is it called third world?) could be interesting.

You can be considered a very lucky guy if you are making on an entire month of working what you have to pay for an update of Visual Studio. No taxes removed yet.

So if you have to learn and get skilled before buying VFP Professional or Enterprise you need to work with a company that works with VFP for a while (or get a copy?)

Would you start (as an entrepreneur) investing on Development packages under the next circumstances?

Support from Microsoft: After waiting some 20 to 40 minutes on line I’ve never received an satisfactory answer from four or five support guys. Sometimes I get the feeling that they didn’t know there was a product named Visual FoxPro.

Translation? MMMMMhhh. Do you really think you’re going to the right page after selecting a word it and hitting F1? Or that the samples paths is being assigned correctly to the _Samples system variable? BUT, if you right click on the code window and select an object from the object list you will get This.Primario.Primario… etc. which will never work (Primario is there for ‘Parent’).

They don’t know there is a service pack for FoxPro (at least for two week after it was announced at the VFP page). Get your Spanish version from the network at 28000 on about 11 to 15 tries overnight.

MS support don’t know what is DevCon.

However, every person which had a copy of a MS product has no other choice but to buy it once you are on the professional world because you already know how to use it. Thanks to those copies spread free during you learning days, you’ll someday need assistance and will pay for the license. This works better than publicity. While researching about which database I could feel comfortable with I could never get a copy of Power Builder or Delphi while any school kid could get you a copy of VFP.

Fortunately I’m working with the best of all… VFP, and it is legal. And that is fine. I don't agree with piracy.

Oscar Corte