>Hi Ed,
>
>>>Sorry for jumping into discussion (quote :), but I want to emphasize, that almost all nice features for PUTM only :( What should do the rest of the world?
>>>
>>
>>Either spend the money and get the features, or not spend the money and do without them. I'd think that people who needed the features would be willing to spend the money; that's certainly my case. It's a deductible business expense.
>
> It's great, that it's tax deductible.
> Actually, I was thinking about members from other countries, like Russia or China. What should they do? ...

Make a business decision - the added features either are or are not worth the money, in the same way that any other tool is either worth the money that people ask for or not. It's pure and simple economics if you don't view UT as a service that the VFP community should contribute towards supporting.

There are alternatives to UT - IMO, they do not offer the advantages of UT in most cases, or offer a significantly different paradigm of operation. An unwillingness to spend money doesn't entitle you to the same benefits as people who are willing to make the necessary investment.

OTOH, I believe it'd be worthwhile for UT, as a business, to invest in some infrastructure here, specifically, encouraging people who make significant contributions to the UT community to participate. One way of doing that is to extend the privileges of PUTM access to the people who make the system work. JVP has a valid point; he's not the one getting support off UT, in fact, he contribute significantly to people like you getting that support. I can understand that he'd rather not pay money for the privilege of answering your questions. I can sympathize with his position in fact. There are an awful lot of occasions where I'd really like to say to some people "don't applaud - just throw money." JVP makes his living because of his knowledge of the development environment. So do I. So do people like Jim Booth, who, in fact, makes a part of his living teaching other people how to be a successful VFP developer. It doesn't make financial sense from that perspective.

Regardless of whether or not I like the idea of paying to provide answers, I still think the UT is a useful tool for me as a developer. If the UT stops being the best source of support for the product, I'm as likely to wander off to the new location as the rest of the flock here. If UT loses the core of knowledgable people that make it such a strong resource, there'll be less incentive for people to spend money for better services on it. The less experienced people, the ones who perhaps made it econmically unattractive for UT to continue encouraging participation from the MVPs and other knowledgable, helpful UT members, are the ones who will suffer most.

My experience is that most free things are worth about what you spend on them. At least UT provides some functionality for people who don't want to spend for added features. Michel could always just roll up the carpet...as a business decision.