My husband (LinuxMan) says "open architecture" is when the innards of the software/OS comply totally with RFC's (published open standards). Open source software (like Linux) is in this category, and goes one further since the user has the source available for modification.

Hardware can be open also.

SQL-92 is open, thus anyone can write an ODBC driver that support SQL-92. Very little of what Microsoft offers is open architecture. In the case of Transact-SQL, the extentions make it proprietary, though SQL-92 code will work against MS Sql-Server.

If you write VFP applications and provide the source code, it is partially open, since your code is open, but the VFP DLL's that you call. for example, are not.



>Okay
>
>I'm filling out an Vendor IT Questionnaire and here is one of the questions:
>
>Do you use open architecture?
>
>Our applications are totally written in VFP 6.0 using VFP for the tables. I'm totally inclined to say yes? Any comments here by what open architecture may be referring to?
>
>Kirk