Well, fellow VFP developers, for what my $0.02 is worth, I agree completely with the right to free speech, and along with this the right to a public forum for anybody who feels they have been a victim of unscrupulous business practices. I see the Internet as a great equalizer when it comes to empowering the small business / consultant.

I see several benefits spawned by a forum for people to post the nature of their complaints and experiences with respect to unscrupulous clients. This could be done according to a code of conduct to which I'm sure PUTM software professionals could abide. In other words, no inflammatory or derogatory comments, but rather just one's one perspective of the situation. There's nothing illegal or slanderous about saying "I think Microsoft has unfairly and illegally pressured Internet Service Providers to exclude the use of Netscape's products by their clients", or "I think company X has acted unprofessionally and in violation of our contract by not paying for services rendered for over 3 months". It's not illegal to say this because you are exercising your first amendment right of free speech to voice an opinion(at least in the USA you are). Fairness would dictate that parties mentioned in a posting would have equal right and access to post their side of the story.

I think that such a forum would be extremely valuable to UT's members. Such a forum would help UT's members learn about mistakes to avoid. There is no focused knowledge base, and _especially_ no compendium of indiviual experiences, to help us learn about and proactively deal with the kind of problems that Kevin experienced... unless we create one.