>>Take it easy, Nadya. We don't need to be indelicate about it. They will come in their own due time without undue pressure from us. The VFP community cannot afford to lose the good will of our most eminent contributors, and they will each have to weigh their personal decisions for themselves.
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>I've tried to keep my mouth shut about this, but I'm getting tired of the patronizing attitude and innuendo and the like. I don't know how others feel, but I would never sign something that says I might be willing to sign something in the future, especially in an online venue where my name might be abused. When there's a real letter, I'll read it and consider whether I'm willing to put my name to it. Until then, I'll wait. I doubt I'm the only one who feels this one.
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>Tamar

Tamar,

Sorry if I sounded patronizing. Subtle, I wasn't, but I thought it was necessary to put Nadya in line in order to avoid precisely such a confrontation. Now the door is open to some further discussion, and I'm glad to hear what you said.

The distinction between your wording, "When there's a real letter, I'll read it and consider whether I'm willing to put my name to it." and the question I posed "whether you would consider signing an open letter to Microsoft ..." eludes me. I also explicitly added this "If and when we complete a draft of this letter, you will have an opportunity to decide whether you're willing to sign it."

You said "I would never sign something that says I might be willing to sign something in the future", but isn't that in fact what you just did? A message in the Universal Thread, the most active VFP forum in the world, frequented by representatives of Microsoft, with free membership, isn't exactly like speaking behind closed doors. So it's very revealing, and quite a surprise to me, that it wasn't a fear of retaliation from Microsoft that kept you quiet this long. I wouldn't have faulted you for that, in any case. Again, I really don't want you to think I'm being patronizing, just absolutely frank.

I have no intention of abusing any one's name, and I don't want to do anything that would upset you or any of the others who find themselves to be in a similar position. But please consider the practical advantages of simply adding your name to the public list. By doing that, you will be encouraging others to come forth and affirm their support for taking constructive action toward better promoting VFP, and doing it as soon as possible. The VFP community is too large and too dispersed to collaborate in secrecy, or even in the quasi-secrecy of UT. Most of the people on the list are not likely to be active UT members, but they care enough about the future of VFP to have spoken out, and they should be afforded every possible opportunity to review the discussion and participate in speaking with a collective voice.

No one is getting payed to do this, and no one wants to be wasting anyone's time, so it's entirely reasonable to ask first, "Listen guys, are we in sufficient agreement on some basic points to bother?" The only impetus for going to this effort is the evidence that MANY people would CONSIDER signing. There may be some individuals who could hope to appreciably influence MS through their own private conversations, but to the rest of us the only hope of getting through lies in acting collectively with as many signatures as possible attached to a single coherent message.

If I've failed to persuade you to take the final step of adding your name to the public list, I'm content to leave it with exactly the way you put it here on UT. I'd be curious to know how many others would endorse your way of expressing it. But how do we present this to the rest of the VFP community? Shall we construct a second list of those who said "When there's a real letter, I'll read it and consider whether I'm willing to put my name to it." on UT? Should we then make reference to the existence of such a list, how many people who are on it, and how many of them are MVPs, but without listing their names? Would you then participate openly with the rest of us in discussing the details of what we will collectively say to Microsoft, or encouraging others to participate? I'm not trying to twist your arm, Tamar, I just think that this division is not helpful. If you think I'm being too aggressive, I'm really sorry and I hope there are no hard feelings, but it means too much to me to remain silent any longer.

Mike