Gerry,

Those are all legitimate, albeit a little on the self-centred side (in my opinion), reasons.

As to measuring the success of a letter, how about just consistently hearing MS reps. acknowledge positively VFP when in public. That would go one very long way to indicate success in my eyes.

As a part of the VFP community who believes that this is a superior product that is in jeopardy I feel that a 'vote' indicating my willingness to sign something that communicates the importance of VFP to the powers at MS is a SMALL PRICE indeed to pay.
And I can't see anything in your reasoning that refutes that.

Regards,

JimN

>>And the case regarding voting or not has other dimensions too. Correct or not, I contend that many (repeat: many) people might well withhold 'voting' because of the absence of specific names and more particularly VFP MVPs. Why? Well for one thing they are considered "leaders" whether they like it or not. People *do* follow leaders, by definition. As well, they might think that this group has a little more of the "inside track" and probably know some things that the general population is not privy to. So the absence of their 'vote' might translate into "there's no real need to vote here".
>>
>
>There's a couple of reasons why I'm not "voting".
>
>The intent (of the proposed "letter") seems to be to cajole MS into "more marketing" of VFP. Marketing is a means to an end; so ... what is the "end" ?
>
>I develop and sell my own software and do some consulting for other VFP developers; an absence of "corporate VFP job opportunities" makes no difference to me.
>
>I don't give "VFP seminars"; the fact that there aren't "lots of VFP developers" clamoring for me to "teach" is not relevant to me either.
>
>My Users don't care that I develop in VFP ...
>
>Would I be unhappy if VFP "died" ? Probably. But since we've just had an "event" (ie. VFP pulled from VS.NET) and VFP 7.0 is pending and MS "said" they'll continue with VFP, this means it will be at least 2 years before there's another VFP "event"; whether it's a new release, disposition or whatever. To start making a "fuss" now seems more like "crying wolf" than waiting a period of time until some action/reaction is really warranted.
>
>Sure ... put up a Web page or two; but a "letter" will probably be forgotten in a month or two (and then what ... "another letter" ?). And how will the "success" of our "letters" be gauged ? Number of ads ? Job postings ? Seminars ? Books ? Salary "decreases" ? What ?
>
>"Pick your hill to die on" ... This is neither the time nor the place (IMO).
>
>I think most people (Users, Developers, etc.) might not even have taken notice or placed some profound meaning on VFP being pulled from VS.NET except for all the hand-wringing that's going on now (the "sky is falling" ... again).
>
>The sun will super nova in about 5 Billion years ... Now, that's something to worry about.
>
>"I wear my sunglasses at night ...."