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>>What's so special about a '.NET' server?
>
>Currently.. not much, as .Net is in its infancy. MS marketing just renamed them ".Net". At this point in time, .Net is mostly marketing. This will change as products are updated.


Exactly. Infancy? .NET is the best example of vaporware I've ever seen. What ever it is, or what ever it will morph into, it's primary purpose at this time is to act like a giant headlight, to freeze the deer..er..customer into not moving, market wise, until MS has a chance to get it's act together.


>
>>
>>
>>IMO Application Service Providers by any company is a crazy idea for a very large segment of the market, regardless of the corp pushing it.
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>I agree.
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>>Admittedly, but that is why I also posted a URL which showed that even public law is copyrighted ('owned') by corporations for their own economic interests, and not necessarily in the interests of the citizens. This situation constitutes another kind of monoply. The one with the AMA and doctors reporting codes is another.
>
>I deal with these codes all the time. They have done lots of good.

Do did Hitler and Stalin. So does Castro. But the bad out weighs the good.
Here are some examples dealing with that nefarious creature called "IP":

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/15/science/15CROP.html?pagewanted=print


http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0120/baard.shtml



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>>Which means absolutely nothing. The Microsoft EULA has already been proven in court to be a one-way document. MS can sue you for violating it but you can't sue MS for not honoring it.
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>Keep in mind that MS owns the product. When you buy Word, Excel, Windows, VFP, Lotus, WordPerfect, or CorelDraw you are not buying a product. You are buying a license to use the product. It is absolutely in the rights of the owner of the product to dictate its use.

That's not the point. The point is that MS can use their EULA to prosecute what they feel are violations, but the consumer has been rendered powerless to hold MS to their own EULA.

Further, the EULA has been extended in recent years to forcing the consumer to relinquish constitutional freedoms, like free speech, in order to prevent bad publicity from reducing MS's revenue stream. MS is not alone in this, but they were the trendsetter. You purchase a Mircosoft product and then discover that it crashes too frequently, has too many bugs, or doesn't meet marketing claims of features and/or performance, support, etc... and on a website or in email (read mass media) you post your emperical benchmarks. Then you are hit with a letter from a Microsoft lawyer reminding you that you no longer have the right to whare with others your experiences with the product unless, of course, it is a good experience. By the way, our experience with MS support, after we've searched the knowledge base and they get our credit card info, can be summed up in two words: "reboot" or "reinstall". Duh!

That's what makes the UniversalThread so important -- it is a database of problems and cures discovered by VFP users and donated free of charge (UT is essentially free compared to one hour of MS 'help') to the VFP community. Which is also why Microsoft supports it: it doesn't cost them anything and keeps tens of thousands of professional programmers from wandering to other tools.