>>. Every week, Microsoft is losing loyal customers forced to chose between the language they love and their immediate survival.

Does this make sense?

>
>Mike;
>
>Only if you believe in a free market economy!
>
>There are laws in our nation that protects the weak from the strong but that does not apply here. The German philosopher Nietzsche, advanced a theory of the “Oberman” – the superman. Part of that was “laws are made by the weak to protect them from the strong”! So, all that you have to do is have a law past requiring you to get your way – simple!
>
>Tom

Tom,

Who said anything about seeking legislative remedies? I don't think we have to strain so hard to come up with some applicable maxims (sorry I can't cite the authors):

The customer is king.
The key to success in business is listening to your customers.

These are not exactly anti-capitalistic notions. When I say Microsoft's contradictory story about VFP makes no sense, I mean no logical sense. There is no plausible scenario that makes their behavior smart, even if you apply a metric of pure greed. The contradiction tells us they're either:

A. stupid
B. dishonest
or
C. confused

I prefer the most charitable. Companies are at least as complex as people, so we can excuse their confusion, but we have an obligation to set them straight. They will have every reason to thank us in the end.

Mike