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The scenario that VFP woudl take away from SQL was in response to the argument that charging for providor was bad marketing.
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I don't know if charging for the provider is bad marketing or not. Quite frankly, I don't care. My only issue is in how it is characterized relative to the real motiviation. The real motivation as we all know is to encourage upgrades. Whether it will actually encourage upgrades or not is certainly ripe for debate. IMO, it will not. However, to couch it in terms of protecting an intellectual property interest, IMO, is absurd.

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I think that putting out VFP data thats freely accessible would be working against SQL marketing.
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Only if VFP were a perfect substitute for SQL Server, and only then would somebody on the SQL end actually give the issue as much as a nano-seconds worth of attention...

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The position wasn't supposed to be "They should charge for the providor because ... " it was "Charging for the providor isn't bad marketing because ..."
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Charging for something is neither good or bad. The reasons for the charging on the other hand can be characterized as good or bad. I have seen many good things done for bad reasons and vice versa.

If I had to pick one of the positions above, I would choose the former as opposed to the latter as it is the more logically consistient.


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I agree. I also think that if they wanted to use it, they would pay for it. And they should.
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Isn't that besides the point? You have the cross the threshold of actually wanting to use it first....right?


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Very true. However, not every application that needs a database is developed by a multi-million dollar enterprise.
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Correct, and that is why SQL Server scales downward and upward.

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In the next five years, I think that Microsoft's and Sun's feel that large amounts of data that should be widley accessible is going to be a neccessity for everyone, not just the big guys.
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I see this as being beside and not directly related to the issue.


>The reason I brought up $20k point was that the times that are ahead of us will be pretty different than what we've seen. With open source (and I think that databases are the next major target for the open source communities), major campaigns to "get legal" running software, the Web Services movement, and a strange economy alot of people will be thinking different.
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Now you are bring open-source into the mix??? I cannot keep track of where you are going here...< s >. As for the "web services" movement, I was not aware there was such a thing??? How all this really fits into your $20K point is a mystery...

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I think the decision you don't like is developing the OLE-DB providor as a feature of VFP7.
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First off, to couch the OLE-DB provider as a "feature" of VFP is fatally flawed. OLE-DB is a separate technology that VFP now supports at a different level. It is like web services. Web servives are not a feature of VFP either. Rather, web services are a technology - the plumbing if you will.

As for whether to include the OLE-DB Provider with the produce soley or to make it available in the MDAC download is a strategic decision that is in the sole province of MS. Its their ball and they can do with it as they wish. My only concern is that when MS people come up here and characterize it in a way that is counter to the real reason, that is when I wish to have the record corrected.

While I disagree with the decision, I respect MS's right to make the decsion.

Do you now understand my point??? < s >... I don't care whether you agree or disagree. In other words, I don't care if you respond to disagree - as long as you disagree with my point. In other words, don't say you disagree with Y when my point was X. This gets back to my original request of understanding my point before responding.

FWIW, some of your points are valid. Many of your other points IMO don't apply. For instance, the issue of infringing on the SQL Server space is a valid one. However, a valid point does not necessarily make for a strong point. The point about SQL Server is easily addressed when one sees the differences between VFP and SQL as well as understanding why people go with SQL. To be honest, if VFP were a real threat to SQL Server, the product probably would have been axed a long time ago. The fact is, VFP and SQL Server are compliments, not substitutes.