Of course, there is an obvious solution to these problems. It’s called Open Source. Don’t get me wrong, there are PLENTLY of Open Source programs that are buggy, very buggy in fact. But, they are free, and YOU have the code. Also, I can point too several examples of open source software that have a better track record than most closed source software. Apache, PHP, Mysql, The Gimp, KDE, Python, and Linux itself. All stable and supported. Those are just a few. And not to mention the thousands of game mods being developed by thousands of players for their favorite games.

So what does this tell us? Open Source programmers are coding for the love (or fame) of the product. They are not driven by the market nor is their some Senior VP pushing for a release date. Of course, the down side is longer development time and usually no support from the creator(s). Also, you can’t blame anyone or thing. But there are thousands (in some cases millions) of other users. A great resource.

I think FoxPro is more stable than most Windows Apps I’ve run. Hardly ever crashes. I think Fox ended up with a bad rep over the years. In 1999 I worked with a VB guy who kept referring to a FoxBase application that was running (in a DR DOS environment no less) as “That Fox piece of sh*t”. Even though the app was running and working fine since 1991!. How many apps written in VB can you say that about?

Sadly, that FoxBase app was re-written using VB. And from what I hear it has never been as stable as the FoxBase version. Is it the app or the operating system? I was just consulting at the time and couldn't convince them to use FoxPro. Maybe that was it. :)