Hi John, Greg, et al -

I don't really have a dog in this fight and am probably crazy to even get into it, but I gotta say I am very surprised at the level at which what should be a technical and business discussion is so intensely personal. I know JVP and know he can ruffle feathers but look at his reply to the same message I'm replying to here. I think a stranger coming into this would see his response to be the rational, reasoned one and the emotional attacks on him personally to be less than professional. ( I am particularly surprised at Steve - a person whose erudition, accomplishment, intellect and humor have always appealed to me )

Everyone seems to agree Fox is great, Fox doesn't have the market share a lot us wish it had, and MS likes .NET more. Everything else is just a lot of very smart folks who should have better things to do trying to poke holes in the other guy's post to score points without really staking out different territory.

I have seen JVP post some stuff in the past that looked deliberately inflammatory and smart-ass, but this doesn't seem to be what he is doing here on this subject.

Jeff Winchell and Fabian Pascal - whom we remember well from CIS days - were consistently abrasive for the sake of it and never were Fox fans of any kind.

But JVP, however much you might disagree with him, has been a big Fox fan/user/teacher/helper at one point in his career. He now feels the IT winds blow differently. That will strike us differently depending on our own business model/level of success/and desire to try new tools - but to somebody coming in to these threads from the outside my guess is JVP would look like the rational one - perhaps giving his arguements more weight than would get than if they were rebutted strictly on technical/business grounds

My not jumping on the bandwagon may label me as anti-fox (which I am emphatcially not) or as having taken a "side" in this incredibly puerile flame-war (which I'm not) but I gotta say I'm surpised so many really smart people are so emotional about something that either can be demonstrated empirically or is esoteric depending on one's personal cirumstances.

The Blindmen are arguing about the nature of the Elephant.

Regards to all.