John,

Well stated...

As the pastor of my church says, "Sheep beget sheep, shepards do not beget sheep." <g>

The allusion is, of course, the notion that the community must take responsibility for growing the community.

We are, after all, the ones in the proverbial trenches.

Perhaps we're starting to think of Microsoft as the "Nanny Marketer" like some think of the federal government.

IOW, it's not up to Microsoft to provide for me and I must see to my own future (in this I quite agree with JVP) but they can support me in my efforts by creating updated versions of the program I use. They do this and they seem wise enough to understand that they cannot spend more than they take in. Seems simple enough. <g>

That's why I plan to be the best developer of VFP-based solutions as possible.

>Jim
>
>As of yesterday, MS calculates a user base close to 200,000. A certain FUDMeister recently decreed that the "active" FP community numbers only a few hundred. As that person claims that MS agrees with him, we can reasonably calculate that only 0.15% of FP people are active participants in the community.
>
>Conclusion: if it is true that only 0.15% of FP users participate in the community, maybe "community pushing on MS" is the wrong tactic to support VFP.
>
>Maybe we need to be pushing our peers and GROWING THE COMMUNITY so that we are a bit larger than Mr 0.15% . Maybe if we were "Mr 10%" we might get a better reception.
>
>It seemed curions that KL would add the bit about "community size" as part of his note, I'd not seen that before in a vendor report re user base. I perceived that maybe KL was trying to get a point across to us.
>
>Regards
>
>JR