>>I complain regularly about MS not promoting VFP enough, but I can't recollect saying that MS is "immoral".
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>No, but others have. Jerry Kreps comes to mind.

Probably at the top of your list, eh? :-)

Ya, I used the 'I' word. Perhaps 'crook', 'liar', 'cheat', 'thief' and others come to mind. Those are words commonly used to describe a company that has been convicted three times of violating the law, that suspends your civils rights in EULA fine print, that is running a pyrimid scheme with stock options, leaving you the taxpayer to pay the payroll, and is doing their best with some of our worst politicans to make MS the collector of tolls on PCs and the Internet hiways. But, you don't want to hear this stuff. Because the three monkeys play well with you don't expect others to enjoy their company too.

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>>Regardless, I think you've got a backwards "take" on this issue. Since I spend money on Microsoft products I believe that I have far more right to offer criticism to Microsoft than someone who has no Microsoft products!
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>To a point. After complaining for an extended period of time, without any change happening, it's time to move on. Microsoft has made their position pretty clear. Their focus is .NET and SQL Server. Nothing you, I, or anyone else says or does is going to change that. When you beat your head against a brick wall and wonder why you have a headache, it's hard to understand.

This sentence is pathic. You are the consumer. Until they get congress to pass laws mandating the use of their products (and they are working on that for the DRM) you have a right and an obligation to complain. If you, the consumer, won't hold them to a standard commensurate with the community welfare, then who will? All that has to be done for evil to win is for good men to do nothing.


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>>In a similar light, I was unable to vote in our last Provincial election here in Ontario. Consequently, I do not criticize the elcted government (highly deserving of criticism) because I got the government I "deserved". I contributed nothing to the outcome, so I have no 'right' (a personal viewpoint) to criticize. Had I voted at all I would criticize what I have witnessed, even if I had voted for the winning party.
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>Microsoft is not a democracy. On the other hand, if you continue to vote for the same party/candidate, and they continue to do the same things that make you mad, it's no longer their fault for doing them. It's your fault for voting for them.

But America IS! EULAs which prevent you from critizing a product for any reason should be illegal. The Declaration declared that certain rights are unalianable. That means you can't be separated from your rights. One of those rights is the 1st Amendment to the Bill of Rights guaranteeing you the tight of free speech. I if buy or license product X and it doesn't live up to the marketing hype or fails to function properly as it should I have the right to tell my experiences to someone else without getting the software developer's permission to do so. That's identical to expecting the Chinese government to grant you permission to critize it.

What are you passionate about Chris? Where will you draw the line on infringements of your liberty and economy?
Would you get mad if you went to a Ford dealer to buy a car and found out that they only come with Chevy engines? Would it make you madder if you demanded a Chevy engine in your chevy car but was told by the chevy dealer that you will still have to pay for the Ford engine even if you didn't take it home? Let say you ran a fleet of chevy trucks, but had only one Ford. How would you feel if Ford required you to buy a Ford engine for every chevy truck in your fleet, even though only one was a Ford.? Would it make you made that the Ford engine in your Chevy truck stalled frequently and had to have parts replaced far too often? Would it make you mad that the Ford engine couldn't pull the load that the chevy engine could, but the small print in the lease agreement prevented you from telling anyone about it, or about the fact that the carburator on the Ford engine spontaneously burst into fire? Go to another dealer you say? Can't Ford has a lock on all car dealerships. Everyone has to run the Ford engine because Ford got a monoply early in the engine game. If Ford has it's way, no dealership in the world would be able to sell any car except that it came with a Ford engine, even if the buyer purchased another engine and installed it himself.
Is that the kind of world you want?
JLK