[don't want to read long stories : just quit now]


As we all know, threads like this one appear very regularly. I mean, we all have some natural force to improve the thoughts on VFP as the outerworld should look at it. That is, the outerworld generally does not, and the messages about improving that, outrank all other subjects.
Lately some threads appeared like "hate FoxPro" and similar.

I say, "we" start to be some bunch of pittyful persons. But can we help that ? It's our outlet or so, with an origine that's beyond our force.

Some 25 years ago I worked at the Dutch Shell, and like many (!) of the large companies they used MUMPS for a standard. Anyone worked with that ? Well, I am sure that everyone who did, recognizes the exact same situation as is going on with VFP from today (ehh, last 10 years). MUMPS was (is ?) a technical product which I personally compare with VFP. With this I mean it could do all, not any user (programmer) of it complained, but the outerworld rejected it. It was in great lack of commercial force.
User groups all over the world, devcons at a regular base, but it was the community only that loved it. It just died ... (anyway to the commercial point of view).

Operating within Shell I just saw it happening : really all of the development departments loved it, they could realize really all what was demanded, but in the beginning of the 80's forces emerged telling it all should be Adabas/Natural. Why ?

MUMPS wasn't about a real DBMS, it just was "some DML". Oh.

What I saw was that the big bosses, hardly touching a keyboard themselves ever, decided that MUMPS should go out, and something else should go in. And mind you, no Internet at that time. How would they ever have become so knowledgeable to know it better than the DE departments themselves ?
Their thoughts must have been very very strong, knowing that really 1000's (!!) of apps ran around there, which all had to be converted to the new environment. Just think of the money involved to realize this.

Obviously we all know where their "knowledgde" came from : some marketing activity of the other products.

So this is another thread about this ? I hope to put it in some other perspective.

Like you, I too hear my prospects say "VFP ? pooh" and they come up with all of the (known) arguments that don't fit at all. And I blame them for being "stupid". But how did they become that knowledgeable ? The answer is known.
Hence, it does not help at all to complain about them in here; the contrary !

We have seen some messages in here (quite a lot in fact), initiated by persons who coincidentally are that "open" that they argue to the puplic whether they should or should not go ahead with VFP. I assume these cases are rare, expecting many more of these persons just lurking. Lurking and learning that something must be wrong with this product. Indeed, it's all over the place, and messages about this outrank the technical ones. Some marketing !

I know, we were not the first to start this, and the origine is somewhere else. But IF this lurker didn't find some strange anouncements somewhere within MSDN (some yesterday's thread), it is this place that confirms his suspicion. His suspicion that something must be going on within MS. And would he be wrong ? can't be because we share his thoughts. Publicly. We agree.

To me, one thing is 100 % clear : the persons (instances) I've met stating that VFP is not the way to go, are without exception the educated {s}. It's always about the companies with formal IT departments. To my experience, it is just these persons that have the wrong arguments. But they are the educated, and I am not. Can't win that.

But please, somewhere they are right too : Any larger company decides for a DBMS first, and selects a tool on top of that. And, any company not doing this, does wrong {s}. From this can be derived that anyone trying to tell them that VFP should better be used with its native DML, has lost in advance.
For this matter, we blow it ourselves (I do too).

Another thing is, that anno 2002 (and much longer already), this world is about packages; Custom work as a basis has long gone. Now, since only a handful (if any ?) commercial VFP apps exist, nobody would know it from that point of view. Right ? I am not sure, but WWWC might be the only that is known or may get to that in future.
The explicit marking we ar in lack of, makes us talk about this all over the place. We cannot win this battle.

The battle we have with the market, for us turns out to be a battle with MS. And nobody knows for sure what they are heading for, and the ones who might can't disclose that info. It would be my personal opinion that VFP will survive for quite a few years, but somehow I have in my mind that this is in order to keep some department within MS going. Remember, the strategies of MS haven't been that bad in the past, but often we can't see what it is all about.
Far back in my mind is the thought that MS someday comes with this super-product, all around VFP, but I think this is against all odds.

I bet my best horses on the fact that somehow VFP itself does not comply to MS' strict rules of how the products should be. And that they can't turn it into that (think of the graphical internals which doesn't comply really. Think of no multi-threading). Or other : that the fact of them not turning it into their standards, proves that they in the end won't support VFP as could (have been). I don't know. Anyway, enough reasons not to incorporate it into .NET; they just can't right now.
And about the educated again : the .NET thing is the best proof of VFP not being taken serious by MS. So VFP ? pooh.

Coming to the title of this thread, and when things really start to be going wrong, I foresee the possibility of "us" taking over. It is just an idea born out of the possible worst scenario.
Again, personally I don't think it will come that far (soon), but when it does, here we have some community at hand that will benefit from obtaining VFP;

1. I imagine that all together there's enough skill around to do it.
2. I imagine VFP to become an Open Source Development tool.
3. I imagine that we all would just like it.
4. I imagine that all together enough funds can be raised.
5. I imagine that all of you speakers at devcons will remain doing that.
6. I imagine that MS might be glad to loose the burden of VFP (wait for their offer ;)
7. Hence I imagine to receive appropriate coorporation from MS.

But I imagine far-out stuff more often ...

Anyway, the community we have here is our chance, and I'd say it's unique too. What Toledo Wishlist ? just make it !

I know, there is a coice to make. And it's a tough one. It's my guess that most of us (still) think that MS as the player around VFP is an advantage. That is, at least we now can say "but it's MS". I look at my own commercial lines : MS Visual FoxPro. We'd loose that. But think of it : right now everybody seems to look at this as a disadvantage.

Don't underestimate the marketing-hellofajob to perform, though it seems easy to do it better than it's done right now. One thing we'd gain : no more negative hearings about discontinueing. And mind you : behind this "company" over 40,000 employees stand as a rock (anyway, commercially it looks like that). A better forum to solutions doesn't exist. When all of our (functional) knowledge is added up, I'd bet we do better than MS.

Supposed anyone came down to this line, what about this all ?