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>It is important to see where the "gurus" are going. If they segue away from our chosen niche it behooves us to considering moving also. It looks more and more like "What can we do to port as much of our beloverd VP to .Net as soon aspossible". We are a niche now with all that means. Not yet legacy since new versions of VFP keep coming out. Open sourcing VFP might be a good idea, but it is probably already too late for that. Besides, VFP is written in C and C# and how many of our gurus are highly conversant with that? Who would write the code?
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Kenneth,

Guru 'destinations' don't really tell us a whole lot. As you noted, KenL went away. What would have happened if all VFPers had rushed to the XML camp based on that???
Mr.Griver was HIRED to do .NET and is no doubt paid handsomely by MS. He has a large (VFP) following and, as I understand it, was a pioneer in the evolution of the vibrant FP/VFP "community". MS sees 'community' as an essential ingredient in the success of .NET, and while I don't doubt Mr. Griver's dedication to the task for a second, do keep in mind that .NET is really still in gestation (or at best just born, and I say gestation because, in fact, the DNA is still under re-arrangement, as the limbs and innards are still under development). But Mr. Griver will go elsewhere, or come back to VFP, if .NET turns out to be less successful than projected/needed despite his and countless others' best efforts!

You use "niche" a few times above. Because "niche" conveys smallness and "special placement" and a few other negative connotations I feel compelled to comment on it...
It is VFP itself that is in a "niche" and NOT the VFP application base that we all have delivered to our user bases!!!
Considering only the MS-produced development languages, only VB.old (VB6 and its predecessors) does not have "niche" status as best I can tell and all other MS development languages including the .NET languages are niche products.

VFP is, as I see it, better positioned than most of MS' other "niche" languages. .NET is aimed to be the wave of the future and MS is placing unimaginable resources toward that end. And MS has gauged the marketplace to date and found its objectives significantly under-achieved. Accordingly, they have made their first changes and intimate many more to come soon. The marketplace will speak and will rule, and if MS' vision doesn't match the marketplace's, .NET will also become a "niche".

Jim Nelson