Michel,

I've read the entire thread to date. But since we don't even have an active VFP User Group here in Toronto it's difficult to offer observations on the specific thrust of your concern.

However, reading the article at http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/904831 announcing the 'evangelism' department at Microsoft on October 16, 2001, I can see how it has come to the situation you describe. I don't like it (what you have observed) one bit, but I suppose that a zealous pursuit of .NET promotion has led to this distasteful 'evolution' of "community".
Personally, I was always suspicious of the word "evangelism" in any BUSINESS hierarchy - especially so near to the top - and I guess we are now seeing the impact. I never guessed it would take this form, and certainly "community" and user groups were not even mentioned in the article cited.

I chalk it up to naiveté on the part of a good many of us, especially those who are participants in the many successful non-.NET communities. There was a willingness (even anxiety) to help Microsoft succeed in its endeavour to mirror the successes of other communities in its .NET efforts. Most such people no doubt assumed that the spirit of COOPERATION that is prevalent in the established communities would continue and flourish with the new .NET community, to the benefit of everyone.
We basically poo-poohed the early warnings of trouble ahead provided by members here like VenelinaJ and JessB (and some others) and happily repeated the party line that VFP.NET would hardly be recognizeable as a VFP derivative and would certainly lose the 'data advantage' that is it's hallmark if a .NET version was delivered. Mentions of .NET versions for Delphi and (even) COBOL and other tools were similarly disregarded.

A relatively recent marketing strategy being employed by more and more businesses (copied from the political arena, I believe) is to use "fronts" to accomplish stealth marketing. You know, things like the "Clean Air Foundation" that is actually a creation of the coal producers in the US or "Ducks Unlimited" that has hunting organizations as major funders. It sure appears that user groups and 'communities' are being integrated into this process like never before. Where the relationships were previously of a symbiotic nature (both vendors and developers benefitted) it now appears that the objectives of the corporation are becoming paramount and only selected developer groups will now benefit.
The situation is easily disguised on the basis of a "small office" combined with the massiveness of .NET simply taking all staff's available time.

I think this is a serious concern and I am glad that you brought it up. I hope that it brings about some change.