Hi Stephane,

>>Grabbing something free today may end up costing your customers something tomorrow. Are you making sure they know that?
>
>Yes i know, but if a future version becomes chargable, i may look at something else *or* if the update worths the price i will explain it to my customers and they will decide to upgrade or not.

So the situation will be that they have all of their data in your application, they install a new version of XXX and with it comes a new version of the MSDE (or some other .dll) and all of a sudden instead of 10 people connecting to the data only 5 will be able to (as is stated but not enforced in the MS EULA) and they call and ask what gives. And you say to them: "Yeah you made the decision when you bought the application I wrote for you to only connect 5 people up at a time. Do you want to pay MS for the other 5 now or would you like me to re-write the application for you?"

>>Do your customers know that you are installing a potential trap for them within their application?
>
>No! And i am not.

So none of your users are connecting more than 5 seats at a time (or plan to).

>>I bet if you looked hard enough inside the EULA for the MSDE you'd find that MS has the right to update its software anytime it wants via the internet or make its software stop running for any reason. That language is there so MS can charge whatever they want whenever they want and if your customer doesn't pay they can cut them off or throttle them back.
>
>Common, be serious! Do you really think MS would automaticly update an MSDE installation and make it stop working without the consent of the user? This would be an equivalent to corporate suicide.

It might not be an automatic update. It could be an update of another piece of software, operation system, or who knows. The person doing that upgrade may have no idea that the installation they are performing will adversely affect software written by you on that machine. How would they?

>When i say "I works for me" It actually meens it works for my customers. And actually one of my biggest selling point is: "And if your company grows, you can just upgrade to a full fledged SQL server and still use the same application so your investment is safe."

You can do the same with using native VFP table too. But the fact is that most companies won't need to.

>>The "works for you" part is what I would call arrogant.

>That is exacly my point, it works for my customers today, and even if they grow to Medium/Lage size Enterprise they will still be able to use it.

> VFP Tables just can't do it.

No one is saying that VFP is suited for thousands or even hundreds of simultaneous users. But most companies (even the large ones) don't need that level of service in the first place.

>The strategy of MS with MSDE is more to sell Sql server licences to MSDE users when they reach the maximum capacity of the DB (2GB) and more than 5-7 simultanous query. And i make sure i advise any potential customer i have of this fact.

I tell my customers that they need to back up their data too. Few of them remember that when there is a hard disk failure, power failure, etc.

>>Remember: There's a big difference between DBF files and server applications. DBF tables are just files.

>That's the problem! They are just files and they can get corrupted.

Gee, maybe you haven't heard. SQL server runs off of files too and I can guarantee you that they have a problems too.

Check this out:
http://www.livevault.com/support/knowledge/services/sql_restore.asp
http://www.dell.com/us/en/biz/topics/power_ps4q00-martin.htm
http://www.oracle.com/ip/deploy/database/oracle9i/db_sql_ha_askms.html

>>VFP is more than just a great language and superior IDE. When you use VFP's DBF style tables you are ensuring your users that their business will be protected in the future from unexpected fees.

Hugh