I've been following the flap over VFP/Linux and Whil Hentzen, and at first, was incensed over the need to pay to run VFP on Linux boxes.

After reading your comments, I've changed my mind. Microsoft does need some revenue stream to keep developing VFP, and the $280 upgrade fee is not going to get it done.

Furthermore, my experience has been that customers think less of free products than those requiring a small investment. Charging a little extra for shrink-wrapped VFP apps (or custom contract work), and listing it as a line item on invoices, is not much of a burden.

Lastly, the potential of a worldwide community developing VFP apps for Linux far outweighs the distribution fees. I have this love/hate attitude towards Microsoft, but I can see that they're very scared of Linux. Charging a small licensing fee for VFP would be good for the VFP community, programmers, and yes, Microsoft. It's conceivable that VFP could surpass Visual Studio in terms of the number of programmers, within a few years.

What does everybody else think?

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>With this in mind, if you want to deploy VFP apps on Linux, you don't get the benefit of the Windows subsidy, and therefore, you have to pay as you go.
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>On one hand, consumers need to be protected against the abuses of monopoly power. On the other hand, those protections cannot go so far as to allow consumers to get something for nothing.
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>Questions/Comments????
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>< JVP >