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seems to me like a whole lot of people worrying because they think this is yet another nail in the vfp coffin.
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The status of the VFP market is unaffected by what HW does. OTOH, what HW does IS affected by the status of the VFP market. One can argue that the VFP market has deteriorated to the point where even HW cannot sustain its VFP efforts.

So then, why is what HW did NOT putting a another nail in VFP's coffin? Simple...the nail was already there. HW simply reacted.


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i don't think it's really fair to have a go at someone for making a business decision.
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Not sure fair has much to do with it. If people really considered what is fair, you would not see half the nonsense you see. Whil has always been good at playing the victim. And to some extent, I think he is trying to get martyr status. The whole VFP/Linux/EULA issue was melodramatic in epic proportions. Still, Whil does have his minions trying to effect some form of damage control. Between Tamar on the wiki and Andy on CIS, I don't know how they can say what they say with a straight face. To try and put any other spin on it - other than to say that Whil is abandoning the Fox market - is intellectually dishonest.

The irony? A lot of people put emotion into the issue. I think a lot of people thought Whil had that same emotion. The only intersection I see is that Whil played on and capitalized on that emotion. But in the end, as a businessman, he decided that now is the time to pull up the tent stakes. From a business standpoint, I question whether he would not have still made $'s selling Fox books. I think he would have. I think in the end, he saw an association with Fox - and perhaps MS indirectly - as a liability to his current efforts at being a player in the Linux market. Will he be a player in the Linux market? I don't know. If the reviews of the crystal reports (CysDev) book are any indication of what is to come (and I highly recommend checking these reviews out because they address the format of the publisher) - then I would suggest the outlook is not to bright. I don't know who Whil gets to do his cover art - but they make the books look like amateur hour. When compared with other books in the computer section, at a glance, they cannot be taken seriously. Superficial? Absolutely, but this is how people react.