David,

I'm not going to get in the middle of what appears to be a serious conflict between you and John Petersen, but I certainly want to express some views about your closing statements.

I'm familiar with what John wanted to present in FoxTalk. Months ago, he shared with me some of the research and discoveries he made regarding VFP and Oracle as part of his current development project. Because the majority of published content on VFP and 'back-end' databases is either generic or specific to SQL Server, John saw the opportunity to share some pretty significant findings - possibly in hopes to (as you stated about the goal of FT) save folks some time down the road. I know for a fact that some of his findings would have answered questions I've seen on different forums and newsgroups that have gone unanswered.

I’ve subscribed to FT since 1994 (either on my own or through my employer), and have recommended FT to people who were previously unaware of it. So I feel I've 'earned the right' to make the following statement: I'm concerned that you and the publisher have decided to ‘close the door’, as you put it, on John.

There is no question that John could have added some ‘beef’ to the content of FoxTalk. If you think you’re doing it to hurt John, you’re not. All you’ve done is potentially hurt your own newsletter and the subscription base by closing the door on one of the top technical minds in this industry.

I’ve been a bit disappointed by the first two issues of FT, and I know I'm not alone. In fairness, the open-beta for VFP9 makes it tougher for you to produce ‘exclusive’ content – all the more reason to consider ‘advanced’ content along the lines of what John offered. Things like this certainly do not increase my confidence that FT will return to the 'glory' days as far as strong content goes.

As for the "earn the privilege"...I'm very curious to know your terms for this. Given your responses to John thus far, it appears that some of these 'conditions' might involve things that I, as a reader, don’t care about. And even if John WERE this horrible monster that so many attempt to make him out to be (which he isn’t)…if the guy has something worth saying in FT, then he has something to say.

The fact that John made some brutal statements about recent FT issues is not lost on me. He takes approaches that I and many others don't. But he's up front about everything. And though I might have used different words than he did, in general I agree with the observations he made.

I’ve followed John’s articles for years (his books, his Devcon sessions and whitepapers, and his FoxTalk articles). He and Rod and someone else (Talmadge, I think) authored one of the better (and under-rated) VFP books. As one of your subscribers, I personally feel that John has MORE than earned the right to be considered for publication in the magazine for which I pay $139 annually.

David, from the periphery, my take on this is that your reasons for your decision are because you felt strongly offended by his comments on FT, and because you felt John might have been too 'controversial' because of his past comments and reputation. Am I correct on this?

If that assessment is incorrect, if there are additional reasons, I as a subscriber am interested in hearing them.

Kevin