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>Actually, anybody can create standalone tables and manipulate them without a FP development license.
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>But it is a trickshot, not really a useful business proposition.
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>We need to be realistic about your suggestion as well. Creating dotNET apps using a text editor and a command line interface?! That's a cool idea in 2004!

There are visual IDEs available as shareware.

>And are you advocating that neophytes can get MSDE installed and immediately functioning as easily as a FP table? Mom-and-pop outfits will have no difficulty at all, right?

No, I don't expect mom & pop to install MSDE and configure it, the same way I don't expect them to do it with VFP. It's the job of the installation program to set things up in a way that will be useful. For the most part, mom-and-pop are not going to create their own database apps. Those that do will be more likely to use Access.

>I see that somebody has produced something called "VistaDB" for dotNET- simple distribution, small runtime and license-free distribution being the main attributes. Sounds somehow familiar... ;-)