A recent thread regarding the VFP9 EULA is generating a lot of heat in the Chatter category here lately. The following response is what I posted to that thread today. However, I wanted this to stand out more than just some other reply to that tedious thread.

OK, let's look at this rationally. My original reply poked fun at this, and I think we need to look at this at the proper angle. First, here is the part of the EULA in question:

4. SCOPE OF LICENSE. The software is licensed, not sold. This agreement only gives you some rights to use the software. Microsoft reserves all other rights. Unless applicable law gives you more rights despite this limitation, you may use the software only as expressly permitted in this agreement. The software is engineered to allow you to use it in certain ways. You must comply with these technical limitations. For more information about them, see the software documentation. You may not:

* work around technical limitations in the software,

* reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the software, except and only to the extent that applicable law expressly permits, despite this limitation,

* make more copies of the software than specified in this agreement or allowed by applicable law, despite this limitation,

* publish the software for others to copy,

* rent, lease or lend it, or

* use it for commercial software hosting services.

First, and foremost, "the software" is for the most part going to be the VFP executables and DLLS. It is NOT the applications and executables YOU develop using VFP. Looking at the entire context of:

You may not:

work around technical limitations in the software,

reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the software, except and only to the extent that applicable law expressly permits, despite this limitation

it is talking about hacking into the VFP EXE and DLLs. Notice that I have bolded the word LIMITATION in both of those statements.

In short, this is a NON-ISSUE.