The 10-Year Anniversary Event - A Great Initiative

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The 10-Year Anniversary Event - A Great Initiative

Hugh Winters, August 1, 2002

In an appreciation to Microsoft for the 10th year anniversary since the purchase of "Fox Software", Hugh Winters initiated, in June 2002, a 10th year anniversary event which involved the participation of one of the greatest, if not the greatest, developers community - the Visual FoxPro developers c...

Who is Hugh Winters and what is your background?

I'm a computer programmer living in northern California. I do business under the name "WorldData, Inc.". My clients are governmental departments, non-profit organizations and vertical market application software companies.

Over the years I've owned and operated numerous businesses and I started programming my own database applications in order to manage my accounting, marketing and workflow. My first efforts were in dBase II C/PM (circa 1981) I stayed with the dBase line through to dBase III+ before I upgraded to FoxBASE around 1988.

What kind of consulting does your company offers?

I really enjoy building applications from the ground up. It's there where I feel my creativity and problem solving abilities shine. I've built everything from web-based applications (using Active FoxPro Pages and some West-Wind Web Connection) to stand-alone desktop applications. I've done my share of conversions from FoxPro 2.6 to Visual FoxPro and I've even hacked on older 2.X DOS apps.

It's amazing the number of FoxPro applications that are out there quietly serving their users.

Would you like to tell us your history/involvement in the Visual FoxPro community?

As you can imagine I've gotten more active in the last 2 months! :) My first Advisor sponsored DevCon was in 1983 and as I recall, Drew Speedie and George Goley and Steven Black proceeded to blow the top off my head with their presentation of Visual FoxPro 3.0!

I guess Michel could tell you with more certainty but I got fairly involved with the Universal Thread somewhat early on. (For those who keep track my membership number is 3438 -if that means anything). Back then I wrote some utilities and posted them to the download section and I answered as many questions as time permitted. The learning curve in the FoxPro 2X to VFP3.0 days was steep and much help was needed. Since I was a participant in the VFP3.0 beta effort I had a leg up on the competition, it was my pleasure to share that with the other coders who needed the help.

Over the intervening years I've checked in with the UT and the other (lesser) FoxPro sites and gone to as many DevCons as I've had time. Of course I regularly attend my local VFP SIG and now and again the one in San Francisco.

Recently, you have initiated a great move by involving the community in the 10th anniversary since Microsoft purchase Fox Pro. Would you like to tell us how you got that idea and why you did it?

I don't know why, but sometimes I do a Google search for the keyword FoxPro just to find sites that I may have missed or to make contact with other people who are VFP coders like me. One night in early June I was visiting a site I found (http://www.foxprohistory.org) when I realized that June 2002 was the 10-year anniversary of Microsoft's purchase of Fox Software and the FoxPro product line. Since I hadn't heard anyone else preparing a celebration I thought I'd mention it to Michel to see if he was receptive to putting something together.

Great. That site is Brazilian, just like me. <s> It's good to know that something from Brazil has played some role on this event.

He's done a great job with the site. I think I have some of the original packages from earlier FoxPro releases that I want to photograph and send to him too!

Can you recount the steps in the entire process since the first day up until the last one?

I ran my discovery by Michel and he was immediately interested in hearing my proposal, but he requested that I verify my information. So I shot him back the link to the page on the FoxProHistory.org site that recounts FoxPro's time line. And then for a second verification I called F1 industries (I think I talked to Mike) and asked him if he recalled the time when the purchase of the company occurred and about when he started working as a Microsoft employee. He stated that June 1992 was his best guess as the fateful month.

I don't know if it was Michel or me who came up with the idea to put up a "Happy 10 Year Anniversary" card and invite the FoxPro Community to sign it. But Michel jumped on the idea and he had one up and running in what seems like a matter of hours. I was amazed at his response. He really spurred me on!

Over the next few days or so people started signing the card. First 100 persons signed, then 200, then 300. I created some little banner ads linking to the card and Michel donated some space in his rotation and the number of signers rose to 400 then 500. Then I got lucky and found a mailing list of FoxPro programmers and my ISP was nice enough to do an email blast for me that informed Fox heads all over the world of the event and especially the card. The number of signers rose to 800, 900 then we hit 1,000!

Those were exciting times indeed!!!

I've read each and every comment written by each and every signer of the card. Still to this day I'm overwhelmed by the emotions that come through. People really love their involvement with Visual FoxPro. Literally thousands of people have satisfied their client's and employers software needs, fed their families, clothed their children, built their lives and educated their children as a direct result of their choosing FoxPro as their programming language.

Anyway, I told Michel that since he did such a great job of collecting the signatures that I would take the initiative to get them to the folks at Microsoft. I think it was Michel who informed Ken Levy of this effort in order to obtain proper delivery addresses for the packages we sent. Michel might have also told him about the idea to fly an airplane towing our anniversary message banner over the Microsoft campus. I'm not sure whether Ken was thrilled or frightened by the effort -it seemed like he had more questions for us than we had for him! (Maybe he was experiencing post 9/11 trepidation regarding the airplane towing a banner right over his bosses heads.) But he did finally provide us with the needed information.

So at this point in the effort things were really beginning to fall together. We had more than 1,000 signers, we had the delivery addresses of the people we had promised the FoxPro Community we would deliver their card to and we had a little excitement with the banner towing idea!

After looking at the calendar, I decided that Friday June 21st would be the official day we were going to have all that was to be sent to Microsoft. And once the date was set, Ken started coordinating efforts on his end by informing the right people to be around the campus at the right time. I coordinated with the fine people at Ads Aloft aerial advertising (http://www.concentric.net/~adsaloft/) in Des Moines, WA regarding the message (we could only use 40 letters) and the schedule and once that was set I went about creating the rest of the package.

Over the next few days I created a little "Visual FoxPro & Microsoft" logo and had a few hats and T-Shirts printed, I printed 5 copies of the now 1,149 signatures and had them bound (thanks to Kinko's!). On the afternoon of the 20th all the items were printed and I caught the Fed Ex driver just in time to make the next morning deliver in Redmond.

The last deliverable is a plaque which is still in process.

How do you interpret the high participation, in such a short time, by the community to sign the card? Is this what you expected?

I really had no expectations. The entire process has been one rocket blast of participation. The response from the community was heartfelt and overwhelming in magnitude. But from the pictures that were taken and the letters of thanks that came back, I'd say we did a pretty good job of letting the fine people at Microsoft know how much they mean to us!

In overall, how do you think the community perceived the entire initiative?

I hope they read the comments of each of the 1,149 signers as I have. I hope they know that Michel, Ken and I have delivered their message to the people at Microsoft that make all of this happen for us as Visual FoxPro developers.

I think we all hope that Microsoft accepts our efforts as an expression of gratitude for the fine work they have done over the years and continue to do to this day.

Did you receive many feedbacks during that process?

Michel and I received very nice email messages from both Ricardo Wenger and Eric Rudder. I feel a little embarrassed to receive thanks from them when what we're trying to do is thank them. It's nice to receive their acknowledgement though.

Can you summarize the overall reaction from the Microsoft VFP team and related in regards to that event?

I think everyone involved was pleased. After all, it's not everyday that you get more than 1,000 signers on your anniversary card!

When you first thought about it, did you expect it'd have such a good success (coordination with Microsoft, airplane, feedback, etc.)?

My primary focus was on having fun. I came into this with no expectations whatsoever. If Michel had brushed me off, it would have probably ended with a few emails and maybe a posting or two. As Michel started coming through with things he agreed to do, I did the same and it snowballed. Other than the one deadline this was both easy and fun!

It seems Microsoft VFP fox team and related employees were more excited about all this than the community. <s> They coordinated their lunchtime to see the plane, took pictures, made a small videos and expressed a lot of feedback. How would you describe that enthusiasm?

I'm happy we were able to give them a little boost. They're doing a wonderful job with Visual FoxPro. They most likely worry about the future (with all the negative publicity surrounding VFP). It's obvious that Visual FoxPro is a labour of love for the Fox Team. It's always nice to know you are appreciated for the work you do well.

Not to be mean-spirited, but the guys on the VB Team never received such an out-pouring from the VB community.

That was a great initiative. Coordinating all those activities must have taken a lot of your time. How many hours exactly did you put in that event? <s>

I've never really counted the hours. The entire process was great fun. It just seemed to flow. Working with Michel is a joy. Ken is a great guy and the vendors and suppliers were very interested in what we were doing and why.

That was really a super-production. How did you afford to pay for that? Did you have sponsors, all everything was paid by your own?

What every independent consultant and developer needs to remember is that they are running a business. To stay in business they must advertise. Advertising costs money. The money I spent on this effort was the best money I've ever spent on any effort. Not only did I get to show my appreciation for the fine work that the VFP team has done and continues to do, but I have also gotten to work more closely with great folks like Michel Fournier, Ken Levy and now Claudio Lassala. <s>

What was the overall reason for this event? Was is just to show Microsoft some recognition from a great community or did you have other goals in mind?

I just thought it would be nice to show some appreciation of the efforts of Microsoft and the Fox Team. I know that I have enjoyed the fruit of their labours over the years. Although I was overwhelmed by the number of signers I'm not surprised that others feel much the same way I do about this product.

As they say: "FoxPro Rocks!"

Is this event pretty much over now or there might be some additional topics in regards to it?

Just yesterday I approved the artwork for a laser etching of a beautiful 9"x9" cut crystal glass plaque I will be sending to Ken Levy for placement in Microsoft's trophy cabinet in the main lobby of one of the main buildings.

Also, I've been collecting photos and memorabilia of the event to post somewhere.

And (if it works out legal-wise) I'd like to offer the official 10 Year Anniversary hats and T-Shirts to the local Visual FoxPro Community leaders as an incentive to promote Visual FoxPro in their local communities.

Well, so you meant that those things will be available for local communities worldwide, not just for USA, right? The worldwide community deserves to be part of it.

Absolutely!

It's clear that, with this event, you helped to promote VFP. How do you think the community could help to promote VFP? And Microsoft?

I plan on writing an article on just that topic! There are many things we can do as independent developers and consultants that will help give comfort to the IT community for making the decision to stick with (or switch to) VFP. These ideas are really no secret. The sad fact is that there are dynamics at play that have up until now attenuated the promotion of VFP as the best solution to the desktop IT problem.

I believe that we can create our own dynamics to change that. <s>

Is there anything else you would like to add?

First, I'd like to thank Michel Fournier for everything he has done to make this event the overwhelming success it has become. Then I would like to thank each and every one of the signers of the card we were honored to present on their behalf. Lastly, I would like to thank the vendors and others who produced the materials delivered to Microsoft and the Fox Team. Our lasting sentiments are embodied in their works.

Thanks a lot for this interesting interview

Thanks for the opportunity!

Hugh Winters, Worlddata Services, Inc
Hugh Winters is the lead programmer for WorldData, Inc. Napa, California, USA. He has been programming in FoxPro since 1989 and is a frequent presenter at his local Visual FoxPro SIG in San Jose, California.

Claudio Lassala, Improving
Claudio Lassala is an independent Software Developer who currently works mostly building Ruby on Rails applications. Previously, he has worked for several years developing .NET applications, presented several lectures at Microsoft events such as PDC Brazil, TechEd Europe, and various other Microsoft seminars, as well as several conferences and user groups across North America, Europe and Brazil. He is a multiple winner of the Microsoft MVP Award since 2001 (for Visual FoxPro in 2001-2002, and for C# ever since). He has articles published on several magazines, such as MSDN Brazil Magazine and CoDe Magazine. He started the Virtual Brown Bag meetings (www.virtualbrownbag.com) in 2009 and have been hosting it weekly since then. When not writing code, Claudio is probably rocking out with his band, Descent Into Madness (http://www.descentintomadness.com). In a previous life, Claudio authored and presented several training videos that can be found on the Universal Thread.