I came across an annoying post in the Wine-users discussion board which I monitor from time to time dissing VFP as usual and I've posted a reply. The message "annoyance" and my response reads as follows:
I think I made a mistake on the supported until date however, but what the hell! http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.emulators.wine.user/16486/focus=16487 Hope both Whil and Paul don't mind my response Matthew Reed said: > Microsoft has made it quite clear that you can't run VFP applications on > non-Windows operating systems. They have in the past, and probably would not > hesitate in the future, to sue people that do so. Also, Visual FoxPro is > dead and is at the end of it's life cycle. Don't waste your time learning > it. Mathew, please get your facts correct. 1. Microsoft didn't say to Whil Hentzen or Paul McNett that he couldn't run VFP on wine. They simply said that VFP runtimes could not be distributed to run on a "non windows platform". They didn't sue or take legal action against either of Paul or Whil, simply stated the previous fact and asking the protagonists to consult their lawyers re the Eula. The VFP Eula is no different to the EULA on any other Microsoft product so running any other Microsoft produce COULD incurr the same response from Microsoft. Unless you have very deep pockets though, or get sponsored by a large organisation you wouldn't want to take the chance of M$ taking you to court, so that is the current situation. 2. VFP is NOT a defunct or dead product. The next release of Sedna will in fact be supported until 2014 by Microsoft and the main additions to an already "complete" language will be interoperability with the .NET framework, be it V1, V2, V3 or any of the future versions that are going to manifest themselves - just how long a shelf life do you need, especially seeing as how my applications from the non windows dos days can be simply compiled in the current version and run NO PROBLEMS. To me, that shows a mature sophisticated package with many years life not a dead product. 3. VFP Developers probably have at their disposal the best desktop application development language bar none and we have had it for a many years. It is the rest of the application development languages that are now playing catch-up with VFP - take the LinQ project for instance. Where do you think this idea came from - VFP of course, and who are the chief developers in the project - well non other than the main architects of VFP. 4. The VFP users/developers out there haven't given up hope of being able to run VFP apps on Wine completely. In fact there is no problem in developing using VFP on Wine as that doesn't contravene the Eula at all - the stumbling block is the distribution of the runtime files with the finished application, but in time, Microsoft might change their stance. In which case, look forward to the best desktop development system appearing on a desktop near you and blowing the socks of the competition. In conclusion I really do wish that you guys out there in "ra ra development land" would take your heads out of your backsides and realise that there is more than one way to skin a cat. Regards Dave Crozier _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
