Since this matter is of great economic consequence to me, I wrote these notes as I'm struggling to adapt to deal with what amounts to an existential threat for my business.
The crux of the problem is that the day will come when some change to the Windows environment, through maintenance or a replacement product, kills running VFP applications. This situation raises these issues/questions: 1. Will this actually happen? 2. What are our options? I think most will agree the answer to 1 is "yes, it's only a matter of time". The answer to 2 is where it gets interesting for people who are heavily invested in VFP and aren't in a position to consider re-writing to another language. Options include: - beg MS for a fix (as, for example, current problems with SP2) - sue MS for a fix - hope we've already converted to something like Guinea, which is able to implement a fix - run our apps under an older OS with VM - shut our customer applications down and go out of business Sometimes I think about the last option, but truth is that I love the work too much to ever stop. This has been an Alice in Wonderland experience for me, and it just keeps getting better and more interesting. Unfortunately it's not profitable enough yet, but the mechanics are in place, it's functioning properly in the field, and can be copied for pennies. Now it's ready for the so-called 'multiplier effect' to set it. Of course it takes a huge investment (For me, it's been like climbing Mt Everest) to get to this point, but it's nice being here and I'm not about to let MS put a gun to my product's head. Some weight in this case comes with the very nature of the product involved. VFP is a software product development system, a language that programmers learn and then spend great amounts of time writing, testing, documenting and implementing, not to mention marketing. The irrefutable implication is that "in for a penny, in for a pound" because there is no way to invest just a penny. Therefore, buying into this type of product comes with significant and very expensive baggage. This character is unique among categories of software products and must be weighed as such in this case. Related: - the crisis clock doesn't start ticking until 2014, 7 years from now, give or take. That's a long time in the software world, and a lot can happen between now and then. Perhaps, very hopefully, Christof will be ready to handle most existing VFP apps by then. Even if we have to make some minor revisions to our code to support his work, that's maintenance and not a show-stopper. - we do have the VM option. This might be interesting as it involves installing an older OS on customer machines to support the model, which MS is going to want license fees for. So the vendor doesn't pay MS, leading MS to sue the vendor. The vendor fights back by saying that MS shot the vendor's application dead - and then held a gun to the vendors head to extract the cost of the OS's to get back running again. Isn't that some form of robbery? Conclusion: To get back to work on VFP products and not to worry because *something* will happen between now and 7 years to either allow our products to continue running, or someone will invent a translator into a new and greatly superior language. _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** 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.
