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Microsoft to Open Source FoxPro

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the better-than-the-circular-file dept.

rah1420 writes "Microsoft has announced that it will open-source the core portions of the Visual FoxPro DBMS software to its CodePlex community development site. At the same time, Microsoft has announced that it will no longer be making new versions of the FoxPro DBMS."

3 of 172 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Open source is not a verb by aapold · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm glad we have someone to grammar our articles.

    --
    "Waste not one watt!" - CZ
  2. Re:Umm, still no by sweatyboatman · · Score: 5, Informative
    The article is vague and misleading. Alan Griver (who heads Microsoft's VFP team has been talking alot on his blog about it). Here's the straight-dope...

    How about open sourcing the core product too?
    We've been asked this for years. That's not going to happen. The main reason is that there is too much intellectual property in the VFP core codebase.


    That seems pretty definitive to me.

    For clarification: Sedna (the stuff that's going into CodePlex) is not now (nor was it ever intended to be) the next version of Visual Foxpro. It's just a set of VFP-based tools intended to help current VFP developers to make better use of new features in Vista/SQL Server/etc...

    Meanwhile, VFP 9 is getting a final service pack and then that's it as far as Microsoft is concerned. There's certainly no plans to open-source the IDE or the VFP engine because, frankly, Microsoft would never do that. Some of the technology (and people) from VFP is going towards the LINQ project, but .NET is still a long way from offering the kind of streamlined data-oriented programming that Foxpro offers.
    --
    It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
  3. Re:glad to see foxpro dead by dheera · · Score: 5, Funny

    This is probably a money-making plot on Microsoft's part. They will "open source" it, but then when you read the million pages of fine print, you find out that it isn't open-sourced under GPL, but instead, they'll probably rather put it under one of their own crafted licenses that says that if you modify and redistribute and portions of the code, you must include the string "I like porcupines" and a link to the Microsoft homepage.

    And then when someone does redistribute it like other source code (without reading the M$ license), they'll sit quietly for about 3 or 4 years, while this person's redistributed code becomes ever more popular. Eventually, it will become incorporated in digital cameras worldwide, database software that drives the next Google, and your next-generation toaster.

    Approximately 1 year after that happens, and $1 billion have been made off the redistributed code, Microsoft will sue for not following the license. They will cite the fact that "I like porcupines" is not in the code and that a link to the Microsoft homepage is not included. They will complain that the lack of a link to Microsoft will have decreased Vista sales by $3 billion (because, naturally, the price of their OS is probably 3 times that of the code in question). They will demand the profits, win the case, and said company will have the option of either paying the legal fees, or being bought out by Microsoft.

    On another note, "open source" of itself does not always mean "free to redistribute", it just means you get to view the source.