> > >...
> > >
> > > Here are the lines from the MVP home page that I believe have already posted before:
> > >
> > > Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) are exceptional technical community leaders from around the world who are awarded for voluntarily sharing their high quality, real world expertise in offline and online technical communities. Microsoft MVPs are a highly select group of experts that represents the technical community's best and brightest, and they share a deep commitment to community and a willingness to help others.
> > > https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/default.aspx
> > >
> > >...
> >
> > > --
> > > Eric den Doop
> > > www.foxite.com - The Home Of The Visual FoxPro Experts
> >
> > Maybe so, but then why is it that MVP's are always related to a certain technology and not as-is?
> > How come that, looking at the MVP awardees list I see all awarded persons listed under a certain technology? Doesn't that tie the award to a technology? Maybe I still understand wrong and maybe the information, given in, let's say, a VISIO related community is of the same value for a person who seeks C# information. In al honesty I ask, am I missing something here?
>
> What's your point? What you are missing here is the true definition of the MVP Award. Yes, it is tied to a certain technology, but the 'rules' do not say anything about an MVP being required to "take his shirt off and fight for the existence of the product they stand for.".
>
> >
> > To be perfectly clear, I do NOT doubt that you are dedicated to VFP. Otherwise this very site (to name just one example) would simply not exist. Just to refresh your memory, I am just as dedicated both towards the site as well as VFP.
>
> You don't have to refresh my memory. I have never stated that you are not dedicated. You, on the other hand, questioned my dedication only a few posts ago (http://www.foxite.com/archives/0000125693.htm)
>
> > Remember the time the site was moving from Texas to the Netherlands?
> > I do recall that the server has been runing a while from my home till late 2002, on a server I bought. My sole motivation was because at that time you were about to give up on foxite, a site that was valuable for many persons at that time already.
> >
>
> I don't see how this relates to the discussion about my not needing VFP10?
> --
> Eric den Doop
> www.foxite.com - The Home Of The Visual FoxPro Experts

I hope and pray that you understand what I say here. It is, under no circumstances meant as an attack on you personally. I explicitly say this so that there is no misunderstanding about this.

Maybe using the word "dedication" was wrong chosen, I did apologize for that already and I will do so again if you are still angry about that. Simply the lack of other words made me choose this word. If there is another word to what I try to describe I ask the native speakers to help me out here.

I remember one MS Employee saying: "I ask you to help Ken (Levy) with creating a bigger, better and more succesful Visual FoxPro community..."

You are right that, in the rules as described by MS there is no such thing as Take off your shirt and..."

For me the DESIRE to help out outers and to share information as good as one can do comes from within. Hence my actions in the past, hence my actions in the future. THAT will not change.
This is called drive. This drive, for me at least, makes me want more and better in any way related to a certain technology. In this case VFP.
This same drive is what I hoped to find from MVP's, regardless of the technology. maybe my projection, so be it. I now have the feeling that this is not so.
Your remark that you do not need a version 10 (or 11 or 12 or 2007 or whatever one could call it) is what triggered this for me.

Apperantly the need for new versions with newer possibilities and better productivity, the deep felt burning longing and looking forward to new possibilities has nothing to do with desire to help others, has nothing to do with the will to grow with the help of a certain product.
Love for a certain product and to put that product on the map, so you can be more succesful, has nothing to do to be as good a help to others.
Is that what you say?
Mind you, I ask this in all honesty, I am now totally puzzled.

Call me stupid, naive, shortsighted or whatever, but I felt this burning desire in me from the moment I found VFP3, buggy as it was, it still was very promising, it was the first step to where we are now. I still feel this burning desire within me. It fills my mind, my thinking, my actions.
Appearantly this same desire makes me a pain in the *** to many.

We have had many conversations on the subject of MVP and you of all persons know my burning drive towards the product as well as the burning need to tell others about the true value of the product.

This MS employee I spoke about in the head of this posting was Steve Ballmer BTW, at the launch of VFP7. I have tried to do my share... and "becoming better" means, having the desire to grow. always... MS seems to have forgotten about those words and is now plain and simple trying to kill this community by pulling the plug.

Boudewijn Lutge®ink
http://www.vfpdevelopers-online.com
There's a light at the end of the tunnel, let's just hope it is not the headlight of a freight-train.