On Announcement (Blog: Doug Hennig)

Microsoft's Announcement

From the blog:

I remember Ken Levy's response at various conferences when asked what was going to be in the next release of VFP: "what features do you want?" Invariably, the answer was "I don't know". I honestly can't think of any new feature I want in VFP that must be in the core (ie. VFP9.EXE). The things I want, like new UI components (such as the Office 2007 ribbon), can be created using VFP code, GDI+ calls, or ActiveX controls without touching the core.

More:

...as long as it continues to work on any future operating system Microsoft chooses to release (and there isn't anything special in VFP that would prevent that from happening any more than there is in hundreds of thousands of other applications), I'm fine. I can continue to develop VFP applications for at least the next 10 to 15 years, at which point I'll be ready for retirement. In other words, if I choose to do so, I could use VFP for the rest of my career.

More:

To me, dead means I can't buy any more licenses so no new staff could legally use it and there'd be no support available for it. I'm willing to bet that, like me, you've never or rarely contacted MS for VFP support, because the support available from the VFP community is so much better, faster, and cheaper than what you can get from MS.

More:

The future of VFP is on CodePlex, in the VFPX and other VFP-related projects. We as a community can continue to enhance VFP through shared source projects. Just look at the extremely cool projects available there now. Add to that the entire set of components in Sedna and all the other things people can create and you'll see that there isn't much limit to what we can continue to do with VFP.

Finally:

It comes down to using the right tool for the right job and making decisions that make sense for your business and your customers.

From the comments:

It is not so much about changing the core to add new features (more built in control over process threads would be nice) but allowing VFP to coexist with future version of Microsoft software and operating systems.

It is almost a given at some point there are going to be changes to the API that VFP simply will not be able work with.

...Furthermore SQL Server is a great backend for FoxPro. There are no gaurantees VFP will be able use future SQL data types and it will fall behind in it's SQL implementation and to the best of my knowledge SEDNA will not be able to address any of these issues as these types of changes are made at the core level of VFP.

I really do not forsee performing any new future development in FoxPro because for the above stated issues.