rk4th

Sorry - I didn't really have time to finish everything I wanted to say, and it came off harsher than I meant! There appears no way to edit your own posts... Anyway - It is fine to argue your case as an interested businessman. I have no problem with that at all! However, if the value criteria involves some of the principles that Mr. Bailey raises in this thread, then he and NI seem morally equivalent, and I don't understand the sky-is-falling argument. The definition of "open" has many better defenders than I; it seems that in our corner of the world, open could mean either "extensible by 3rd parties" or "open-source." Some flavors of Linux are "open" as meant in the second definition. LabVIEW, Visual Studio, Matlab, etc, are all equally "open" as meant in the first definition. An individual company owns each of these packages. If you really believe that Visual Studio is truly open, while LabVIEW is not, then simply consider the changes Microsoft made from VB 6 to .NET. Ask anyone who had to rebuild lots of applications. Every new version of a product has a few new tweaks that need to be accounted for, but this was pretty extreme! MS did do its best to help customers with the transition, and the changes very well might have been worth it. However, the point must still be made that this kind of move shows that there are definite limitations to how "open" Visual Studio is! To respond to John's post... I think that you can get into VB for less than a grand, but with definite limitations. And finally, I forgot to point out... I also dislike Dr. B. If you are going to go cheap on drinks, do NOT skimp on the Dr. Pepper! It is worth the full 35 cents a can! Several folks have some great sites on such Dr. Pepper clones. Dr. B. is sold at HEB. http://www.fakedrpepper.com/drb.html http://www.fakedrpepper.com/main.html However, my problem with Dr. B. is the atrocious flavor, not bullying, so I am confused....

Simulink will just be adjusted so that it doesn't violate the patents in question, and life will move on. You chastise NI for using the same tactics you are using. I find this either hypocritical - if you truly believe the principles you present. If you don't really believe these principles, then you're just another businessperson, one who happens to want to displace LabVIEW. Is SoftWIRE truly open, or just free? Post where we can download the source code.