Microsoft to release FoxPro 'Sedna' as Shared Source

At the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Summit in Seattle this week, Microsoft officials shared Shared Source news with the Visual FoxPro faithful and other attendees. The latest: Microsoft plans to release by the end of this summer the Foxpro "Sedna" bits as Shared Source on its CodePlex code-repository site.

Sedna is the set of add-ons to Visual FoxPro (VFP) 9.0 that will enable integration with Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server 2005 and Windows Vista. Among these add-ons to Microsoft's VFP data-centric programming language are .Net connectivity, Team Foundation Server (TFS) support and desktop search capabilities.

Microsoft plans to release Sedna in its entirety by the end of the summer; it may release some pieces of it earlier, company officials said on March 13.

Microsoft released to testers a few Community Technology Preview (CTP) test builds of Sedna, starting last year. A number of VFP enthusiasts have been working on a parallel project, known as VFPX, or "SednaX," dedicated to developing open-source extensions to Sedna.

Microsoft is not releasing the VFP core as Shared or open source, said Alan Griver, group manger of Visual Studio.

"The core of VFP stays with Microsoft," Griver said, as a number of the VFP principles and technologies are finding their way into other Microsoft deliverables, including the Language Integrated Query (LINQ) technology that will be part of Visual Studio "Orcas."

Microsoft will continue supporting VFP through 2015, as planned. Microsoft has said there will be no VFP 10.0; 9.0 is the end of the Microsoft VFP line, in spite of the fact that there remains a large and vibrant FoxPro user base.