The writing is done! CrysDev: A Developer's Guide to Integrating Crystal Reports is almost done too. I submitted the final chapter to the tech editor earlier this afternoon. All but four chapters have gone through copy edit. Soon I'll have the galley proofs. Those are actual hard copy pages of what the final book will look like. Watch this site for progress reports and Hentzenwerke.com for ordering information.

It looks like all the posts and rumors are true. Wrox press is gone, it's parent company having filed for liqudation bankruptcy. If you're like me, you have shelves full of the red books. When I heard the news, I rushed out to my local bookstore and picked up two books I've had my eye on for some time, "Professional Crystal Reports for Visual Studio .NET" and "Professional UML with Visual Studio .NET". In past years, the quality of Wrox books has slipped abit while the price has gone up considerably. Wrox bet the bank on .NET and released some very early books and after .NET was released, they published lots and lots of titles. At the same time, APress has started turning out some great books and the quality of Microsoft Press books as gone up. Even so, I'll miss Wrox press. I'll miss the big red books. To you Wrox authors, thanks for the hard work and efforts you put in.

One of my favorite authors is Orson Scott Card. He was the first person to win both the Hugo and Nebula awards in the same year. Then he did it again the next year too. If you've never heard of these awards, they are science fiction equivalents of the Oscars and Emmies.Scott is best known for writing "Ender's Game", a wonderful book about a boy who becomes a general in an intergalactic war. (Yes, I call him Scott. I met Scott about ten years ago when I lived in North Carolina. We attended the same church there.) Work is finally proceeding on a movie based on "Ender's Game". It's still three to four years out, but I'm excited by the prospects of this movie, especially because Scott once told me that an "Ender's Game" movie would probably never be made. If you've never read any of Scott's work, "Ender's Game" is the book you should start with. You can also find excerpts of some of his other books and writings on his web site, < a href="http://www.hatrack.com">Hatrack River.

Last week, SCO filed suit against IBM for $1 billion for misappopriating Unix trade secrets and using them in Linux. IBM, of course, will vigorously fight this suit. And, the suit is causing ripple effects throughout the Linux community (http://news.com.com/2100-1016-991622.html?tag=fd_top). However, when you peek under the hood, it should come as no surprise that this lawsuit was filed. SCO is bankrolled by none other than Ray Noorda, the man resposible for making Novell what it is today. Novell, under Noorda's direction, also filed several lawsuits against Microsoft for prohibiting Novell's growth. It was under Noorda's leadership as CEO when Novell purchased Word Imperfect for a HUGE amount of money to fight Microsoft tooth and nail on every front. Noorda also was instrumental in Novell's purchase of Digital Research, the publishers of DR-DOS. Another Noorda company later took ownership of DR-DOS and subsequently sued Microsoft for trying to force them out of business. (For the record, this suit was settled out of court a couple of years ago. My response at the time was "Who cares? DOS isn't used anymore.") There are other Noorda-financed companies that have filed lawsuits against bigger rivals when they felt they were threatened. So, are we surprised by this latest lawsuit? We shouldn't be. It's a common theme in companies run or financed by Ray Noorda.

Last week I blogged my feelings on changes with the Visual FoxPro 8 upgrade license. I've been thinking about this license since then and what it means to upgrade and I've changed my thinking on this. Upgrading software means that you replace the old with the new. In this sense, the terminology in the new license is correct. In fact, if you go back and read older licenses, they imply the same thing, but it isn't clear cut as it is now. The new license is correct. If you need multiple versions side by side, buy the full version or better yet, get an MSDN subscription.