On www.filemaker.com They say:

>we're making the FileMaker 6 product line available until September 17, 2004.

What will happen after? Is it going to be freeware?

Now, why would you think that? Does MS make Office 2000 or 2002 freeware when they released version 2003?

Wim.

If the product line won't be available, how will I buy further licenses of FM6 after that date?

If it will be not possible, then I'll have to convert existing installations (every client), server and every file to 7 in order to extend the number of installations?

It seem that FM7 doesn't open remotely FM5 files served via FMServer. I'm wrong on this?

(Off course I don't expect FM6 to became freeware altrought it would be nice and would be Filemaker's proof that new features justify a version upgrade)

Paolo:

I imagine FMI will still sell you licences after that date - unless they've decided to emulate Microsoft's business model - probably what they mean is that they will stop shipping the boxed version of FMP6...

And yeah, FMP7 is an entirely different beast from what FMServer 5 is serving, so my understanding is that FMP7 is really being released now so that we developers can re-develop existing solutions now, then deploy them when FMS7 comes out in a few months...

-Stanley

There are a lot of installations that are still running Mac OS8/9 machines which are too old to upgrade to OSX. They won't be able to run FM7. I have a couple of clients in this situation. If they need to add more seats to their existing database, they will be SOL unless they can buy more licenses. I think FMI's policy is to continue selling licenses to customers who already have a site license. If there is no existing site license, there could be a problem.