Well, you aren't going to believe this...
Not only was the constructive criticism in my blog well received at Microchip, I got a call this morning from none other than the Microchip CEO Steve Sanghi, thanking me for the blog and raising the issues. He pointed out a few factual errors which was fair enough, but admitted they could have done the PICkit 3 better and most importantly are working to fix the issues and give customers what they expect.
They will also be posting a video response to my blog, so I'll link this when it becomes available.
Any other huge multi-billion dollar corporation probably would have got their lawyers to give me a dressing down, if they cared at all, but Microchip really do care about their products and will happily take constructive criticism. I am absolutely blown away by their honesty, and it starts from their CEO down. Two thumbs up to Steve Sanghi and Microchip!
Yes, the standalone programmer software will be back, and the source code and PICkit3 firmware will be open source again.
No doubt I'll do another blog on this.
Dave.