FR is built on proprietary software, and was well ahead of what Microsoft provided when FR was founded.
But the problem being discussed is an encoding issue that requires some level of software engineering — yet another issue that demands financial support. Times are tough. The quarterly FReepathons are going long. And I’m not complaining, but I’m having a hard time making my quarterly obligations.
Despite the encoding issue, We must keep in mind that there have been no recent performance issues. If I’m not mistaken, FR made a recent capital investment in new equipment to support the demand.
The level of software engineering required to fix this is about two (2) hours’ worth of work. You could hire an American developer to do this for a couple hundred bucks, or a foreign freelancer on Upwork to do it for $50.