Another method for supporting FSUIPC and Pete Dowson

[lefteris 70]

Gents-I've been reading along, and have been trying to come up of a better way to support Pete with FSUIPC, as a commercial developer whose product will depend on his excellent utility!We all know that Pete's contribution to our hobby has been more than generous for the past few years. We also know that he's chosen the donation route as a means of supporting his work. Having done that, he's acknowledged (in his own words) that "Please be aware that contributions do not actually entitle you to any extra service from me -- I will try to support everyone equally in any case. But you will earn my gratitude as well as help continue development. I hope that will be reward enough!"As such, he remains a loyal participant of the "faith system", whereby he simply has faith that his audience will come up to the challenge.Why do I mention the faith system? Well, by using that, he does not have to prove to anyone that he's supporting equally those who have paid as those who haven't paid. It's worked well in the past (look at the Linux world!) and his persona certainly has the ethos required.Could I, then, propose that commercial vendors who depend on his FSUIPC actually also (try to) subscribe to such a faith system, by adding a couple dollars to the purchase price of any (newly == from this day on) developed commercial software, stating (and being ONLY ETHICALLY bound) that the extra couple $$ will go to Pete Dowson? This way, we, as commercial developers, act as collectors of a significantly-sized portion of Pete's proposed donations that would otherwise (due to laziness, boredom, or disagreement to the idea) be completely lost.I know all you nay-sayers will have millions of reasons why this could turn against developers ("how are we assured that you're raising the price and actually GIVING the extra amount to Pete?"). Well, you're NOT assured. But if you really think about it, you weren't assured before, either. You have to simply have faith (the faith system, remember?) that we, as developers, will honor our word and show our respect to Pete, the way we really would like.You could also have a grudge against this for another reason: "Why don't you, as commercial vendors, not simply pay Pete what you like for what he's giving you"? Well, we could, and we will, should this method I propose not work. I believe, however, that my proposed method might actually end up showing Pete the value of his work in a measurable, countable way (as in, "Hey Pete, we sold about 20 million copies of our 737NG, so you get the extra $2 per copy as promised, so you can now retire". - I wish ;-) ).Anyway, I just wanted to propose this to other commercial developers who depend on FSUIPC, so we can open up this discussion even further.Last word: Please consider this as a means of constructive conversation - I did not have to propose it, nor will I personally gain anything by doing this... so whoever didn't wake up on the right side of the bed this morning, direct your flames to /dev/null instead! ;-) You can certainly disagree, but do so in a respectful manner, please!Cheers,

[Guest emergency_pants]

That's a pretty good idea. In software development that I've experienced, the cost to the consumer for 'goodies' or 3rd party 'components' included with purchases is hidden. Any monies tranferred to the developer of said components is private. (It seems a bit odd that this issue has gone quite so public).Take something like Apple Quicktime. All the software apps that my company produces comes with a copy of QT on the CD. That's because it's essential for the correct function of the software. Apple is a big company and, pleasingly, all they require us to do is splash a nice, big full-screen logo on programme exit. (Apple then gives the user an option to upgrade to QT Pro, which isn't essential to the running of any programmes or playback of any QT video, but does enable them to possibly receive some funds). That wouod be an option to mr Dowson, incidentally (i.e. publish a free, basic version for bundling and a pay-to-upgrade system). We don't kick up a fuss, we just do it... and if they DID require us to make a payment for it, we WOULD because it would be unthinkable to put out a product without such crucial functionality!So what if Apple put word out, today, that everyone had to buy QT before it would work? What percentage of consumers do you think would buy it? Not as many as they would like to think, I'm sure. And I'd hate to think what impact that would have on the Multimedia industry as a whole. As it is, Apple are a responsible company which wouldn't do that to people and wouldn't want that kind of bad PR. Are you listening, Mr Dowson.I wouldn't buy it, for one. I would expect it to be included in any product I used that needed it. If it wasn't bundled, I wouldn't buy the product.... it would be incomplete. No great loss. To me. Your idea is a very good one. Using a faith system ensures that Mr Dowson gets financial reward and it also keeps a community spirit in the industry. After all, I think of the FS industry to be something of a 'cottage industry'. Close and friendly.Commercial Software developers are responsible for ensuring that their goods are bundled with everything required, to function correctly on a DEFAULT system. Otherwise they'd be up in the fair trade office in no time. A payment made to Mr Dowson for his software to be bundled makes commercial sense to any developer. If I were a FS developer, creating a commercial product which relies on FSUIPC, I wouldn't think twice about paying for it, if I were asked.To go back to the analogy, we include QT on ALL our products, because we simply don't know who has it and who doesn't and if it were a cost to us, we would either incur it as part of our company fixed costs, or pass the cost on to our clients or customers. Simple.It's a mountain out of a molehill.If Mr Dowson needs this product to be purchased, It is my opinion that the direct cost goes to the company which produces software requiring it, whether that be a faith payment or a fixed price. Whether or not that cost is passed on to the final user is up to the seller to decide. Either way, lets face it, it's not going to be very much cash.That does make freeware developers in a bit of a pickle, but perhaps Mr Dowson would be kind enough to put out free OLDER versions for freeware developers to use in their hobbytime or maybe even a cut-down version which a customer can use to upgrade with a small payment.Cheers Lefteris and all.Simon.

[lefteris 70]

Simon-that's a good response. Thanks!I also thought of another potential pitfall for this, which in my opinion could come up by naysayers:"Hey, PMDG, two days ago, I bought another product, which also requires FSUIPC to work, and the developers of that product also had a similar system to yours, whereby a small fraction of the cost was targeted, openly, towards FSUIPC. Why do I, as a customer, have to buy FSUIPC twice, because two different products want to use it?".I don't have a valid answer to this, except that it's such a tiny additional amount of money we're talking about, for the individual customer (the purchase price of the software itself is tiny as well), that viewing it from the customer's angle, I wouldn't mind (as a customer) to pay twice for it. Some people, though, might object to this.Opinions?

[Guest emergency_pants]

Really very small indeed. If a product sells 5,000 copies and Mr Dowson requests