FSUIPC and WIDEFS to become payware.

[russellj 2]

Straght from Pete Dowson's forumhttp://forums.simflight.com/viewtopic.php?t=7199RegardsRussell Jourdain (NZL007/ZK-RHJ)

[Flyer Ken 0]

Well, good for Pete Dowson. He deserves to make something for what he does. FSUIPC is an amazingly useful piece of software, working away in the background. I made my own thottles, and they wouldn't work properly without it.

[Guest A321]

I did not make a donation to Pete, because I knew this would be the out come. I will be the first to buy once he has sorted it all out. I would like to say that if pete had of decided to keep it free/donation ware i would of certinly made a donation of

[kerosene31 349]

I have no problems with it as long as the price is reasonable. He deserves to be compensated for his hard work.

[briansommers 74]

yeah good for him, i would have done this loooooong time ago if i were him, ill be the first to purchase thisciao!Brian S

[someone 0]

Honestly I don't use any of the features of FSUIPC, except what is required by some of the freeware and payware things I use. I disable all the features that it enables by default. My joystick calibrates just fine without FSUIPC and I do not understand why everyone reccomends using it to calibrate their joysticks.I don't understand why FS doesn't have whater FSUIPC has that is needed for third party apps to talk to and control FS.

[Tom Allensworth 1,532]

>>History teaches us that this thread has the potential to go into the pooper pretty quickly. If history repeats itself in this thread, our mods will relegate it to the pooper as fast as you can say 'corn cob'. So, please... let's keep it civil, adult, and rational.

[Guest]

I fully agree with you on this. Mr. Dowson started his series just for the "heck of it", for fun. Now, some programmers base some aspects of their applications on the functionalities provided by FSUIPC and other of Mr. Dowson's programs.This creates a captive market where some applications might not work properly without this exterior resource. Bummer! :-violin

[Guest]

:-hah :-hah :-hah :-hah :-hahhttp://forums.avsim.com/user_files/16314.gif

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Since I and several other developers knew Pete was headed in this direction, we've been working on alternatives so at least some types of freeware packages can continue to be developed and used by the community without any additional cost. There is no replacing the functionality of Pete's work, but I am at least satisfied that Pete can succeed, and we also can succeed as freeware developers. I hope those who use his product for purposes other than add-ons do support him, and I hope he rewards those who've donated to him by waiving any fees that he deems appropriate. My firewall blocks the link, so I don't know what specifics he offers, if any at this early stage.So going into this "sight unseen", good luck Pete!

[Guest Timbo]

Same here. I really don't use FSUIPC for anything except for add-ons that require it. Hopefully companies that use it will develop an alternative to make their product function, because I won't be paying extra for it.[table][tr][td rowspan=2]http://timbo87.home.attbi.com/sig/valiant.gif[/td][td]

Tim Pinkawa

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Alpha Sims Texture Artist/Panel Designer

Tims FS Studio]

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[Guest SoarPics]

The amount of development work and support time required of Pete certainly deserves compensation. For those who think that his work going payware is unfair, they can simply not spend their money on his products. We each have that choice.Regards,

[gosta 0]

Hi Tim,I don't think it would actually result in a higher price. All add-ons appear to be within a standard price range, presumably because that's the price the market supports, and generates the best revenue.However, if the price were to rise, it would do so, whichever option the developers choose. They could either spend more time on developing an alternative (for which they would like to be compensated, I guess), or pay a small licence fee to Pete Dowson, which would save them a lot of time. Either way, the outcome is the same.Cheers,Gosta.http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/images/wxrebeta.jpg

[John_Cillis 2,406]

"don't understand why FS doesn't have whater FSUIPC has that is needed for third party apps to talk to and control FS."FS does have that. FSUIPC is simply an interface (albeit one with a lot of useful features) that talks to FS. How does it do it? Close to the same manner that a gauge does. But his interface offers more than a gauge--I believe Pete works his.....off, researching the ever changing offsets required to read and write FS2002's internals.Payware companies owe Pete--and who knows--perhaps Pete has collected from them. Those who depend on his product, and haven't paid him anything should, as their profits are based on his work.Freeware authors--we're left in a bind. We don't want to tell our users that they have to purchase a third party product. But wait a minute--isn't that what's required in order to use a repaint for a Dreamfleet work, or Flight1, or Eaglesoft? You have to look at it both ways.So we're working on alternatives--modules we can drop into FS, and use to support our applications. And, we're having some success. Anyone can talk to FS--you just have to know how to make "it" listen :)

[John_Cillis 2,406]

"This creates a captive market where some applications might not work properly without this exterior resource."The way I look at it now, all my users are required to purchase FS. They ARE a captive market. Consider FSUIPC just another feature of FS, same way we have FS2002 Standard and FS2002 Pro. And I don't have any sympathy for payware vendors that based their work on Pete's.