In a previous thread, #13467 "NO way, NO thanks...gates.to", that was subsequently locked, were posted some issues that we would like to address. This post refers to that thread and we hope you will take the time to read our response.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Dear Sirs,After having seen so many misunderstandings, we think it is time to clarify them all and once forever.Adware: paid / unpaid?The concept is that the program is either used for free with ads or paid for without ads.This was said in the gates.to site (and anybody could have read it), but apparently not clearly enough, so the texts are being rephrased in a more explicitly way; our thanks to the critics for highlighting this communication deficiency (if more obscure points remain, please let us know and we will try to further improve the descriptions).This concept seemed to us a decent way to allow everybody to use the program for free, still generating some income to support further development (and ourselves). It is adopted in many widely used programs, like Eudora, Opera and many download managers, apparently without great concerns from the users.The alternative is simple:

I didn't participate in the thread, although I am familiar with it and read what was going on there.I want to commend you for coming into the forum and making a statement. Recent developers and Simming sites have had their products or practices questioned, and rather than participate in an open dialog like you have chosen to do, they've chosen to hide in the shadows and threaten members of our community for carrying misconceptions that all human beings are capable of having in the absence of dialog.Anyway, good luck with your product, and I applaud you for being brave enough to tackle such a sensitive issue considering the long thread that was posted.Regards,John

Thanks for bringing your perspective to this forum, Ugo.Here's the problem I have with your product... some may erroneously call it spyware and/or adware, but the bottom line for me is that the advertising would be stealing resources from my machine while I sim. It's the choice of each of us what add-on's we want running with the sim (weather, navigation, etc.), and we must then accept that those add-ons will use resources, but I wouldn't use any add-on that would use perfectly good and precious resources to scroll some ad across the screen.I recommend that you just make the package payware. Simple as that... if folks see value in it then they will buy it. But to try cloaking it as "freeware but one only need to accept the ads" is not healthy business practice. In the long term such a philosophy will not serve you or the add-on you wish to bring the community.You wrote: "In any case, the user will have the choice: fed up with the ads? Buy the registration and they will disappear!"Of course the third option is to not use the add-on at all, and then the arguement becomes mute.Regards,Greg

Good point Greg,As Jeroen pointed out with Winzip the other day, packaging it as fully functional but with a nag notice or advertising can cause an apathy where those using the product never buy it, and those considering the product never try it because of the mistrust caused by this style of packaging. As a vendor I could explain as much as I wanted that such concerns were nothing, but people still make their decisions based on events of the past. Still I am glad to see a developer with the courage to discuss things one on one with the community--it's so refreshing in light of recent threads and notices that have popped up on developers and sim oriented sites. Glad to see this team has more courage vs. the total absence of courage shown by other "teams".

Greg, John,it is always nice to talk to the final users. We did it in the past and we will continue to do it in the future.No need to hide for us as we always try to be as clear as possible and to make our users happy.About releasing FSNet as payware we have not yet taken a final decision. My previous experience showed that giving the opportunity to try a product makes the user more confident on what he is going to buy and how it will work on his system. Moreover this clearily show how much we trust what we are doing: which publisher - knowing his product is not a so good one - will offer the opportunity to try it before buying it?!I can tell you we decided to adopt this system to let anyone trying FSNet as long and without limitations in the functionalities. We could have been programmed a time-limited or area-limited mechanism, but we felt it was not a good idea to invest resources and possibly delay the relase just to implement such mechanisms. We can easily show adware messages using the same code we have to develop anyway to show other program messages. Thinking about resources, we decided to leave the majority of the workload to our server.However, after having read your comments, I guess the best option for us will be to run a poll at our site to see what the majority of users think about and then to take the final decision.Let me invite both of you and everyone else interested to talk about FSNet to our forum at http://gates.to: doing this will help us in serve all of you better.Finally, thank you very much for your comments, I am happy to see that there are people with positive intentions, not hiding themselves 'behind a finger' (as we use to say in Italy).take care,Ugo Grandolinihttp://gates.to

Hallo, since the poll is not up yet: Trial or demo versions have become rare amongst the FS addon software due to the additional code work they require. I would definitely welcome the ad-supported version and try the program myself rather than trusting the reviews of others. If the choice is up to us, I can see nothing wrong with this.

At first I also was outraged by this. How could someone sell ads to appear on my computer, blah, blah, blah. BUT, now that the developer has come and posted, explained his situation and actually started a discussion, I'm looking at this in a new light. Not many developers are willing to do so (except of course, PMDG, the guys at Ultimate Traffic and a few others). Also, the ability to try it before you buy it is astounding!! So what if you get a little ad coming across, purchase the product, it ceases. I applaud all developers that do this!! It allows those of us in the "virtual world", remember we can go to a store and touch the actual products, to try these products out.

Ugo & Maurizio,As the person who started the 'gates.to ad scare', I would just like to say thank you. In my original post, at the beginning, I said, "If I'm reading this all wrong then tell me so I will stand corrected." You have been willing to step up to the plate and explain in better detail what you are doing. I was excited by your product, but discouraged by what I found on your site. You were willing to come out and clear it up.Please except my sincere apology if I have caused you any harm or undo mounds of email.

Dan,apologies accepted! :-wave We understood the explanation at our site was not clear enough, I will put more care when preparing descriptions in the future, specially on hot-topics likes this ;) Anyway, if we got that thread (or a copy of it) posted at our forum we were able to answer within 24/24 hours. We spotted this thread just because jeffyen let us know about, but it was to late for us to answer as, by the time we were ready to post, the thread was already closed.As we are so busy in this project, we simply cannot visit the millions of FS related forums so please in the future, post a copy of any question to our forum as well.Thank you very much and have all a great weekend!

Ugo and MaurizioThank you for your detailed explanation which I totallyaccept.I saw nothing wrong in the way you were trying to bringFSNet to the market place, but I understand the concernpeople had.If FSNet does what you indicate it will do, then I seethis as a must have addon to FS2004.Bring it to market and I will buy it.