Avsim has a product announcement on the front page today promoting new water textures for FS2004 from Flight One Software. They are charging $15 for water texture sets we can get for free, all of which are textures based on Bill Lyons' freeware water reflection textures.I'm sorry but this is a classic example of a commercial entity seizing upon a freeware creation/discovery and trying to cash in - it really irks me. Sometimes corporate greed is unbelievable, sheesh.

I had the same reaction. I guess it news but I don't see how it warrants a free ad from avsim.

Hi, This "product" should be freeware,there is no hack or 20% difference with this product compare to freeware. I am wonder what's happend at flight one standard quality, they are going in the wrong direction, let's not talk about the sky..Sad to see, totally :-erksBestEric

F1 created a new water textures. If they are better then freeware ones, I will surely think about them. I dont have much time, so quick installation is another plus for me. I will wait for some opinions. Then I will decide.Jack

"all of which are textures based on Bill Lyons' freeware water reflection textures."How do you know that? If you are assuming you certainly should be aware of the liability you're putting on yourself.The folks at Flight1 are no dummies... they know better than to try selling another's IP.Cheers,Greg

I agree, you can't make judgements like that without knowing anything about what went into making the product. It will be up to the market place to decide if it is BS or not.

Greg, I didn't infer that Flight1 used the actual Lyons' texture set or any component thereof, nor did I infer that Flight1 violated anyone's IP. I meant, rather, that Bill Lyons created the intial reflective water texture innovation and that I felt Flight1 was commercially exploiting the 'concept' with their own textures based on the innovation of Bill Lyons' original water texture set.It's certainly legal for Flight1 to do so, I am not questioning that. I just think it stinks because of the aforementioned reasons in my earlier post. So you see, no liability on my part. Now, if it were possible to sue someone because they are good looking, charming, irresistable to the ladies, ect, then I'd be really screwed. :)

"Now, if it were possible to sue someone because they are good looking, charming, irresistable to the ladies, ect, then I'd be really screwed."LOLThen I wouldn't have to worry about being sued. :-( Greg

>I meant, rather, that Bill Lyons>created the intial reflective water texture innovation and>that I felt Flight1 was commercially exploiting the 'concept'>with their own textures based on the innovation of Bill Lyons'>original water texture set.>>It's certainly legal for Flight1 to do so, I am not>questioning that. I just think it stinks because of the>aforementioned reasons in my earlier post. The commercial world has too many examples to enumerate of ideas being commercially exploited. That is one of the reasons why we have so many choices. Come to think of it, the concept of flying a heavier than air machine was, so we are told, the innovation of the Wright brothers - look how that has been exploited :-lolJust relax. Don't let these things worry you. Accept that you have the choice to buy, or not to buy, these textures from Flight1 and move on in life.David

When I saw the ad it caught my interest, but when I saw the screenshots, I knew for sure that I have seen better water textures as freeware. This was a waste of ad space in my opinion. Should definitely be freeware. :-grr

>Avsim has a product announcement on the front page today>promoting new water textures for FS2004 from Flight One>Software. They are charging $15 for water texture sets we>can get for free, all of which are textures based on Bill>Lyons' freeware water reflection textures.You could have inferred whatever you wanted (infer = deduce) but you certainly implied quite a bit here.>Sometimes corporate greed is unbelievable, sheesh. Do you realize that behind this addon is not a greedy corporate monster but a real life person with feelings? (One that as I understand it has contributed quality freeware addons too).If you don't like it have you heard of "voting with your feet"? These knee-jerk reactions are not very helpful and add nothing to peoples real perception of what this product is all about.Whether something is freeware or commercial is not for us to decide, it's for the person who has done the work, that's their prerogative. Ours is to buy it or not - pretty simple hey?Here we are sharing the same hobby, supposedly being brought together by it and all we do is rip into each other - very sad.

I agree that the choice to buy or not is up to us as consumers and that any company can sell whatever they think can bring in money. On the other hand I welcome posts that show us simmers alternatives. :) There is no "ripping into each other" done by pointing out that one can find an alternative to payware. The original poster didn

I have to agree, I really don't see the point of this addon. Whilst I don't doubt that whoever has done it started from scratch, I can't see anything in the screenshots that makes it more attractive (or even significantly different) than the various freeware sets out there. Maybe if it had better water landclass possibilities (like there was in CFS2) or new coastlines or something, but as it is the weirdest thing to me is why someone would even bother to put it out?Have funFinn

Hi Guys,Sorry to hear that you are not at all interested in our latest product. Unfortunately you have gone a bit far (in my opinion) on some of the comments.This product had absolutely nothing to do with Bill Lyons textures. Any attempt to say that it does is completely off base.Peter Wilding, the author of the award winning PWOver15 water textures came to us with this product and asked if we would be interested in publishing it. We agreed. Thats it.Peter has done an outstanding job on the product and gone well beyond his previous freeware textures. A bunch of new textures were done for the product, as well as new sky textures (which are stunning), and Flight One built a slick interface for quick and easy installation.Best Regards,Tom MainFlight One Software

"Peter Wilding, the author of the award winning PWOver15 water textures came to us with this product and asked if we would be interested in publishing it. We agreed. Thats it."Aww, shucks... you mean there was no great conspircay? The government wasn't somehow involved? Could it be something as simple as a regular, everyday generic business agreement?Comeon, Tom, you just have to juice it up for the Enquiring minds. :-) Hoping to see more screenies of the package,Greg