Another end of an era

[Guest Dan CYKA]

Sad to see the front page today announcing the long standing FSUIPC is becoming payware. (You knew this post was coming didn't you) I must send a sincre thanks to Pete for all his hard work in the past, and I look forward to even better things in the future from him.There comes a point in any hobby that things change and not always the way we would like them to. For the serious simmer we knew that this was going to happen at some time. I feel that we were on borrowed time with Pete's stuff, for some time now. In this particular case I can see only good coming out of it. For the "general" simmer this is not a big deal. Open the box, slip in the disk, fly the plane, somewhat. For the serious hobbieist, you know that with growth comes cost. Try being a ham radio operator. (That reminds me, HONEYYY, I need some money to buy a radio soon.) There's a hobby I'd like to try.The only questions I have are,-Will the first pay edition be freely supported with updates for the life of FS2K4? -What new and exciting things can we expect in the first edition?So anyways, thanks Pete, and here's to you. :-beerchug

[Vulcan 14]

I agree Dan, it is a sad day.I had hoped enough simmers and producers would have put their hands in their pockets so that Pete would not have to go payware, but that's history now.I wonder what sort of taste that leaves in Pete's mouth?I know I would not be pleased if I had spent all that time developing and supporting an add-on (of any kind) and when crunch time came found only a handful of users prepared to help out with costs.My concern now is that others develope a similar module and we end up with a number of incompatible modules.Thanks Pete for your hard work and support over the years and I hope the payware version does as well as the free one did, you deserve it.

[Guest]

From what I read in Pete's messages (both public and private) he came very close to pulling the plug and stopping development altogether.The childish way in which people have treated his request for donations (and the flaming he's getting now that he's been forced to charge for it, something that's happened before with the MAAM R4D package) would be enough to get most people to pack in and leave (personally I would do so, and take the code with me so noone can continue my efforts).