"Something that is free has no general value."

 

Straight off your post.

Congratulation, that is what I said!

Need Freeware for quality control purposes or else payware developers will get lazy. 

Okay, how about this translation...again based on your words.

 

"Giving away stuff that has a general value does nothing but upset the market. A market upset is detramental to quality!"

 

So if I made it and I give it away and people like it I am somehow upsetting the market?  Detrimental to the quality of what? It sounds like you feel that if I am a nice guy and give away a reasonable plane I have somehow undermined the value of a payware product in some way, shape, or form.

 

Perhaps you could elaborate on what you percieve "general value" to be.

A little calm there fellows, please.

 

I make freeware scenery, you can look me up if you would like...some of us who make freeware stuff do so because we can, we have fun doing it, get rewarded by others who tells us they enjoy our work. Further, we do it because we want a particular item or thing added to our own scenery that does not yet exist so in the end others end up benefiting from that free effort.

 

Look up some of my stuff. Most are too small to be able to really commercially do anything with it, but they fill a void where nobody else has done anything and will likely not do anything about it.

 

Freeware does have its place and it's value is not diminished in any way because it is free. Sometimes freeware enhances other commercial products but otherwise there is little or no connection between those who are making a living out of software or hardware addons and those of us who do freeware.

 

cheers

I don't have much freeware either, basically KPHL and some of Max Kraus' stuff. The reason for me is that I only have so much time for flying in a day and with the stuff PMDG and Flightbeam, FSdreamteam, flytampa etc. are putting out I have enough variety that i don't find myself needing other places to fly. And then when i do get ready for something new i find developers like Pacsim who seem to be super under the radar but produce great stuff at good prices. There just seems to be so many well done super detailed addons in FSX its hard to enjoy freeware unless its up close to that standard.

Developing an FSX aircraft takes a lot of time and resources. People want custom sounds, custom gauges, super-accurate flight dynamics, high polygon counts, reflection maps, bump maps, fresnel maps etc. etc. It was different in the FS9 days and earlier when the planes were simpler and took less time to develop.

 

There's still some great freeware. I use SimLauncher all the time. The BlueSky scenery is also great.

 

 

...some of us who make freeware stuff do so because we can, we have fun doing it, get rewarded by others who tells us they enjoy our work. Further, we do it because we want a particular item or thing added to our own scenery that does not yet exist so in the end others end up benefiting from that free effort.

Exactly 100% what I think!

 

I don't have much freeware either, basically KPHL and some of Max Kraus' stuff. The reason for me is that I only have so much time for flying in a day and with the stuff PMDG and Flightbeam, FSdreamteam, flytampa etc. are putting out I have enough variety that i don't find myself needing other places to fly. And then when i do get ready for something new i find developers like Pacsim who seem to be super under the radar but produce great stuff at good prices. There just seems to be so many well done super detailed addons in FSX its hard to enjoy freeware unless its up close to that standard.

Nice to get a mention. :-)

Yeah look I also see less and less freeware out there. Personally I make freeware because 1) I get a kick out of it, it's actually kind of therapeutic 2) it's a challenge and I always strive to learn new things and emulate the payware guys and 3) it's great to get emails from random people who thank me.

Take it from me though, a freeware airport done to payware quality and done with one person working in stops and starts when he can find time, combined with researching methods and dealing with setbacks... will usually take 4-6 months.

The bar is rising though. The level of quality coming out now is astonishing like 29Palms, OrbX and FSDT v2 stuff. Really, really staggeringly high quality now.

Nice to get a mention. :-)

How could I not mention you!!! Ive gone out of my way to visit each airport, All are superb.

Take it from me though, a freeware airport done to payware quality and done with one person working in stops and starts when he can find time, combined with researching methods and dealing with setbacks... will usually take 4-6 months.

 

You should charge for it! Even if it is just a couple of bucks. Yea I know its a hobby. Lots of people get some revenue from there hobby and it enables them to pursue that hobby with more vigor and produce better quality. if you spend 6 months working on something of quality and 1000 people download it for free, the same 1000 people would likely happily pay you $2 for it. You wouldn't even have to have an elaborate system of payment. Just state that it is payware in your EULA and ask them to pay $2 to your paypal account. If you like that warm fuzzy feeing you get inside from all those complements you get in your email wait till you get a load of the warm fuzzy feeling you get when $2000 appears in your paypal account.

 

 

wait till you get a load of the warm fuzzy feeling you get when $2000 appears in your paypal account.

 

And then wait till you get that sinking feeling when 2000 punters start demanding support because this doesn't work with ORBX, that doesn't work with UTX, the PMDG causes OOMS.....etc etc.

 

I can perfectly understand why some developers prefer to stay as freeware developers given the amount of abuse that one often sees on devlopers forums - abuse which is more often than not unjustified, since the fault lies not with the developer but with the user.

 

Cheers

 

Ok guy's keep on voting liberal, I will keep on voting conservative.

FSX Basler BT-67

 

'nuff said...

Ok guy's keep on voting liberal, I will keep on voting conservative.

 

Sorry but you just don't get what freeware has done for this community. Some people DON'T want to make money off the fs stuff they create.

AVSIM is "freeware"... Are we dead too? Does that mean I can go fishing and enjoy my retirement? I can? My wife is going to love this next phase in my life.