I divide freeware in four big categories:

- aircraft

- liveries

- sceneries

- AFCADs

 

Let's see them one by one:

 

- aircraft

I haven't seen any aircraft so far that is both complicated enough and accurate enough to be worth of my time. I want my aircraft to "breathe" like living things. To be real.

 

- liveries

Now here is the exact reverse situation. We would never have so much fun flying our advanced addons, if we didn't have all these (100s) marvellous pieces of arts (liveries) from the community, for our advanced (PMDG, Leonardo, LevelD, FSL, etc.) addons.

 

- sceneries

Again here, by far, the UKBB scenery shows to everybody how things should done.

Then, come the 4 excellent airports by Max Kraus.

 

- AFCADs

How could we have accurate and updated airports without Ray Smith, Menno Robert, Anwar Gonzalez etc.?

 

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.

No, I do get it. But part of what I am saying is if you are passionate about it and you get good at it you ough to start charging money for it otherwise you will not be able to sustain your activity and you will waste your talent and your experience. Ask the CEO PMDG. Better still ask his mother!

No, I do get it. But part of what I am saying is if you are passionate about it and you get good at it you ough to start charging money for it otherwise you will not be able to sustain your activity and you will waste your talent and your experience. Ask the CEO PMDG. Better still ask his mother!

 

Why can't you accept that some people do things for the pure joy of doing it, whatever their personal motivations are? Why should they charge just because you think they should? When you put money into the equation, what you started doing for the pure joy of it, becomes something else. I know... I was a hobbyist photographer. In the 70's I made that into a business. That ruined the joy of it for me. It took nearly 30 years for me to pick up the camera again. Let it be.. People are going to do what they do and for whatever reason they do it. And I can tell you; there are many commercial organizations in our hobby today that were started in the freeware domain. Majestic Software and the Q-400 come to mind.

Avidean, on 14 May 2013 - 09:25 AM, said:

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

I think you got that backwards since I am conservative and agree with not charging. I have done both freeware and commercial both in this community and other communities. While It is great to get paid for developing, it is not much fun spending time on support especially since my day job is in retail management and I get real tired of whiny customers (and employees) all day long.

 

I have so many sceneries that are 70-99 percent finished that will probably never be released for lots of reasons. features not living up to public's expectation/ my own expectation, finding the time to do the readmes and packaging (hate that part!!), finding trustworthy beta testers to make sure there are no problems, finding hosting sites since lots of my work involves really high def photoreal tiles and the file sizes are up there, etc, etc. I have quite a few airports that are close to OBRX quality and I have thought about selling them, but I really don't want to deal with the support aspects on it, then again I don't want to design for anyone where I don't have full control of every aspect of the design process and features, lose/lose all the way around, LOL.

<p>Fine I will leave it alone but I firmly believe that you all have it wrong. God forbid anyone disagress with you guy's. The fact the question was asked in the first place supports my argument.</p>

I was honestly hoping that some freeware developer would start creating high quality VC's for FSX native freeware exterior models but no one ever bit. Back in the day, there were a ton a great 2d panels out there that could be merged with exterior models. While a VC is great, a awesome 2d with side views would do the trick is FSX allowed 2d cockpit views.

3D cockpits are a whole different kettle of fish, and require a huge amount of effort to model, not something you take on if your intending to do something of high value.  There are some who do 3d cockpit but as you likely know they are not too detailed and kinda boring to the good payware stuff.

What does that have to do with freeware? Unless I missed it I don't think anyone mentioned political preferences here.

 

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

Well, speaking from the alternate universe of XPlane- there are a GREAT number of freeware add-ons available at present, which is a great way to start for those migrating over to the dark side from FSX.

 

There are several concerns about X-Plane- not the least of which is the airports are 'blank' (no buildings) with the possible exception of KSEA, the demo area. This brings up a huge market for developers, both paid and freeware alike.

 

I myself found myself 'redesigning the approach lighting' for KSAN (San Diego, Ca) due to the displaced thresholds at both ends of the one and only runway. The renowned problem-landing on 27 means that the threshold of that runway is 1800+ feet from the physical start of that runway, the same issue on a smaller scale on the opposite end, runway 9, about 400 feet offset if I remember offhand.

 

When I got the KSAN airport as freeware, virtually all 3 versions available for download (the default XP10 airport with no buildings, plus 2 different freeware versions) had the approach lights raised up above the runway surface, instead of set flush and inset into the runway as they are in RW. This meant totally unrealistic lineup and departures off both ends as you literally had to dodge the approach lighting before you could take off, and of course issues with the landings too.

 

It would be embarrassing to say how challenging it was merely to redesign inset MALSR (rwy9) and MALS (rwy27) inset approach lighting-- it gobbled a ton of hours. I had no choice, no one ELSE was going to do it... so I did. Went to the FAA website and got the lightbar array layout and distance dimensions for each row of lamps... and let's not forget the rabbit lights on the MALSR runway. Measuring the distances off in XP10 WED Scenery Editor 1.2 Beta was no can of corn either! All that aside, it was a thrill once it was done!

 

One of my favorite airplanes is the x737NG in XPlane, which is freeware as well. I just am so very used to the PMDG NGX, the XP10 offering is a shadow of the beauty that is PMDG. OTOH, one is free, one is not. Truth be told, I'd pay $100 for a NGX from PMDG that worked in 64-bit xPlane. Right now. Today. Sigh. It's just that you want to dance with the girl you love the most, and the NGX is one thing I truly miss from FSX.

 

That said, I'm overall very pleased with the xPlane 10 platform, warts and all. It can and will improve over time, and sooner or later, the big dogs (Aerosoft, FSDreamteam, ORBX, etc, will likely put together some offerings... I believe much of the European scenery in XP10 is from Aerosoft- at least the major airports that are part of the Global pack.

 

Freeware allows the budget-minded to tinker and improve their sim experience with no out of pocket cost - and let's face it- some people do have to live within a budget! So I think freeware is important for many ways - but by no means do I think freeware alone is going to be found on most people's sim platform. The attraction of the must-own software (and hardware too) is simply too powerful.

 

I agree with Tom Allensworth though, there are a great number of folks who want to 'give back' to our hobby and not hold their hand out for money... and thank God for Avsim, what a wonderful place to exchange ideas and share tech tips!

<p>Fine I will leave it alone but I firmly believe that you all have it wrong. God forbid anyone disagress with you guy's. The fact the question was asked in the first place supports my argument.</p>

 

Please leave God out of your uneducated obsession with economics as some strange pseudo religion.

 

You tried coming in here and blabbering about "the market" and when everyone proves you wrong you pull out the persecution complex card. You didn't even need to proclaim your allegiance to conservatism, it was obvious in your writing and actions.

To be honest - none of it made sense either in relation to how markets work, economic theory or conservatism

 

 

Please leave God out of your uneducated obsession with economics as some strange pseudo religion.

;

You tried coming in here and blabbering about "the market" and when everyone proves you wrong you pull out the persecution complex card. You didn't even need to proclaim your allegiance to conservatism, it was obvious in your writing and actions.

Everyone, lets leave politics out of this - that's the last thing I want to see on a flight sim forum!

<p>Fine I will leave it alone but I firmly believe that you all have it wrong. God forbid anyone disagress with you guy's. The fact the question was asked in the first place supports my argument.</p>

 

 

It doesn't support your argument at all. Developers  won't suddenly decide to start developing "freeware" because they can charge $2 for it.

 

What you also fail to realise is that once you start charging for a product the rules of the game change.

Further to Robert's commemts. X-plane 10's freeware in many cases is incredible and getting better and better as certain individuals (i.e. Frede and Chris K) improve their technique (which is already awsome btw). I never bothered much in recent years with FSX freeware as compared to Orbx etc. it usually doesn't offer much or is a pain to install (with exception to KPHL and a few others). I do appreciate the work of freeware providers and still think it's an important part of the simming universe. What I never understood though is why the tools to make scenery are not simpler to use. I understand making aircraft is more complex but scenery tools should be made more straight forward in both FSX and X-plane.<br /><br />Now with X-plane, I check the freeware offerings each day on X-plane.org and Simmon W's reviews on xsimreviews.com (also now on Aerosoft News). I would suggest that AVSIM offer an X-plane freeware library as I think that it will gain momentum going forward as more people migrate to X-plane 10.

Never heard of him.... but met Freeman yesterday and he is doing well.

I would say no.

 

Here's what I use:

 

- A huge fleet (5 GB) of AI aircraft courtesy of AIA, AIM, DJC, FAIB, HTAI, OSP, TFS, UTT and all the repainters involved

 

- Hundreds of AFCADs made by Ray Smith and Menno Robert

 

- KPHL from SunSkyJet, UKBB from InterSky, and OLBA from LeborSim

 

- Real Moon