FSUIPC 3.0 - The point some people are missing, FREEWAR...

[Guest wathomas777]

Where in God's Name was all this "love" when Pete started taking voluntary donations. I mean if everyone here on this forum, (and I am sure there are others who haven't piped in) who feels that Pete is so 'worthy' of their hard earned dollar, than how come it took Pete to holding a gun against their head to pipe up?I have never ONCE thought that his module was worth $20 bucks. I'm sorry, for what it alone provides, I would never think of paying for it. What others have done with it, There's another story.It's amazing how many of you rush to judgement against all of us who feel that Pete is making a terrible business decision. We have been called whiners, sworn at, cry babys, and the like, at yet I see none of you stepping up when donations were volunatary and taking one for "the team".Money Talks and BS Walks. So far, All I've heard from most of you is BS.I made a point that if Microsoft had done the same with Direct X (also a very "useful" module for us Flight Simmers) that we would all be storming Bill's House. Only one came out and said that I was incorrect, and their reasoning was based on Pete's economic situation. As if that has ANYTHING to do with the way he is arranging his business plan. Somehow It's OK for Pete To Shut off support, or charge for his product or do whatever he wants with FSUIPC, but the same doesn't hold true to Microsoft? And ONLY because Microsoft is "bigger".Heck some of you were crying a river because FS2002 was never patched (GASP!!), How in God's Name could Microsoft not issue a patch!?!. They suck!!! Yet Pete can do with FSUIPC anything he wants to, and no words of dissention from you guys? If Microsoft were to start charging for the SDK for Flight Simulator, you all would claim that Bill Gates is shutting down add-on development and ruining the hobby. Yet Pete can do the same with FSUIPC, and it is a "small price to pay"?Have any of you thought this through beyond the "David vs. Goliath" implications?The second, Pete charges and receives a license fee, his world will turn upside down. Because developers are now "paying" for his services, they can also hold him in breach of contract or worse, should he fail to deliver a "bug fix" by a scheduled milestone.Pete can no longer turn to the community and say "Hey, don't complain, it's just freeware". So when a hardware developer or software developer doesn't make a ship date because of a milestone that Pete did not make. There will literally be hell to pay.And if 5, 10 15 developers all pay their "fee" to license FSUIPC, then how do you provide priority to the bug list. Which ones do you fix first. And how do you tell Developer A, that you are fixing his bugs first over Developer B? Is it first come first serve? Based on Severity? Based on how many units out there?But hey, Go Pete! We're all behind you.I've given up. Most of you fail to provide logical answers to questions I have, and then resort to personal attacks against our character. Be that as it may. You have your opinion and I spent 10 years in the US Navy defending you right to it. So be it. I'll revisit this in 3 months or so, after the full effect of Pete's decision is felt, and will see how many change their tune. And if I turn out to be completely wrong, I will be happily wrong. However, if you are wrong, none of you will be happy about it.Will

[Guest]

Gentlemen,Let's all remain calm about the situation and look at it from various angles rather than "taking sides".For one thing I am personally eternally grateful for the many hours of joy with FS that Pete Dowson HELPED to provide with his FSUIPC interface, and thankfully we have so far been able to enjoy it for free. Pete on the other hand has put in hundreds if not thousands of hours work into this baby of his and deserves a lot of recognition and applause for that.Pete's decision to go commercial with FSUIPC is one that I can personally understand, yet that does not mean I particularly like it. But as I said I can understand it and respect Pete's decision. Remember he is the author of FSUIPC and therefore holds every right in the world to take the decision to do with it whatever he pleases. The users on the other hand have no right whatsoever to demand anything.... Think about it how you would feel if you had provided something for free and are faced with demands that sometimes are not even formulated politely.Now for those people that argue that he now holds the freeware world at his mercy I must say that this is complete nonsense. Any freeware, or payware developer has in fact the possibility of creating his own FS-interface, bundle it with his creation and distribute it to the community without having to ask Pete for a key in the first place.Pete is only asking those that wish to use his FSUIPC instead of creating their own to apply for a key. He has strongly stressed the fact that genuine freeware will get the keys for free and that shareware and commercial developers will have to pay a royalty fee. Can't be much fairer than this in my opinion.In fact I believe that we will see a lot of this happening in the future as developers may be more inclined to create a specific interface that cators to the needs of their add-on rather than using Pete's generic FSUIPC.Who knows maybe somebody comes up with an even better FS-Interface. Pete for one thing has certainly opened the door for the development of another FS-Interface and has put himself with his decision to go commercial with it under immense pressure because he will have to constantly improve his interface and make sure it's the best in order to remain in the market. Not an easy decision to take either.My 2 cents worth concerning this issue.Happy flyingRalph HummelStaff ReviewerAVSIM Online

[ErnieAlston 33]

>I have never ONCE thought that his module was worth $20 bucks. I'm >sorry, for what it alone provides, I would never think of paying >for it. What others have done with it, There's another story.I think if one makes a list of all the application that we have now (or had in the past) that would not even have been created were it not that FSUIPC was in existence then one would come to the conclusion $20 is a bargain. So IMO it has always been worth $20 or more.However I do think that once you make that decision to give something away for free. You have to live with that de-vauation of your product. If you later on decide to go payware, you should not be trying to get income on what you had earlier decided on your own to give away for free. To go payware after being freeware does mean that you must provide significantly more value added functionality than what was in the free version, and this I do not see in FSUIPC. The extra features are rather miniscule for the asking price of $22. It is as if you are paying now for what was given to you before for free. I have no problem with Peter going payware, but I do wish there was significantly more new functionality than there is.In my case I donated earlier, so the decision to buy is a non-issue for me.>The second, Pete charges and receives a license fee, his world will >turn upside down. Because developers are >now "paying" for his >services, they can also hold him in breach of contract or worse, >should he fail to deliver >a "bug fix" by a scheduled milestone.I disagree, It will be like any other software. The developer is under no 'legal' obligation to fix bugsOf course if he wants repeat customers or maintain a good reputation for support he should be prepared to fix the most serious bugs. Regards.Ernie.

[Guest BC_KBOS]

Well, the idea of selling my stuff on e-bay is pretty silly. I would never recoup my investment, so the 35 bucks paid to Pete is the better deal. Aggravating, sure, but I have to protect my investment. And I have to go the extra yard because I use WideFS. Gee, I wonder what Schiratti is doing? Gotta check that one...Seems Will and me are on the same page, that we got something supported by a manufacturer who later changed their integration procedures and now we have to pay for that change. In this particular case, the user should not be penalized for a business decision made by the vendor.Remember, the PFC stuff was not initially compatible with FS, PFC later created their OWN .dll to make it function in FS and they marketed it that way. When they figured out Pete could do a better job, and he did, they went to him and nobody complained as nobody would have ever expected what is now happening to actually occur.Now, PFC, who profited by Pete's work by using his module to make their hardware work in FS, are walking away from their support of the product by making the users purchase an "after market" product to make their product work in FS.Sure, you have to buy a computer to use the stuff, you have to buy an operating system, you have to buy the flight simulator.That happens to be back asswards.I didn't buy my PFC console and then say "Gee, I have this really cool console, I better buy a computer so I can use it!"The console was an ADDITION to a working, pre-existing configuration. An enhancement, not a requirement. I bought the console because they said it would work with FS. And it does, thanks to Pete.That the .dll delivered by PFC was less than perfect is not my fault. That they had to get Pete to sort it out for them is not my fault. That they decided to not attempt to fix their original .dll and throw in completely with Pete IS NOT MY FAULT.If, when I initially purchased this product, there was a disclaimer that FSUIPC was required, well, OK. But there wasn't. I am probably repeating myself, but there are so many people out there who are missing the point. It's a matter of principle.It's the "well, you bought FS2004, so what's the big deal about another 20 bucks or so?" thing they posted on their site. If they had claimed economics, it would be too expensive to absorb the cost, or we are a small company, or ANYTHING except that condescending, elitist line.I was already set to buy Petes' full license FSUIPC. Not a problem, I don't really care. But I would have thought that the PFC guys would have AT LEAST gone for the freeware deal of making their product compatible with the freeware FSUIPC. They chose not to and theirin lies the rub.Every argument/debate has a hole and some have pointed out that the thing works fine with FS2002. Well, this thing started with FS2000, with backwards compatibility with FS98. A precedent was set when the product was made to work (at no cost) with FS2002. Lifetime support with a trend of supporting newer versions should equal no problems. But Pete finally got his back up and here we are. sighI'm going to stop babbling along, with this quote from the original FS6IPC readme file. A lot of people think that Pete invented FSUIPC. He has done a bucket load of work, and he most assuredly deserves equal bucket loads of credit for the furtherence of the module, but the thing started with Adam Szofran, and his original intentions were for the module to be freeware, as indicated here:"Redistribution Terms--------------------FS6IPC.DLL is FREEWARE, and:* MAY NOT BE sold.* MAY NOT BE uploaded to, nor archived in, BBSs which charge file download fees.* MAY NOT BE uploaded to, nor archived in, BBSs which are partly or wholly beneficially owned or operated by a commercial enterprise which is engaged in the sale of computer hardware or software.* MAY NOT BE redistributed with computer hardware or software for which money is charged.* MAY NOT BE redistributed by a commercial publisher in any form or under any pretext. This prohibition includes but is not limited to floppy disks and CD-ROMs distributed with magazines or books.* MAY NOT BE redistributed on floppy disk, CD-ROM, nor in any other printed or electronic storage form for which money is charged, nor as part of a package for which money is charged. This prohibition includes but is not limited to any form of redistribution for which any type of materials or handling fees are charged.* MAY NOT BE disassembled, decompiled, decomposed, decoded, nor reverse engineered.Subject to the exclusions listed above, the archive containing FS6IPC.DLLmay be uploaded to BBSs and otherwise redistributed on a FREEWARE basis aslong as the original compressed archive and its contents are not modifiedin any way.THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS to the redistribution terms stated above withoutthe written permission of the author.Copyright---------FS6IPC.DLL carries the following copyright:Copyright © 1995-1997 by Adam Szofran. All rights reserved"So that is a bit olde, and for all we know, Adam has signed off on Petes' new deal. That's fine. I am only attempting to remind all concerned of the INTENT of the original deal.My, how far we have come.BC

[gosta 0]

>I have not read the announcement, but I wish Pete would just let us buy FSUIPC from him, so we don't have to worry about the various developers doing this, that or the other thing.:).Cheers,Gosta.http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/images/wxrebeta.jpg

[Guest]

>Heck, when Pete can no longer support the fine work he's done>- now THAT'S what I will call a sad day in Flight Simulator>history.>And that's exactly why he decided to go commercial. It was either that or stop development.Pete spent a lot of money and time on FSUIPC, and both have now run out.He can either go on with FSUIPC if he gets reimbursed for the effort, OR he can abandon it and get a paying job doing something else in the time he'd gain (as I understand it he's not fully dependent on the imcome but it's getting ever harder scraping by without).

[Guest wathomas777]

Thanks for that. I wonder if FSUIPC is truly an original work or if it is a "reverse engineered" version of FS6IPC?Wouldn't it be ironic if all this fuss was over whether or not we should pay to support a piece of pirated (albeit highly modified, but still pirated,) software.I am not saying that Pete pirated FS6IPC. I am saying that it would be most ironic if it was found out that he did use FS6IPC code to base FSUIPC on.

[rcbarend 37]

>And that's exactly why he decided to go commercial. It was>either that or stop development.As I pointed out in another thread, Peter had a third option: pass on FSUIPC to another freeware developer, like he took over from Adam. (I'm sure there would have been volunteers if he had asked).But he obviously didn't choose for that.Which, by the way, I fully respect, because that's his decision and his alone.Rob

[jcboliveira 1]

"To go payware after being freeware does mean that you must provide significantly more value added functionality than what was in the free version, and this I do not see in FSUIPC."I don't agree. Just the fact of making FSUIPC working in FS2004 is a tremendous added value. What remains the same is the interface not the program.Jos

[Guest BC_KBOS]

Well, I'd avoid the use of the "P" word. FSUIPC was definitely derived from FS6IPC. When Adam decided to stop working on the module, the torch was passed on to Pete. I'd have to say that Pete has probably done way more work on the module than Adam did, but that's neither here nor there.In reality, if you put so much time into a project, would you be willing to just give it away to someone else to carry on? I know that I would have a hard time doing that. It's a tough situation. I do know one thing, if Pete should decide to hang it up, it would be a MAJOR loss to the sim community, and I for one would never want to see that happen.BC

[ErnieAlston 33]

>"To go payware after being freeware does mean that you must provide >significantly more value added functionality than what was in the >free version, and this I do not see in FSUIPC.">>I don't agree. Just the fact of making FSUIPC working in FS2004 is >a tremendous added value. What remains the same is the interface >not the program. Going to FS2004 at this stage of the product life cycle is merely an upgrade.Fairly minor on the value added scale.Regards. Ernie.