Haha, I am imagining all of those "Academic License" owners shutting the curtains and locking the doors. The NSA are coming to get ya, lads :lol:

What do you guys think?

 

If you want to know if proprietary software is sending data without asking for permission, just check what's going on... It's very easy with tools like Wireshark. Reading the EULA can also give you hints about this. Lockheed Martin is a US weapons manufacturer, so if it's true (big uploading activity, webcam, ...), I suppose they have to gratify the desires of the NSA like every US company.

 

If you really want to know what your programs are doing, then only use free open-source software you can compile, just like FlightGear.

 

X-Plane is also sending data, to Laminar Research, but only http requests like this one:

 

GET http://x-plane.com/_lookup_10_/server_message_10.txt HTTP/1.1
Host: x-plane.com
User-agent: X-Plane 10.25r1-3-LIN_64bit

 

It's anonymous data, useful for the customer to get informed about updates, and it helps Laminar Research to know the platform their customers are using: Linux, Mac OS, or Windows, and if they are using the 32-bit or 64-bit version.

 

It's not a secret. Ben already wrote about this:

http://developer.x-plane.com/2014/01/x-plane-platform-breakdown/

 

 

So that's what the black helicopters over my house are all about, who would have thought it?

 

LOL they're coming to check up on your "academic" credentials  :p0303:

 

Whatever you do, don't look entertained!

 

 

the 757 Professional now with a discount of 50%.

Which 757 is this ;-) ?  The FF one is solidly at 100%, no discount what so ever.

 

On the topic, the falacy of P3D 2.1 is that one will be able to preserve FSX investments with it.  The truth is that you will need to spend money buying licenses again, tweak again and pull your hair out with all the add-ons again.  I have all the ORBX stuffs, and FSDT and the like with FSX, the trouble with these is that they look good but in my case has a performance hit with complex planes, so I ended up  disabled them anyway.  My FSX stays as is, with close more than 1000 $ invested in it.  Now I use it strictly for PMDG and the the Mustang.  But I have not touched it for close to a month now, not enough time to do complex flight anymore.  With HDR on, my home airport looks pretty close to real life, so I use it for GA flights.  I don't even care about ATC and AI, if LM fixed the goofy GPS and the distance blur bug, plus provide better hooks for weather I will be happy.

This is the 757 Alex is talking about. http://store01.prostores.com/servlet/x-planestore/Detail?no=538

Same one?

Like airport buildings and a global warming world? But hey, at least ya can get to where your going.

Haha, I hate winter and have no problem with green warming  ;-)  I do care about seasons and they will come eventually.  Check out TrueScenery for what winter may look like.  It's not like XP can't have seasons textures, LM just did not get to them yet.  Who knows may be REX will.

This is the 757 Alex is talking about. http://store01.prostores.com/servlet/x-planestore/Detail?no=538

Same one?

Yes.  Ah just like car, I bought it a month after it came out with a special 10% discount. talking about depreciation!.  I should have waited heh?  It's a good plane, go at it.  (p.S. apparently the discount is for selected .org customers only)

 

 

 It's a good plane, go at it.

 

I've been on the fence about getting it but at that price I to jump on it. I haven't had much of a chance to fly it but it seems pretty good. I couldn't get the #2 engine started. Turns out I had a starter failure. Yes, it models failures.

 

 

Which 757 is this ;-) ? The FF one is solidly at 100%, no discount what so ever.

 

Is a promo from the org, I received a mail offering the 757 at 50% discount.

This is the 757 Alex is talking about. http://store01.prostores.com/servlet/x-planestore/Detail?no=538

Same one?

 

Yes, the same 757 Professional from the org, the FF one.

 

 

Yes. Ah just like car, I bought it a month after it came out with a special 10% discount. talking about depreciation!. I should have waited heh? It's a good plane, go at it. (p.S. apparently the discount is for selected .org customers only)

 

Sorry to read that, in fact I didn't want to buy this add-on just yet, but didn't resist the offer... Also don't know how I became "a selected org customer" but indeed a very nice surprise. BTW the plane is excellent, I like it more than the 777.

So that's what the black helicopters over my house are all about, who would have thought it?

Yeah, me too.  I was wondering what those helicopters were as well.  

(...)

What do you guys think?

 

 

If Facebook and Google have been doing that, LM will do so all the more ...

 

 

On the topic, the falacy of P3D 2.1 is that one will be able to preserve FSX investments with it.

 

Quite a lot of FSX airport scenery seems to work more or less fine & generally scenery developers tend to allow use of their FSX scenery in Prepar3d V1 too. 

This is the 757 Alex is talking about. http://store01.prostores.com/servlet/x-planestore/Detail?no=538

Same one?

 

Good plane, just have to remember it's not a 737NG. Seen a few people jump in and complain it can't do XXXXX like my 737NG.

Quite a lot of FSX airport scenery seems to work more or less fine & generally scenery developers tend to allow use of their FSX scenery in Prepar3d V1 too. 

True, but for me why bother?  Re-install, tweaks, tweaks some more and seeing my frame stutters is a game I no longer want to play.  This is why my FSX autogen is at minimal (who needs it anyway if I fly the tubes ;-) In FSX I will be happy if my minimum FPS does not drop below 15 (it's the minimum that matters).  In XPX it never going to drop below 20 for me for a very satisfying visual experience.  These days, I enjoy flying in XPX and work on my converted airports from FSX, at least I can recoup some of the scenery cost for those.  

It took me an entire weekend to reinstall FSX and most of my addons, and then no less than ten days to overhaul and update my UT2 addon schedule database (which did not transfer as well to a new install as I had hoped). This was done because of a stuttering issue that had reared its ugly head, and I am glad to say that the reinstall has solved that problem. However, I would not particularly want to go through this process all over again in a hurry. Since I am not confident that a lot of my addons would work properly in P3D, it makes no sense for me to go down that route. I suspect that I will still have to be very careful with respect to OOMs, but since I am currently enjoying doing nothing more than take offs, circuits and landings at large airports with lots of AI planes active, I don't have to worry about them excessively for the moment.

 

In short.....long live FSX :wink:

 

 

I agree, but I worry that they dont have the resources available to pull something out of the bag quick enough

 

Maybe they just don't WANT to be as competitive as avsim users would like them to be ... if their business model works fine for them, why change it?