To Pete Dowson

[Guest Dan CYKA]

I just want to thank you for your time and effort in the past years for FSUIPC and the other products you have produced to make my hobby all the better. When I first started simming as late as FS2000 I had a great time just using all the default planes etc in FS2K2. It was amazing at what this thing could do and where I could go. Through the forums etc I learned about a neat little program called FSUIPC. Well I soon learned that FSUIPC was no little program. I could not believe the complexity that this rather large work of art held. To top it off it also amazed me that many of the payware add-ons were only able to make money because of your freeware add-on. I wondered at how long before this Pete guy would go before he started to ask for a little support for his add-on. FS2K2 came along and I figured for sure FSUIPC was going to be a payware add-on now. Still nothing. WOW this guy is good. When COF was announced you decided that it was your turn. I apprichiate the fact that you made your announcment long before COF was released. There were no surprises. I also like the fact that if I want to still use my FS2000 and FS2K2 I can still do so with the previous versions of FSUIPC just fine. My biggest wonder is how come MS has not come and asked that you join their design team.:-hmmm Again, thankyou for your hours upon hours of hard work to improve this great hobby. If it was not for your efforts I would not be able to use the piles of other freeware, as well as payware, add-ons out there for my sim. It is a very small price to pay to keep you going and improving what we have come to take for granted.

[rickalty 0]

All I can say is "Amen" to those sentiments. I just wish everyone else felt the same.Unfortunately, I suspect we are currently using the last version of FSUIPC. Some people got really upset at Pete's decision to ask Payware developers to pay to access his program. One well known Freeware development group got so upset in fact (I really don't understand why - they are Freeware developers, and it is of course still completely free for their applications) that they have now released a free alternative to FSUIPC so that Payware sellers can avoid paying a FSUIPC license fee. As Pete explained when going Payware, his situation was such that he had to either A) Get a job, which meant he would no longer have time to devote to FSUIPC, or :( find a way to make FSUIPC produce some income. Now, with a free alternative to FSUIPC available to Payware authors, I suspect they will use that, while most freeware authors will for now continue to use the more widely distributed FSUIPC. (I'll be honest - for my FSPanel application - freeware - I didn't even consider connecting through an alternative to FSUIPC) Since it's not therefore going to be able to generate much income fro Payware authors, Pete's "option B" will vanish, and so, perhaps, will his ability to devote his time to developing FSUIPC for FS2006 or whatever the next MSFS version is. If this does happen, I just hope the authors of the new freeware alternative stick to it in the long run the way Pete has stuck to FSUIPC over the last several years.Richard

[Ray Proudfoot 8,954]

Dan,Pete doesn't visit these pages and it would be a real pity if he wasn't to read your appreciative post. He has his own support forum for FSUIPC which you can find here http://forums.simflight.com/viewforum.php?...f006a61044c2704I'm sure he'd love to hear from you.Cheers,