Yah know... When you go on a quest fo find all the freeware there is ... its not long before you realized that Freeware is not just alive and well, but thriving.There is a incredible amount of fantastic stuff out there, and because there is no bottom line to be recovered people are willing to experiment a bit. Some of the things people come up with may seem strange but often its a very interesting solution to a challenging problem. I have had the pleasure of watching people being told "it can't be done" in FS9 only to turn around and watch them pull it off.I love freeware (or any community based development) for that.CheersShad

Can't disagree with anything you said. Yesterday you posted a screenshot of William Ortis' payware Bellanca. William is well known for interesting and unique freeware--he'll tackle projects few will. I've watched his talent flourish over the years and I am glad he has been able to take it to the next step and get a little something back for his talent. That's what I love most about freeware--those projects tackled that otherwise wouldn't get much attention or any attention. Probably my favorite copter release in recent months, for instance, is the Munch Brothers Rotorway 162--just because there's nothing else like it. I suppose I could go on forever in the unique projects department, but I better not hog Avsim's bandwidth...-John

Freeware will always be there. As a developer, I'm doing it as a way to cut my teeth on the techniques I need to perfect as well as get people familiar with my style and what I can do (my first release is coming very soon). However, even after one has all the techniques the way that they want them, it's still important to release a lot of freeware things here and there to get and keep people thinking about your work.I think a good balance is somewhere between 60% and 80% Freeware, with the rest being payware. This provides a lot for people who just don't have the budget at all and also allows everyone to see every developer's style for free before committing their money for any one developer's best work.The caveat is that if your freeware is too good, no one will see the need to pay for anything at all. Freeware needs to be good to very good quality and payware needs to totally blow your mind.Get nice things for free, pay for the stuff that makes you drool. Let the best developers rise to the top of the heap.Scott / Vorlin

Hmmm... Marie Antoinette once said about the starving peasants: "Let them eat cake".What followed was the French revolution :DSo much depends on your definition of "Freeware". Do you mean freeware as in "free beer" or freeware as in "freedom of speech" or "Freedom to Share"?Believe it or not there is a huge ideological difference between the two and its not just semantic, as so many ideological differences are.I will admit I am a blatant supporter of open source. The problem with "freeware" as commonly understood is its "free beer" which is sort of limiting. I feel it builds a "must protect my property" mentality. That is sad because, what is "property" really? When all is said and done, you're plugged into your respirator and you sit and look back at your life, will you think of the things you have or the things you know and learned? What means more then... the Rolls in the driveway or the rememberances of your life?I guess that's a question we all must answer for ourselves, but for me... what's the point of anything if not the aquisition of knowledge and then the sharing of if. The rewards from that are profound and life long and could ultimately make you immortal. The money and 15 minutes of fame as a software developer are not. How many here can name a big player from FS98? 1% of us maybe? Yet how many of us can appreciate the help recieved from some of the "open" folks who hang here? Who will you remember in 10 years? The guy who made "Cessna 172 blah blah with the cool glass gauges for $19.99" (no offence to cessna developers intended) but never shared the technique, or people like Milton Shupe or Bill Leaming?If everybody makes a commodity of the best knowlegde... how limiting would that be? Only the rich get to be informed or benifit? Only the volume I have of that piece of paper that is really only a measure of my greed counts (success can be measured in many other ways)?Don't get me wrong... I am not denying reality. I am well aware of the necessity of making money. I just wonder if there isn't a better way that perhaps starts with the way we look at things...CheersShad

While there will always be "some" freeware offerings on par with many payware products - the truth is the majority are not, simply scan any flight sim library. I don't think if someone creates a "bad" freeware product that simply because it is offered "free" that we somehow have to treat the developer as if he were in pre - school and praise him for whatever he "gives to the community" regardless of it's quality. The other aspect to remember is that many payware developers were once freeware developers and the reception of their work at large often leads them on to starting or joining in payware market. Whether it's free add-ons or free houses, I think most people like "free" but on the other hand spending my hard earned dollars on something that shines above the common offerings is no different than paying a child a the street corner who offers lemonaid and who standing in the heat of the day toils to learn the value of work and what you get for it - namely money in exchange for goods. Freeware designers are not "saints" as if designing a sim aircraft - scenery or whatever somehow elevates them above anyone simply because others choose to "get compensation" for their time and products. To know the reasons why each person developes freeware would involve asking every single one of them "why" and I can tell you that the odds are against each one of them saying "because I love working for free so that you can enjoy something for free".. ...............Randy J. Smith................CAUTION! My views represent no one but my own. While I do help companies test products - this in no way means I represent them in ANY fashion.[h4]Evolution is a process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations[/h4]

However when you look at AI aircraft by AIA and EVAI, their freeware quality beats all payware that offer, such as UT and Mytraffic, hands down. Period.

>However when you look at AI aircraft by AIA and EVAI, their>freeware quality beats all payware that offer, such as UT and>Mytraffic, hands down. Period.The difference is that UT and MT give you a turnkey solution for your money. You get the AI aircraft, AFCAD files for a whole slew of airports, and flight plans. I own MT2006, and it took me 10 minutes and I had thousands of airports, with thousands of flights, including GA and military. I prefer to trade a little money for the convenience of not having to spend hours tinkering, and the ability to ask for help if I need it. As for the actual models, I truthfully don't spend time watching AI, except from a distance as they pass of to my left or right, so an aircraft that is a DXT1 with mips may not be as pretty or show off every rivet, but it's a heck of a lot better on performance.

I love add-ons, but I can't afford to purchase them anymore. Money is tight, gas is expensive, food is too. Some of the new releases look wonderful. If it weren't for the freeware I would have left this hobby a long time ago though, and probably would have felt a little alienated.I'm sure developers would love to contribute to freeware and we would all like to see more freeware offerings, but I suspect that once you venture into the world of payware you become less free to give away your wares. If you have to purchase professionally made textures, you can't just give them away. If you contract work out to another developer, you can't give his work away. If you pay an airline or an aircraft manufacturer for data for manuals or permissions to model their aircraft, you can't give away their work. If you have a partner, la-de-dah...and so on. It's a shame, because Flight Simulator as a whole is an amazing artistic and technological achievement, that just gets better and beautiful-er.