On 7/31/2025 at 9:38 AM, SayAgain said:

Hear me out … the concept I proposed many years ago to the “big 3” flight simulation entities (Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Laminar).  Come up with a unified SDK that would allow aircraft, scenery, and airports to be produced ONCE (by a developer/modeler) but able to distribute their product to ALL platforms supporting the unified SDK.

This has many positives:

1.  Developer/Modeler only has to perform their scenery/aircraft/airports creation task once and only once

2.  Sales volume increases for the developer/modeler

3.  User’s preferred platform of choice will have the same proliferation of content as any other participating FS platform

4.  More content overall will be available (more choice)

5.  Growth in development community and release of more products in a shorter timeframe

The primary reason this doesn’t exist is due to capitalism and/or ego … fighting to dominate market share.  I’ve experienced where companies have been bought simply to kill them and remove the “competition” - a product or niche that will never see the light of day.  There is another way, join forces, share the knowledge, make it consistent, enjoy the rewards.

Please, don’t take this thread down the road of fear of communism and make it political, that IS NOT the intent.  Companies have shared knowledge and experience in the past, PCI specifications, x86 Instruction set, USB, compression algorithms, HDMI, video standards, audio standards, etc. … it is possible.  Communal sharing of ideas/technology is NOT a bad thing, in fact, it can be a very good thing especially for end users and/or consumers.

Corps/Businesses don’t have to be constantly “at war” with each other … there is another way that benefits ALL.  Yes, I know what’s coming for comments “pipe dream”, “because profit”, … hoping we can move on from this as it really is the best way forward.

A highly idealized fantasy.

Competition is good, though imperfect.

On 7/31/2025 at 3:21 PM, ahsmatt7 said:

I’ve had a couple of bourbons when writing this. Take that into consideration! 😘😊

"In vino veritas" 😁

1 hour ago, Antipodeslonghaul said:

I read:

Does Captain Sim impact the flight simmer’s choices?

Oh my gosh!  Me too! 😄

Hook

Thanks to competition, we can all go down to our local Woolworth's store for a nice meal during lunch time, just like our grand parents and grand kids.

 

 

8 hours ago, Fielder said:

Thanks to competition, we can all go down to our local Woolworth's store for a nice meal during lunch time, just like our grand parents and grand kids.

I'm guessing the punch line is that there are no more Woolworth's cafeterias.  I can remember as a young child eating at a "drug store lunch counter" at least once, but I don't remember if it was Woolworth's or some other.

When there aren't a lot of choices in town for casual dining, you go to what is available.  If you have the choice of this or pizza, which do you choose?

So, you're right, it was competition that closed them down.  Or maybe lack of innovation.  Maybe if they'd served a good pizza...

😄

Note: Pizza became popular in the US in the 60s with the chain stores.  I had it a bit earlier than the chains (in Dallas) in an independent, Pizza Villa.

Hook

On 8/3/2025 at 1:19 PM, UrgentSiesta said:

Competition is good, though imperfect.

Indeed imperfect and likely unsustainable due to it’s reliance on population growth and a disposable society.

However, my original post was simply to have a “unified SDK” … I never mentioned anything about a single Flight Simulator platform … the unified SDK would be a benefit to XP12 and P3D and whatever else would come along.  Platform competition would be alive and kicking … the big benefit would be developers produce content just once for all platforms, end user has MORE choice, not less choice.

And I agree it’s a fantasy … but only because of capitalism’s imperfection resulting is less choice not more.  Now I’m off to go create a new language syntax parser # 9418 so I can make tons of cash for no real practical benefit 😉 

39 minutes ago, SayAgain said:

Indeed imperfect and likely unsustainable due to it’s reliance on population growth and a disposable society.

However, my original post was simply to have a “unified SDK” … I never mentioned anything about a single Flight Simulator platform … the unified SDK would be a benefit to XP12 and P3D and whatever else would come along.  Platform competition would be alive and kicking … the big benefit would be developers produce content just once for all platforms, end user has MORE choice, not less choice.

And I agree it’s a fantasy … but only because of capitalism’s imperfection resulting is less choice not more.  Now I’m off to go create a new language syntax parser # 9418 so I can make tons of cash for no real practical benefit 😉 

Well, the good news is that many of us have been worrying about unsustainability for a long, long time now. Yet we continually rise to the challenge and continue to not only survive, but genuinely prosper. There has never been a better time to be alive - less war, less disease, less famine, and more of the good stuff than ever before. 

in terms of a Unified SDK, let me give you an example:

Microsoft Office is available for both Mac and  Windows. If there were any situation where a level of code commonality were going to work out, it would be there. But even tho MS outright owns/controls the code, there is very little, if any, shared code between the two apps. They only share common file formats. I.e., Even tho the functionality of the apps is almost exactly same, the requirements to run well on two entirely different platforms means one needs entirely different apps to deliver exactly the same end user functionality  

Java is perhaps a n even better example - it was literally designed for build once, run anywhere use. And it has become a niche player despite all the extremely talented attempts to morph its variations into a be all end all “SDK”  

The situation is simply that it’s not in anyone’s interest to go to the substantial extra effort of a universal SDK. Either the vendors won’t want to accept the creative limitations nor absorb the costs, and consumers won’t want to deal with janky addons that cost several times as much as they do now.

Edited August 4, 2025Aug 4 by UrgentSiesta

Thank you, @UrgentSiesta

Hook

55 minutes ago, SayAgain said:

… the big benefit would be developers produce content just once for all platforms, end user has MORE choice, not less choice.

While this seems like a good idea, there are a few challenges. The first is that the vast majority of flight simmers run on a single platform. Even the minority of them that have more than one, only another small minority use more than one regularly, and many flight simmers until MSFS didn't use a significant amount of add-on content.

If anything, it adds a burden to simulator authors. Either the smaller ones all adopt the MSFS SDK, or it means that the SDK is essentially frozen. Cross-industry standards bodies move very slowly because of the number of players involved.

20 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

Java is perhaps a n even better example - it was literally designed for build once, run anywhere use. And it has become a niche player despite all the extremely talented attempts to morph its variations into a be all end all “SDK”  

This "niche player" probably runs apps on more devices than any other language. Not only is it a strong back-end services language, Java and another JVM language (Kotlin) are the way you write apps on the world's most popular end-user platform .... Android.

Cheers

13 minutes ago, Luke said:

This "niche player" probably runs apps on more devices than any other language. Not only is it a strong back-end services language, Java and another JVM language (Kotlin) are the way you write apps on the world's most popular end-user platform .... Android.

I didn’t say anything derogatory about it, only that its initial premise/promise of write once, run anywhere hasn’t played out. Especially in re  end-user/consumer use. 
 

that it runs back end infrastructure and remains a strong development tool isn’t quite aligned with the discussion at hand. 🤙

1 hour ago, UrgentSiesta said:

there is very little, if any, shared code between the two apps.

This seemed odd to me, so I did the following google search:

"does Microsoft office share code between apple and IBM"

This is the final paragraph:

Quote

In essence, Microsoft Office uses a common core codebase (mostly C++) across platforms to ensure a unified experience, but it also incorporates platform-specific code (like Objective-C for Apple) to provide optimal performance and integration with the respective operating systems. 

I always thought one reason to use a common high level language like C++ was so it could be compiled to run on different systems.  There will be some custom platform-specific code for each system, but the main code base should be the same.

The only time I delved into cross-platform work was when I wrote a full screen editor on my home PC in the Pick operating system (which only had a line editor), and took it in to work on a  minicomputer running Pick in a company that didn't want to pay for the JET full screen editor.  I only had to change the first line which had some parameters specific to that system.  Worked just fine.  No other changes to the code were necessary.

Yeah, it had the same operating system, but everything under the hood was different from the PC.  Just had to compile the code on the new system.

Hook

Edited August 4, 2025Aug 4 by LHookins

8 minutes ago, LHookins said:

This seemed odd to me, so I did the following google search:

"does Microsoft office share code between apple and IBM"

This is the final paragraph:

I always thought one reason to use a common high level language like C++ was so it could be compiled to run on different systems.  There will be some custom platform-specific code for each system, but the main code base should be the same.

The only time I delved into cross-platform work was when I wrote a full screen editor on my home PC in the Pick operating system (which only had a line editor), and took it in to work on a  minicomputer running Pick in a company that didn't want to pay for the JET full screen editor.  I only had to change the first line which had some parameters specific to that system.  Worked just fine.  No other changes to the code were necessary.

Yeah, it had the same operating system, but everything under the hood was different from the PC.  Just had to compile the code on the new system.

Hook

Hmmmm…that runs counter to what folks close to the matter told me. But then again, that was many years ago and many miles away, so I do stand to be corrected.

and as you say, it’s an interesting situation where there should be code in common, so I should dig into it more myself to see what I can come up with. 

Edited August 4, 2025Aug 4 by UrgentSiesta

2 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

its initial premise/promise of write once, run anywhere hasn’t played out. Especially in re  end-user/consumer use.

There are approximately 3 billion Android devices out there, all end-user. It is the most popular phone and tablet platform, heck even one of my thermostats is a small Android tablet running a Java app.

How on Earth is that a "niche player" or "not playing out"? It's literally the most popular platform ever made.

Cheers

1 hour ago, Luke said:

There are approximately 3 billion Android devices out there, all end-user. It is the most popular phone and tablet platform, heck even one of my thermostats is a small Android tablet running a Java app.

How on Earth is that a "niche player" or "not playing out"? It's literally the most popular platform ever made.

Cheers

Forest and trees, my friend.
 

IoW: I look forward to the forthcoming FlightSim fruit of your Java collaboration with SayAgain. 🤙

17 hours ago, SayAgain said:

However, my original post was simply to have a “unified SDK” … I never mentioned anything about a single Flight Simulator platform

How can 3 very different flight sims with different architectures and code have a single SDK???

BTW, capitalism is what brought us the modern flight sims we have now.  Competition spurred development and improvement, otherwise we would be stuck with a stagnant sim as the sole developer, with a monopoly on flight sims, would have no incentive to invest in its product and improve it.

What would you replace capitalism with?  What it seems you want is a utopian fantasy where everyone is charitable and acts in the interest of society as a whole rather than their own interests.  This is not how the world works, which is why other systems which try to impose the socialistic approach always fail in the end.  Whether we like to admit it or not, everyone loves money and always wants more of it.  When you remove the incentive to make money, people naturally do as little as possible.  The Soviet Union is a prime example.

Like I said, unfettered capitalism is not good, either, as it eventually leads to fraud, corruption, and monopolies.  This is painfully evident in our healthcare system, for example.  We need a system that embraces capitalism, competition, and risk-taking, but with reasonable regulation and safety nets for the good of all.  

Dave