I joined this lovely community back in March last year when I purchased Flight Simulator 2000 (FS2K) after my 16th birthday. I had received FU3 for Christmas and I wanted something to stretch my flying abilities. I found this in FS2K. Back then, the planes looked rather poor, there were some planes that have full moving parts, namely Jorge Oppenheimers 737-200/300 series, but the majority were eight sided plain models. With the advent of greater knowledge, and Abacus' FS Design Studio, planes have drastically improved. There was also a limited amount of ripping-off and piracy.
On the February 1st, it was brought to my attention by Doeke Bakker after I had e-mailed him that there was problems in the community, mainly at the Freeware Flight Group (FFG) and The Project Freeware Group (PFG). Several of the members have left FFG, which on Friday 2nd had officially closed. Reading their messages on the forum made me feel angry and saddened inside. Both the members that have left have left because of the minority in the community that have ripped off their aircraft and abused them. They are the makers of the DC-10-30 and up to its release, their web site was buzzing with excitement. After its release, huge numbers of screen shots of the aircraft popped up at Simflight's Screen Shot Contest and at Avsim's Forum. It just goes to show what people felt for the project. One key point that one of the designers said was that he gets grief at work and from the family, so when he comes to his hobby, why does he have to get it here? These people aren't joking, and we have to face that, we have lost some of the best freeware designers around and for what?
What have 'these' people gained from driving freeware designers away for good? Absolutely nothing, because they way I see it is that they must also be users of FS and therefore because of their moments of madness and rashness has not only deprived themselves but everyone. Their main argument is, how do the designers have any right to place copyrights on their work! Payware products have copyrights on them and it is illegal to tamper with the data or copy it. So why can't this extend to freeware? Just because you don't pay for it doesn't mean it can't have copyrights on it. It is a unique product because of the way it was made. If you got 2 people to both design A320's then you are bound to find some major differences, this may be the cockpit windows, the wing, anything. These are therefore copyrighted to the respective producer because of the uniqueness.
So what is left for us? This community, our community of thousands of people, who all share one joy, flying, is probably going to be lost. FS has been around for 17 years, defining it over and over again, with more and more improvements. Some of the guys around started when they were 6 and have lived by FS, their once loved community lost. The real underlying problem is these pests. They are ruining it for all of us and one day, one of the freeware developers is going to exercise their copyrights by taking the accused to court. This is something no one wants and if things keep carrying on, freeware is going to be lost or legal battles are going to begin.
Carrying on the tradition of FREEWARE flying,
James Yardley
London, UK
jamesyardley2000@yahoo.co.uk
