.Freeware, is it dead?

Freeware. The very term invokes a myriad of opinion and emotion. What motivates a designer or programmer to get involved? It didn't begin with Flight Simulator. The very same fluctuations going on in this community are being felt in all gaming communities.

There is an underlying current here, with FS anyway that transcends the politically motivated alliances and the "cutthroat" mentality of some payware groups and in turn larger companies. The top FS sites slog you with it everyday. They indeed are modellers of a different stroke. IF one just looked at a piece of freeware, payware, membershipware...whatever for what it was and not with pre-dipositioned or bias opinion the results would significantly change. If one doesn't see the download count next to the file how does one decide? If one didn't see the terribly glowing 'review' of the unit what then?

Well, the 'what then' would be a choice based on a trusted friends advise perhaps, team or unit members, a video maybe .

So what happened to freeware?

Freeware is the open door to the FS designer. It is a opportunity to create and share works publicly much like an artist would. When we first got involved in freeware it was sort of an art culture that was unbounded by the price tag. There were and are those sites however that "model" their users into believing one distribution point is better than another. One FTP server was faster than another or had more files. One site in particular allowed a slow process of "grey area" attacks on authors or other sites with users being openly and subversively against them.

There was a stage set last year around this time that had many actors stomping off never to return. Was this a concerted effort on the part of payware authors to elevate themselves and their products? Well, conspiracy theories aside the proof is there that freeware authors turned payware or started their own sites dedicated to their art. This was an idea whose time had come. The web indeed was spinning for FS. A decentralized international gallery was forming where individual payware authors could display their product in something a little more useful that a 60x 60 .gif or .jpg with small text descriptions. The small operation didn't need the large one to attach to anymore, the ocean was far wider than that and getting deeper by the day.

The actual act of creating flight simulator objects has changed too. The envelope gets pushed higher and many times we find ourselves asking, are the extra 12 vertex points on that scenery object going to be visible? Do we put them there simply because we can? It spurns the next debate which is do I have to upgrade to use this product?

There is one thing evident here and cannot be denied, freeware has and will continue to be an integral part of the design process. For Myself, what can I do? Well, I've begun a freeware piece that I'll be designing over the next few months when I have spare time. Not because I feel obliged or pressured to, but because I can.

Would it not be grand if each of us took a small chunk of time and kept the freeware fire burning bright?

Owain Robinson
www.planesimulation.com