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Paying Freeware Authors?

Is FS website owners paying freeware authors a good idea?

  • Total voters
    84
...But thanks for your well wishes, Major. I went out and purchased my winning lottery ticket today!:jump:

Judging from some of the mid-to-low quality payware scenery that I've seen coming out the past few months, at least with freeware you'll get your money's worth.

Jim
 
Major_Spittle said:
I guess I just see things differently than most.
Click to expand...
i believe that to be a possibility:kilroy:
look at it this way
if a site offered money to a freeware designer
they could not upload anywhere else
or they would be in competition with themselves
and i can guarantee that the host site would not allow it
that would be an infringement on a freeware designer
if you upload here i will pay you and capitalize on your
product can you really see many people do that?
dont think so
what are they going to do, come to somewhere like this site and promote but you can only get it from another site,
thats not practical or they might get misunderstood as spamming
its not black and white
H
 
I tend to look at this whole thing in a different light.

Its not really about him giving money away, or people expecting money.

This whole topic was started to say "Hey my website Exists, Hopefully no one remembers it got hacked and soon I will get some renewed interested in it cause people lost faith in the site. So please argue, debate, but you will still be thinking of my product, my page."

Its like those stupid commercials on TV where they challenge you to say or do something, Its not to see if you can, its to get you to remember their junk.
 
Tim_Horton said:
I tend to look at this whole thing in a different light.

Its not really about him giving money away, or people expecting money.

This whole topic was started to say "Hey my website Exists, Hopefully no one remembers it got hacked and soon I will get some renewed interested in it cause people lost faith in the site. So please argue, debate, but you will still be thinking of my product, my page."

Its like those stupid commercials on TV where they challenge you to say or do something, Its not to see if you can, its to get you to remember their junk.
Click to expand...

"Apply directly to the forehead!"
 
I'm not a "Developer" but I've done a few freeware releases, which were done for the sake of enjoying my hobby.
The moment you take money it becomes Work, which is not why I start up my sim.
If I took money, I'd have to find another way to waste my spare time!
Henry touched on it, too: freeware is offered as a gift, and you take it as such, warts and all.
Paying for something frames some kind of minimum standard, and I wouldn't want that pressure.
And, not being able to incorporate all that freeware out there as a result, would stunt the hobby ultimately.
 
I'll work for bananas. :ernae: This is the only job I have but it's the best one I've ever had because it's something I enjoy and believe me, if it weren't for the fact that I live on disability alone, I wouldn't take donations or ask for them. No one gets rich off donations, well except for politicians, lol. :icon29:
 
I'd be very interested to see the books of sites like sim-outhouse, avsim, flightsim etc. As I understand it these sites all rely on volunteers to keep running. Any income they generate probably disappears very quickly with the costs of bandwidth, hosting, hardware etc. I'd be pretty damned surprised if any of them return a profit and I'd be exceptionally damn surprised if the original poster's website would ever earn enough to pay something back to the freeware developers. I think the phrase I am looking for here is "a work of love".

Another problem I could see is someone downloading a piece of freeware, changing the author's name to their own and uploading it to this new site. The last few weeks I have seen enough snakes in the FS community who think FSimmers are just a flock of sheep waiting to be fleeced. I think the OP would find most of their time was spent checking the validity of anything uploaded to make sure any money would go to the right person.

Plus, I agree with all the points in Henry's last post.

If you're a freeware designer and you want a bit of beer money put a donation link into your readme. You'd probably get more money that way than joining the OP's website and at least you'd know 100% of the profits went to you.
 
Freeware should be free, and you should pay for payware.

They are two different cultures, and should remain that way. I've oft been tempted to ask if I could pay for some incredible freeware, but no formal system should be set up. I think that our freeware developers should set up their own homepages with donate buttons linked to paypal, and that's it. I'd be inclined to drop the Jim Dhaenans, Dinos and piglets of the world chunks of money as I see fit rather than subscribing. I want to pay them directly, and noone else. I also want the option.

You're treading on thin water with licensing. Most freeware guys use products and editors that only have freeware licenses. They CAN'T legally sell their stuff.


I didn't like my options in the poll.
 
You're not getting it

Guys, I came on here looking for some opinions on a simple concept, and it's amazing to me how it came to be seen as being turned into payware.

All I was asking was, "What do you think about THE WEBSITE giving a few bucks to the developer of a great piece of freeware, as a thank-you gesture" and it somehow became "We shouldn't have to pay for freeware!"

There was one or two guys that actually got the concept, and replied in a courteous manner. There was also one or two that pretty much came after me, putting down my site, and giving the impression they hoped I would be hacked again and go away.

Is that what you guys are really all about, vindictiveness and hate?

I certainly hope this was just a few guys having a bad day. Again, I was just asking a question, throwing an idea out there, to you, the community that would be impacted by it, and this is what I got.

To you that responded in a civil way, I thank-you; to those few that flamed me, I wish you would treat others as you wish to be treated.

I won't be doing the donation thing now, by the way, though I would like to cite the authors with a mentioning, if it doesn't flip some of you out.
 
I may be an old cynic, but nobody pays anybody in this big bad world of ours for nothing...... so where's the catch !!?? :pop4:


In my experience, and I've been in this now for over thirty years, people make things for free because they like making things, and maybe they like being commended for it.

People make (FS!) things for money because they like making things, and they feel it doesn't hurt to get paid for their time on top of it.
Some, but very few, people make things for money just to make a buck.

So the ones doing commercial work already have a publisher, or their own little company, or will get one soon.
The others don't need one (but may take your money thankyouverymuch).

Hence, back to the first line; what's in it for you ?? ;-)
 
pashley said:
Guys, I came on here looking for some opinions on a simple concept, and it's amazing to me how it came to be seen as being turned into payware.

All I was asking was, "What do you think about THE WEBSITE giving a few bucks to the developer of a great piece of freeware, as a thank-you gesture" and it somehow became "We shouldn't have to pay for freeware!"

There was one or two guys that actually got the concept, and replied in a courteous manner. There was also one or two that pretty much came after me, putting down my site, and giving the impression they hoped I would be hacked again and go away.

Is that what you guys are really all about, vindictiveness and hate?

I certainly hope this was just a few guys having a bad day. Again, I was just asking a question, throwing an idea out there, to you, the community that would be impacted by it, and this is what I got.

To you that responded in a civil way, I thank-you; to those few that flamed me, I wish you would treat others as you wish to be treated.

I won't be doing the donation thing now, by the way, though I would like to cite the authors with a mentioning, if it doesn't flip some of you out.
Click to expand...

I noticed your website is dead.....

-G-
 
Francois said:
I may be an old cynic, but nobody pays anybody in this big bad world of ours for nothing...... so where's the catch !!?? :pop4:

Hence, back to the first line; what's in it for you ?? ;-)
Click to expand...

As I said in my OP:

"In short, I'm wondering if quality freeware will dry up, because authors just don't want to put THAT much time into it."

I WANT there to be lots of great freeware out there - but I also realized that making great freeware takes a tremendous amount of time, especially in the FSX environment. My reasonable line of thought was, less and less guys would be doing it, and just sticking with FS9 - and I think I'm right about that.

The point of ME throwing the guys a couple of bucks was just as a thank-you gesture, and yes, to hopefully have them host it on my site as well. I want FlightSimulatorXWorld.com to not have the biggest library, but the BEST one, in terms of content. How many times have you DL'd stuff from an AVSIM or FlightSim only to see it wasn't what you wanted? I'm just trying to keep great stuff out there, that's all.

Again, I just simply threw an idea out there - I didn't deserve to get hammered.
 
Lateral-G said:
I noticed your website is dead.....

-G-
Click to expand...


Yes, my provider took me down. Seems like someone out there either made an erroneous complaint, or inserted malicious code to shut me down.

Isn't that nice?
 
So if I uploaded a file to your site, and you sent me a 'donation' would I still be able to send that same file to the other big sites?
 
pashley said:
Yes, my provider took me down. Seems like someone out there either made an erroneous complaint, or inserted malicious code to shut me down.

Isn't that nice?
Click to expand...

What percentage of the donations do you plan on keeping?
 
pashley said:
My reasonable line of thought was, less and less guys would be doing it, and just sticking with FS9 - and I think I'm right about that.
Click to expand...

The only reason to stick with FS9 only is your hardware not being up to properly handling FSX.
As far as I've seen every developer who has the hardware to run FSX also migrates to FSX development.


I want FlightSimulatorXWorld.com to not have the biggest library, but the BEST one, in terms of content.
Click to expand...

Have fun with that. Rome wasn't built in a day and libraries take years to assemble.

But a fine start would be to create seperate categories for FSX native and FS9 portover aircraft. You'd certainly have an advantage over other libraries with that.

I'm just trying to keep great stuff out there, that's all.
Click to expand...

Sorry, but to me it looks like trying to force something with that concept. The freeware "market" though has its own dynamics which can't be influenced that easily and especially not with money.
 
tigisfat said:
What percentage of the donations do you plan on keeping?
Click to expand...

I don't take donations.

I have a few Google Ads up, but they don't generate anything to speak of.

I make animated, professionally - produced, high quality tutorials for those that want them, for a whopping $4.99 a month. That's how I get a few bucks from the site.
 
Bjoern said:
Have fun with that. Rome wasn't built in a day and libraries take years to assemble.

But a fine start would be to create seperate categories for FSX native and FS9 portover aircraft. You'd certainly have an advantage over other libraries with that.

Sorry, but to me it looks like trying to force something with that concept. The freeware "market" though has its own dynamics which can't be influenced that easily and especially not with money.
Click to expand...

First of all, I'm not going to be doing the donation thing to the author - I've heard you guys, and you say no.

However, I'll be bold enough to say I'll have the best library out there.

Does that mean the biggest? No. I want quality stuff, not mediocre or bad stuff. I want you to be able to see big screenshots of the product, not little thumbnails. A search engine that can get you where you want to go quickly. I'm even thinking about actually taking the time to install the product, make a 30 second video of it in action, and posting it as part of the description in the library. Who else does that? Isn't that something people would appreciate?

And I don't charge for any access to the library, by the way. I don't charge for an "upgrade" to speed - it's all the same for every one. If you guys want something to go after, I'd like to think that might be something. Those guys are, effectively, charging for access to your work. That's dicey, in my view - but hey, it's your stuff.
 
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