[Opengc-devel] FSUIPC pre-announcement

[Damion S. <be...@cs...>]

As you may be aware, the FSUIPC software that OpenGC uses to access the 
Microsoft Flight Simulator line has recently shifted to a payware 
model. I had explored getting OpenGC free access to FSUIPC through the 
author's freeware accreditation process, but it looks like the need to 
use the WideFS program will complicate this.

Right now it appears that users will be required to register WideFS 
regardless of the status of OpenGC as accredited freeware or not. This 
means that going through the accreditation process, which would make 
the builds more complicated, is only worthwhile if we want to run on 
the same computer as FS2000x without WideFS. I have tended to 
discourage people from doing this because of the performance hit 
incurred, so it looks like the build process will be the same but users 
(and developers) will be required to register WideFS in order to use 
OpenGC with FS200x.

This does NOT affect the use of OpenGC on Windows for data sources 
other than FSUIPC - it will still build and run the same, the only 
difference being that if you attempt to connect with an unregistered 
copy of WideFS it won't work. Because of library differences, we will 
no longer support versions of FSUIPC < 3.0. I'm still verifying with 
the author what exactly will need to be registered - just WideFS, or 
both WideFS and FSUIPC - in order to keep things running as they are, 
and will pass this info on once I know.

For reference, current costs are $20 for either WideFS or FSUIPC, or 
$30 for both.

Cheers,
-Damion-

---------
Damion Shelton
The Open Source Glass Cockpit Project (OpenGC)
Carnegie Mellon University, Robotics Institute
http://www.opengc.org
da...@op...