FlightProSim

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FlightProSim is "One of the Most Realistic Flight Sims Available", according to its website. A statement that the developers are very happy with. FlightProSim however, is a commercial adaption of FlightGear and is in no way (officially) related to FlightGear, apart from the fact that FlightProSim is 99% (if not more) a copy of FlightGear.

I bought FlightProSim, what to do?

If you have bought FlightProSim, try to get your money back as soon as possible. You can have (almost) the same software for free nevertheless! They guarentee a 60 day money back trial periode, so this should be no problem if you react quickly.

The FlightGear developers are interested in the package to see whether the package complies with the GNU GPL terms or not. Therefor we would like to receive a package for inspection. If you own a package and were unable to get your money back, please contact the developers through the mailing list.

Legal or illegal?

The GNU GPL license under which FlightGear is released allows reselling under certain terms. Many FlightGear developers have difficulties with the way FlightProSim is acting and doubt if they are acting legally. If you have any (inter)national law knowledge, please contact the developers at the mailing list, they will welcome any legal support.

Why did you refuse a money offer from FlightProSim?

After a lot of negative criticism from the FlightGear developer, FlightProSim offered to fund a competition in which a developer of a nice new feature is rewarded with a sum of money ($250). The FlightGear developers have more or less un-officially decided to not accept the money offer. A couple of the reasons include:

  • If the guy behind FPS really is interested in improving a flight sim, he would input his addons/improvements back into the FlightGear community so the software can be further developed.
  • Everyone is allowed to sell FlightGear, as long as they comply with the GNU GPL v2 license. FPS did not in the past, and thus we do not trust them any more. Only after lots of requests from our side they changed their website telling the visitors (in a very small message without link) that it is actually an adaption of free software
  • FlightProSim also copied all content from our wiki (and initionally also our main website). That does not give a positive developer impression, more like a "we-want-money-fast-and-without-much-effort" attitude. Apart from the fact that FPS is actually part of a money making company, rather than a software developing one...