On October 20, 2004 10:05 pm, Boris Koenig wrote: > Ampere K. Hardraade wrote: > > One of the problems, as I pointed out earlier, is that the download size > > of the base package is a bit on the huge size. > > fully agreed, that's something most people seem to complain about - on > the other hand it's fairly "small" to be honest - if you compare it to > other simulators like MSFS, X-Plane etc. - so having a full simulator > by downloading less than 100 MB data, sounds okay to me.
FlightGear targets people who want to get something for free, while MSFS and X-Plane target people who are willing to pay. Therefore, you can't really compare FlightGear to the latters. For people who just want to check out FlightGear, their mentallity is to download the executable, run it for five minutes, and delete it if they are not sastisfy. If the download is too big, or the time for download takes too long, this group of people are going to get discourage, and FlightGear can potentially lose these new players as consequence. 100MB is okay for me because I have broardband. But even so, I still think the download is too big, because it still takes time and 90% of the aircrafts that it contains are aircrafts that I don't fly. > Also, if you are merely updating your package and "suffering" from > a low bandwidth connection, you could still check out tardiff: > > http://tardiff.sourceforge.net > > Stewart & Steven have just recently created new patches for the latest > FG base package version, so it might be worth to give it a try if > downloading another 80 MB does not appeal to anybody here ;-) > > Even though these patches are CHECKED before they are released you > cannot expect much support for newly encountered problems after applying > a patch, the first advice would be in most cases to install a > conventional package, in order to assure that there aren't problems > caused by the patch. The patch doesn't really solve the issue: people still have to download the entire base package when they first run FlightGear. Beside, how many players do you think actually know about the patch? > I agree again, I've just checked the size of my local aircraft folder in > $FG_ROOT/data - it's close to 170 MB, but on the other hand I could > imagine that as an aircraft designer/developer it's also quite a > motivation to have your aircraft by default in the base package, > regardless of its development status, it also assures that users can > easily try out your work and provide feedback. > > So, I am not sure if it's such a good idea to simply stop packaging > unfinished aircraft. You are correct; as a modeller, I do want my aircrafts to appear in the base package so that people can appreciate my work. However, forcing them to download my aircraft(s) isn't right. It may even be counter productive, and I certainly don't want that to happen. An alternative is to set up a section at FlightGear.org for aircraft downloads. That way, people do not have to deal with a large initial download. They can download the aircrafts that they want, and have better knowledge as to what is in their installation of FlightGear. If they really want to see certain aircrafts get done, they WILL provide feedbacks. As for the aircraft developers, I'm sure they will be quite happy to see the screenshots of their works appear on the Internet, eventhough their actual aircrafts are not included in the base package. > Personally, I'd hence still prefer getting everything and being able > to tell FlightGear what maturity level I require for all aircraft > minimally. I'm sure your method of showing maturity of aircrafts will come in handy, but we *really* have to drop that download size. Ampere _______________________________________________ Flightgear-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-users 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
