Why arent popular freeware downloads available in the MSFS Store or included automatically/optional?

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I am only going to list a few, but there are many big enhancing freeware downloads to really globally make a difference to your simulator.
-WeLoveVFR Regions 1 and 2
-AI Ships
-Powerlines and Solar

I think there are more that deserve a place to call home on the store, but why is there not more effort being placed towards this with MS and Asobo? (retorical unless a mod responds)

There are some game enhancing mods that should be default, and at least 2 of these 3 should be in for sure. Especially since when you customize sea/ship traffic, nothing changes(last I checked anyway)


So maybe the community can encourage the top 5 most popular or desired downloads(that everyone can enjoy(not aircraft liveries) that is community driven to be available on marketplace for free at minimum, and expanding from there to 10? The reason? not everyone wants to do “unofficial” downloads


What is your opinion?

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IIRC it’s a bit complicated because of the licensing.
Joerg said something like this in any of the Dev Q&A’s.

But:
If they really would bring such content to the Marketplace to give more value to the XBox users, they will find a way.

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Isn‘t there already a „free“ category in the marketplace? So the effort would be more on the developer‘s side, no?

Of course there are technical restrictions (for security reasons), such as no executables be distributed alongside (this applies to all marketplace entries, not just the „free“ ones).

Also, the might be some „administrative overhead“: you need to register as an „official developer“, and I don‘t know about any (possible) annual fees etc.

Or were you really referring to the Windows Store? Less technical restrictions, but essentially same answer: the initiative needs to come from the developers (and yes, I am pretty sure that the Windows Store has a recurring fee).

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I am the author of MSFS freeware. When MSFS was released, I applied to be a MSFS developer at the MSFS partner program. Since then my application has been ‘under review’, without any feedback to me.

In fairness, MSFS does have a forum for people to announce their software. Many of the popular third party programs are listed there.

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By the latest Navigraph Survey XBox users were only about 5% of the MSFS users. This survey does not really mirror the real numbers as it only shows those who took part in it but it’s a strong indication. Even if it was 15% XBox the priority for full pace XBox support would be comparably low. We perfectly see that with their ongoing lack of 3rd party WASM support on XBox. If it was important to them it would have been done by now.

Freeware on top of everything else will not even bring income.

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Unfortunately there are also black sheep among the modders. For example, the F/A-18 Hornet from the FSX Acceleration Expansion Pack was released as freeware for MS2020 without permission from MS. The FSX Acceleration Expansion Pack was from Microsoft and the intellectual and commercial rights are held by Microsoft. There is also a corresponding licensing for the Hornet behind. Some modders also like to take content from other mods and incorporate it into their own. If MS were to incorporate these freeware mods into their commercial platform, they would be liable. And to check every single new freeware mod for copyright violations is not something you want to impose on anyone. In my opinion, copyright is probably the main reason.

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The store’s main objective is to make money.
So putting a lot of freeware stuff into it that uses up disk space and generates traffic as well as support tickets, would reduce that profit and bring no gain.

So they could integrate it into the base game like a World Update. The costs for that would come from a different budget that way.

But then there’d be legal concerns. We-Love-VFR and Project Lifts were done with OpenStreetMap data AFAIK. So most likely Microsoft would violate licensing when they included Open Source data in a World Update because - while the WU itself is free of charge - it still requires you to pay for MSFS itself to get it, thus the package wouldn’t be freeware and open source anymore but sold commercially as a Microsoft product

Same with the GAIST ship and AIG traffic mods which partially use open source or even licensed ship and aircraft models by different creators. So it’d be a huge effort for MS or Asobo to keep all those permissions in order. And each time one single creator revokes his or her permission the mod would have to be changed.

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Oh, and just to state the very obvious: Asobo / MS cannot simply “automatically populate the MSFS marketplace with anything that is free”. That would likewise violate “intelectual property”. Because as a freeware / open source developer (*) you also want to have some words about where your application is actually made available - especially if that distribution platform is embedded in a commercial setting itself.

So in any case the initiative to put the freeware / open source app into the MSFS marketplace must come from the developer(s), and then be based on a mutual agreement (“contract”). There is nothing that can / must be “automated”.

And this question comes before any other subsequent questions already mentioned: intellectual property, liability (in case the app / add-on damages your installation) etc.

However I also heard several times that it is very hard to even get “approved” for the marketplace, especially if you are a “no-name one (wo)man show”. So I very much agree with @DrinkingGuide84 that perhaps for “freeware / open source” developers there should be a “simplified registration”.

Or put differently: a simplified registration process for marketplace entries that would be offered free of charge for their lifetime (in the marketplace). And to emphasise again: a “free” category already exists, so “in spirit” there are no obstacles to make your add-on available in the in-game marketplace.

However as my own application doesn’t fullfil the very basic technical restrictions (“no executable binaries shipped alongside”) - as my application is an external executable binary to begin with :wink: - I have never bothered to actually check the exact registration process myself, so I cannot really comment on the actual steps required.

(*) I very much understand that especially with a very generous open source license like the MIT license you essentially (deliberately) loose control over where your application is going to be (re-)used / distributed. But then again: IANAL - and I am pretty sure that for “well-established commercial companies” there are rules that define how to embed such open source offerings into their own commercial offering. Especially since you cannot be sure whether the original author conformed to any intelectual property rules themselves, so at least you want them to - contractually - “confirm” that they own the rights of their submission.

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Yea bad idea, unless the freeware devs get some sort of tangibles/credit from MS/Asobo.
Nothing should be free to help a huge multi million dollar company like MS/Asobo make more profit.
That is very one sided and no, freeware devs getting exposure and notoriety isn’t enough nor a fair tradeoff.
TANGIBLES!

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I think this statement is painting the world a bit too black and white. Of course I can only speak for myself, but having just watched the following video about the A380 by FBW:

I feel that many open source developers (and for the sake of simplicity I am including freeware developers here as well) feel the same like I do. And that is we are intrinsically motivated to do something great, to the extend that we want, without any financial pressure or „steering committees“, deadlines and what not (yes, I‘d claim that most open source developers are professional software engineers deeply embedded in „traditional software development cycles“, and hence drive their open source projects forward in their free time).

And there follows that most (all?) open source developers not only write their software for themselves, no, they want to publish it, make it available to the community, get recognition and feedback, and fix reported issues as quickly as possible - or at least respond with a „qualified feedback“ asap (again considering the time constraints, see „free time“).

But to first add to your argument: yes, the A320NX actually was in the marketplace (for free)! And yet it was pulled by the dev team. As far as I know several developers were not happy with the license conditions from the marketplace, but I don‘t know the details.

So yes, some developers certainly feel the way you just described.

On the other hand most open source developers are not against companies making „big money“. Remember my claim: most open source developers are actually employed as well as professional (as in „making money“) software engineers.

And making money is generally a good thing! This ensures that the product will receive more funding. There might be this romantic myth of every open source developer being Robin Hood, fighting the „big corporations“ and giving away the goods (here: the software) for free to the people.

Well, I don‘t think that‘s true - for sure not for me. Yes, there is a certain group of open source developers that really have an „open vs closed“ source politic, and are fiercely following their ethos. But let‘s not go down that route


So bringing home my point here: most (all) open source developers want their fruits be brought to the market. And the larger their audience, the better. And they are not „anti-capitalistic“. So if there was an easy (easier) way to bring in freeware/open source add-ons into the MSFS marketplace I am sure many developers would consider this.

Sure, you would have to abide to certain legal agreements, assert that all your assets really belong to you, you have to deal with „legalese“ in some way, you might become liable in some way
 all that „corporate stuff“ that you are actually trying to avoid in the first place :wink:

And of course you need to adhere to the technical standards of the marketplace: installation folder structure, provide all correct config files, „no executables“ and all that (which might even limit you in what you intend to develop).

But then again this would open up a much larger market of people that might not know about places like flightsim.to, not to mention „how to unzip and move the add-on into the Community folder“ („what folder?!“).

And all open source developers want their product be exposed to the community as much as possible. Because that is the reward they are after: knowing that people are actually using - and liking - their add-on, or simply put: to get recognition from the community :slight_smile:

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A320NX was pulled from the marketplace, because the requirement was to make it available also for XBOX.

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I’d reverse that. I’d ask why there isn’t a better way to avoid the marketplace.

Far far easier and better to get addons at flightsim.to and to manage them with addons linker. I’d love to do the same with stuff from the marketplace

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You’re absolutely right!

Flightsim.to + Addon Linker IS the best way to get your addons and manage them.
AND:
You can manage all the Market Place addons in Addon Linker as well.
You just need to know how.
I have ALL content other than the Basic game managed in Addon Linker:

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This crossed my mind as well before as an argument, but I did not mention it as it is not applicable to Xbox. Which made me realize that all the free 3rd party content in the marketplace is published to both PC and XBox. And why a32nx was pulled, as the devs were not prepared to make it available for it. Hence, another reason they will likely never have the popular free mods from flightsim.to on the marketplace is the fact that they are not for XBox.

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