FGMEMBERS Statement

FlightGear FGMEMBERS Statement (v2.2):

Preface

What you see today as FlightGear is the result of 20 years of collaborative development effort by hundreds of talented people all working together to provide a freely available GPL flight simulator that anyone can contribute to.  The core FlightGear team feel that it is important to make a clear statement of their position concerning the FGMEMBERS organization, explaining why it is important to continue working in a way that will ensure that FlightGear continues to prosper for the next 20 years as well as to clear up any confusion and FUD that has been disseminated by members of the FGMEMBERS organization.

The FGMEMBERS infrastructure offers little benefit to contributors.  From experience, the core team knows that the lack of appropriate controls on contributions may, after a long period of time, lead to a divergence that may result in contributions being lost.  This includes the divergence of models as well as scenery enhancements that are not contributed to the scene models database.

TOC

Background

During five years of in-depth discussions on the development mailing list (where decisions are made[1]) a consensus of opinion was reached which defined the future direction for the core assets of the FlightGear project.  This required the removal of the aircraft models from the old fgdata repository[2], leaving the core assets and the default aircraft.  Unfortunately this necessary change resulted in a fundamental disagreement with a couple of FlightGear users who demanded that the decision making process be restarted[3].  Clearly with five years of discussions already undertaken it was not a viable path forwards to restart discussing the splitting of the assets and which revision control systems were most suited for the FlightGear project.

One of the objectives of the project is longevity and ensuring that the path taken is, with the best available knowledge, as future proof as possible, allowing authors to make their contributions with the minimum amount of disruption whilst maintaining quality and licencing standards.

As a result of the disagreement, one contributor started what is generally considered to be a hostile fork of the core asset repositories into what is known as FGMEMBERS.  This was expanded to include all the other models and assets from all non-official repositories from all corners of the internet, to form a single source for all contributed assets (core assets, aircraft, scenery, 3rd party hangars, etc.).  At a first glance this appears to be a good idea, as there is a single place where everything can be found.  However the disparate nature of contributions means that FGMEMBERS is a divergence of most of the original content.  Whilst certain repositories may be up to date within FGMEMBERS, it is not necessarily true that this will remain the case.  Taken together, this negates the key benefit of a single location for all content.  The other key point is that any changes contributed to the FGMEMBERS infrastructure may never make it into the original repositories.  This affects the availability and quality of models for the wider community of the FlightGear project, such as the aircraft that are available for download on the FlightGear website and launcher[4].  Any contributor spending considerable time making changes to aircraft or scenery may be unaware that their changes may be lost in the future, especially in the case of scenery as the FGMEMBERS scenery workflow is to modify what is considered to be an automatically generated set of temporary files from base data sources.

Since its inception, the FGMEMBERS organization has continually made very emotive statements and accusations regarding the core development team and the way the FlightGear project is run.  The core FlightGear team consider those baseless and has refuted them.

Official FlightGear Position

The core FlightGear team considers the FGMEMBERS data asset forks to be hostile and the infrastructure bad for the FlightGear project for a number of reasons:

  1. Historically, forks of Open Source projects are unsustainable because developers choose one or the other.  Over time, the vast majority of forks die.  In a small minority of cases they become prevalent and the original dies.  In either case, a huge amount of effort is wasted on the fork that eventually loses.  We feel that effort is better spent on improving the simulator.
  2. It is inevitable that the fork will diverge, as changes are made to one repository but not the other.  Attempting to keep the repositories in sync requires huge amounts of effort and is likely to fail due to incompatible changes being made to the same file by multiple developers.
  3. The FGAddon repository is actively supported by the core development team, with processes in place to ensure the long term health of the repository, and compatibility with any changes to the FlightGear core.  The core FlightGear team have been working on this project for 20 years and has a long track record of ensure the long-term health of the aircraft.
  4. We are concerned that FGMEMBERS deliberately does not have controls over commit access to the repository and as a result license violations have occurred.
  5. Different versions of the same aircraft existing in both FGAddon and FGMEMBERS causes confusion and adds to the burden of support from volunteers who may not have the same version.  This makes tracking down bugs much more difficult.
  6. We object most strongly to the way that FGMEMBERS proponents have evangelized against FGAddon and TerraSync and the accusations that they have made against the core team.  We consider this unacceptable.
  7. The constant and active recruitment of potential developers away from the core infrastructure has caused and is causing a lot of long term harm to the FlightGear project.

The FlightGear development team encourages users and developers to use the official repositories and infrastructure (FGData, FGAddon, TerraSync) and continues to support 3rd party hangars.

FAQ

Why is this important?

Question: What is the point of this document?

Answer:
It is important that we all work together to ensure the continued growth and development of FlightGear.  The core team does not want to see valuable contributions being lost because these contributions were made to something outside of the FlightGear project.  What you see today exists due to the time and effort of developers.  Unfortunately in recent years FGMEMBERS has proved to be a considerable waste of developer time that could have better been spent on improving things rather than dealing with and refuting allegations, answering questions from confused users and declining attempts to reopen discussions that have no relevance for the already decided future path of the project.

Why is FGMEMBERS considered as a legal liability?

Question: Why is the core design of the FGMEMBERS system considered as a legal liability?

Answer:
The official FlightGear infrastructure operates on a basis of trust and experience, in which a committer must be prepared to accept the trust of everyone else and show an understanding of copyright issues.  This is in stark contrast with the FGMEMBERS principle that everyone and anyone can obtain commit access for improving the system.  The FlightGear way has been proven to work over many years as it results in collaborators who can be trusted not to cause damage to the FlightGear project or to cause legal jeopardy by a lack of understanding.  Without this there is an elevated risk that an inexperienced content developer may deliberately or inadvertently obtain material (3D artwork, photographs, sound bites, etc.) found somewhere on the web and include it within their own GPLv2+ licensed content without due consideration of the licencing implications.  The official FlightGear infrastructure has the *-commitlogs mailing lists[5], allowing individual commits to be reviewed; whereas FGMEMBERS has no such system and as such can be considered as a more anarchic system where illegal content will inevitably be added under the radar.  This is unacceptable in a large open source project such as FlightGear as it puts the contributor and the project at legal risk.

Why use the “hostile fork” terminology?

Question: Why is the FGMEMBERS infrastructure referred to as a “hostile fork”?

Answer:
This is standard software development terminology for the FGMEMBERS situation.  Here is one definition:

  • “A HostileFork happens when someone isn’t happy about the way a collaborative effort is being run, so they start their own competing project.  They take the work of the group in a different direction…rather than working on achieving a consensus.  Often they lobby for developers to assist their effort, rather than the original project from which they are derived.”[6]

And another:

  • “A hostile fork is one done unilaterally, generally without consultation or the blessing of the main project.  It generally causes acrimony and community fragmentation, and usually no code changes are shared between the forks after the split.Compare to forking to solve a very specific or specialized problem that doesn’t make sense to merge upstream, like a set of changes that only apply to a very narrow audience or esoteric use-case.  In such a case, it’s common that changes that do affect the main project are still merged upstream and special care is done to make sure the forks don’t diverge too much.”[7]

The core group consider the current situation to be an exact match to the “hostile fork” definition.

Why not consider the FGMEMBERS proposal?

Question: Why is the design and operation of the FGMEMBERS system considered as unsuitable for use as the official FlightGear infrastructure?

Answer:
Firstly, the proposal was made years after a consensus had been made and a decision reached.[8].

Secondly, the design is considered to be incompatible with how the FlightGear community operates.  The FlightGear community is bound together by mutual respect and basic courtesy; there may be disagreements but it is expected that disagreements be handled in a respectful way without personal attacks.  The wishes of all contributors wherever possible are respected.  There are some models in FGMEMBERS in which the original authors have directly stated a wish to not have their aircraft be distributed as part of this system.  Instead of respecting that wish, these aircraft remain bundled as part of the FGMEMBERS.

Another concern, and in many ways for the community a large concern, is the encouragement to make contributions outside of the official or original author’s distribution channels.  This is a key aspect of the FGMEMBERS system used to advertise to new users that the FGMEMBERS system is superior to the original upstream sources.  Hence the FGMEMBERS system strongly competes against those wishing to be independent of the system, using an “improved” version of their own work.  To avoid this, a number of content creators have used specific licensing to legally block FGMEMBERS redistribution.  But in the process these authors have lost part of their freedom that the GPL licence offers — the same freedom that has allowed FlightGear to become what it is today.  This is causing long-term damage to the FlightGear project and the GPL ecosystem built around it.

We consider that redistribution for solely aggregation and deliberate divergence of GPL-licensed content is permissible legally but morally questionable.  Particularly when it is against the wishes of the original author, and implicitly competing against that author for the aim of selling the FGMEMBERS system.  This is considered unacceptable as a model of operation for the FlightGear project.

Why not peacefully coexist?

Question: Why is FGMEMBERS different from all of the other 3rd party infrastructure and peaceful coexistance not possible?

Answer:
The aim of the FGMEMBERS organization is to attract as many FlightGear users and content developers as possible to become the de-facto FlightGear content infrastructure.  To achieve this, FGMEMBERS deliberately aims to minimise or completely cut off contributions upstream to the core FlightGear infrastructure for the sole purpose of rendering it irrelevant.  However as the same design is used for both the core infrastructure and the 3rd party infrastructure, this affects the whole of the FlightGear community equally.  FGMEMBERS hoards absolute all of the content from all content creators, but then applies fixes and improvements that are not submitted back upstream to the original authors, using the excuse that upstream should find and backport the fixes themselves.  This is specifically to use as a selling point against the official and 3rd party FlightGear content infrastructure.  Because of this positioning, the FGMEMBERS organization is unlike any other 3rd party infrastructure — it is not complementary to the FlightGear ecosystem but is rather competitive to it.

Why is syncing not possible?

Question: FGMEMBERS intends to sync all changes from FGAddon, why can’t FGAddon simply merge all the changes from FGMEMBERS so the repositories remain identical?

Answer:
There are three reasons for this.  Firstly, over time the repositories will diverge in a way that is impossible to reconcile (e.g. two different developers with different end goals modify the same aircraft model at the same time).  Secondly, such a merge would require a large, continuous amount of effort just to maintain a position that would exist without FGMEMBERS.  Thirdly, we have concerns over the attitude of FGMEMBERS to licensing and accepting almost all content, and are not prepared to legally risk the GPL “health” of FGAddon.

For many years it has always been that FGAddon and its predecessor infrastructure is the definitive place for the FlightGear models.  As part the FlightGear contribution workflow, the responsibility is on the content author to contribute to FGAddon when their work is ready for release.  Once the work is present in FGAddon, the author is then expected to maintain the aircraft in FGAddon.  This is how development has always been performed and it works well and everyone understands it.
To change this now so that it becomes the responsibility of someone else, other than the contributor making the changes is clearly an unworkable solution.  However the published procedure for adding or modifying FGAddon does not preclude contributions from anyone who is prepared to follow the submission rules and content guidelines.  So FGMEMBERS could, if they so wished, follow these procedures to ensure that FGAddon remains the core asset that is definitive and up-to-date.

Why not switch the core infrastructure to FGMEMBERS?

Question: Why can you not work with the FGMEMBERS team to create a single repository?

Answer:
Primarily this is not possible as it would require reopening a discussion that was ongoing for 5 years — and this approach is merely a different way of doing things that does not provide any real benefits to the long term goals of the project.

Why Subversion?

Question: Why do you use Subversion instead of my preferred version control system?

Answer:
Subversion was agreed upon during the discussions on the development mailing list as it provided most of the required facilities in a way that worked for the wider community.

Why have gatekeepers?

Question: Why does FGAddon have gatekeepers?

Answer:
The official policy[9] is designed to allow for easy access to FGAddon for contributors whilst maintaining quality and legal standards.  As the official FlightGear repository has obligations and legal liabilities, the gatekeepers are there to ensure these quality guidelines are met.  The gatekeepers are friendly and helpful — their role is to promote the development of aircraft while respecting the community rules and to guide new contributors; who themselves may gain, or already have, the experience to be a gatekeeper.

How do I contribute?

Question: How can I send improvements to FGAddon for inclusion into the official repository of aircraft?

Answer:
As detailed on the FGAddon wiki article, there are a number of steps.  Firstly the original aircraft authors should be contacted.  If this is not possible, then send an email stating your intentions to the FlightGear development mailing list or post a message on the forum.

Why should I contribute upstream?

Question: Why would I want to contribute to FGAddon when I could just hack away and publish my changes in a forked repository?

Answer:
Contribution to FGAddon guarantees the widest distribution of your work by including your work into the FlightGear project (your improvements will be available on the official download page and inside the launcher).  You are also contributing back and collaborating with the FlightGear project.  This is a proven method to ensure continued and long term availability of your improvements for years to come.  If an original aircraft developer is still active it is normally considered respectful to work with that author as it will often benefit everyone involved, rather than taking their work and competing against them.  Otherwise this will result in two versions that have different improvements, when the goal should be to all work together to provide the best models that collaboration can build.

Can I obtain commit access?

Question: Is it possible for me to obtain commit access to the FGAddon repository?

Answer:
You are encouraged to apply for commit privileges as soon as you feel that you meet the criteria and are ready to take on the responsibility[10].  If in doubt, send an email to the FlightGear development mailing list.

Is FGMEMBERS a 3rd party hangar?

Question: Are the FGMEMBERS aircraft repositories considered as a 3rd party hangar?

Answer: No.
As FGMEMBERS has aggregated all of the FlightGear assets, including FGData, FGAddon, TerraScenery, 3rd party hangars, and all other sources, the aircraft component of this system is not considered as a 3rd party hangar.  As it is a hostile fork, unlike the 3rd party hangars, it competes directly against the official FlightGear data assets and infrastructure as well as the 3rd party hangars.  It also competes for developer resources against the FlightGear project and 3rd party hangars.

Conclusion

We believe that the best path forwards for FlightGear is for the community to work together.  We recognise the importance of contributors and collaboration and positively encourage everyone to work together with the common goal of improving FlightGear in a positive way, and to be respectful, honest, trustworthy and fair.  Let’s get the word out and make sure that FGMEMBERS has to communicate with a well informed audience.

 

FlightGear 2016.1 Released

The FlightGear development team is delighted to announce the v2016.1 “San Francisco” release of FlightGear, the free, open-source flight simulator. This new version contains many exciting new features, enhancements and bugfixes. Highlights in this release include an integrated launcher that includes the ability to download aircraft, a reduction in the installation package size, performance improvements and many rendering improvements.
Founded in 1997, FlightGear is developed by a worldwide group of volunteers, brought together by a shared ambition to create the most realistic flight simulator possible that is free to use, modify and distribute. FlightGear is used all over the world by desktop flight simulator enthusiasts, for research in universities and for interactive exhibits in museums.

Qt_launcher_for_FlightGear_3.5_on_Windows_7

FlightGear features more than 500 aircraft, a worldwide scenery database, a multiplayer environment, detailed sky and weather modelling, a flexible and open aircraft modelling system, varied networking options, multiple display support, a powerful scripting language and an open architecture. Best of all, being open-source, the simulator is owned by the community and everyone is encouraged to contribute.

Download FlightGear v2016.1 for free from FlightGear.org/download

FlightGear – Fly Free!

Please continue to our wiki article for all the specific details and new features in the release.

FlightGear v3.4 Released

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The FlightGear development team is delighted to announce the v3.4 release of FlightGear, the free, open-source flight simulator. This new version contains many exciting new features, enhancements and bugfixes. Highlights in this release include frame-rate improvements on some systems, reduced memory usage and enhancements to the built-in web server.

Founded in 1997, FlightGear is developed by a worldwide group of volunteers, brought together by a shared ambition to create the most realistic flight simulator possible that is free to use, modify and distribute. FlightGear is used all over the world by desktop flight simulator enthusiasts, for research in universities and for interactive exhibits in museums.

FlightGear features more than 400 aircraft, a worldwide scenery database, a multi-player environment, detailed sky modelling, a flexible and open aircraft modelling system, varied networking options, multiple display support, a powerful scripting language and an open architecture. Best of all, being open-source, the simulator is owned by the community and everyone is encouraged to contribute.

Download FlightGear v3.4 for free from FlightGear.org

FlightGear – Fly Free!

Major enhancements in this release

Performance

  • Improved frame-rates on some systems from more efficient use of Uniforms
  • Reduced memory occupancy for scenery tiles
  • AI models are now rendered based on display size rather than range
  • AI/MP models may now define objects as being part of the interior, which will not be rendered at large distances

Usability

  • Built-in web server now includes a moving map, a screenshot grabber, and supports SVG-based panels
  • In-application launcher for Mac, based on Qt5

Graphics

  • Improved rendering of runway and other lights under ALS
  • Landing and spotlight support for ALS

Scenery

  • Improved materials XML format making customer material definition easier
  • Procedural rock material definition

JSBSim

  • Synchronization with latest JSBSim

Highlighted new and improved aircraft

  • Extra EA-500
  • North American P-51D Mustang
  • Cessna Citation II
  • F-14b

Other

  • Firewall exceptions are automatically added during setup on Windows systems
  • Aircraft moved to a SVN repository.

Bug fixes

  • See our bugtracker for an extensive, yet incomplete, list of the bugs fixed in this release.

Web Site Updates

December 30, 2014:

  • Upgraded to wordpress 4.1
  • Testing a new theme that is a bit less “bloggy”
  • Added a big fat “download now” button on the front page.
  • Fixed layout for small screens (like smart phones in portrait mode.)

January 24, 2014:

  • v3.0.0 release candidates are available for download and testing.  The official v3.0.0 release is scheduled for 17 Feb.
  • Upgraded to WordPress 3.8.1

December 20, 2013:

Upgraded to WordPress 3.8 and the Twenty Fourteen theme.

November 25, 2013:

FlightGear v2.12.1 (bug fix release) is now available for download.

October 3, 2013:

Upgraded to WordPress 3.6.1 and new TwentyThirteen theme.  The FlightGear web site server hardware has been relocated to a newer larger building.  And v2.12 has just been released!

February 13, 2013: Updated Scenery Download Path

The FlightGear scenery downloads has been updated to v2.10 in preparation for the 17 Feb v2.10 release.  The scenery content does not follow the same release schedule and has updates and improvements every few days.  Thus this is more of a name change formality, and the “v2.10” scenery will work fine with v2.8 and probably most v2.x versions of FlightGear.

January 12, 2013: New Wiki Server

The FlightGear Wiki (http://wiki.flightgear.org) has been moved from a shared hosting server to a new dedicated virtual private host.  The FlightGear wiki is *very* popular and generates a lot of traffic and server load so hopefully this will improve the performance and reliability of our wiki and at the same time help all the other services on the old shared hosting server.

The new wiki host has been donated to the FlightGear project by DigitalOcean. If you are searching for a good hosting service among an ocean of possible options, they are good guys.

December 18, 2012: WordPress 3.5 & New Theme

The FlightGear web site has been upgraded to the newest version of wordpress (3.5) and I am experimenting with a new theme.  We can always return to the old them if we decide we like that better, or we can more forward too.  The new theme has some better support for mobile devices.

December 29 update: when switching to the new 2012 theme, we ended up with comments enabled on all content pages.  This was unintentional.  The page comments were mostly support requests or the odd snarky comment.  I have removed the comments area from regular content pages, but comments are still allowed (and encouraged) for “post” pages.  However, comments will be filtered carefully for topic and usefulness.  Do they expand or clarify the conversation of the post topic?  Support questions will still be referred to the FlightGear forum.  Random positive/negative statements (like “I love flightgear” or “I hate flightgear” will generally be ignored.)  English is preferred for post comments, but exceptions have been made and probably will be made in the future.

October 24, 2012: Scenery Download Page updated

The World Scenery Download page is updated to SVN version 20579.  It may take a day or so for the updated files to flush through the mirror system.

September 7, 2012: WordPress 3.4.2

Upgraded to wordpress-3.4.2.

August 20, 2012: Updated Gallery

Featuring the winning entries of the 15th anniversary screenshot contest, we have added a new screenshot gallery to go along with the v2.8.0 release!

August 17, 2012: Version 2.8.0 Released

Yeah!  Look on the front page (or the recent posts list in the side bar) to read the official release announcement.  Better graphics, new aircraft, new visual effects, tons of new things to explore!

July 30, 2012: v2.8.0 Release Candidate “RC4” Available.

If you are interested in trying the next release of FlightGear ahead of time (and helping us sniff out any remaining bugs or packaging issues) then please take a look for download links in the release candidate section towards the bottom main download page.  Also notice that updated v2.8.0 aircraft are also available for download along with the pre-release.

June 28, 2012: WordPress 3.4.1

The FlightGear web site software has been updated to WordPress v3.4.1.

February 28, 2012: Version 2.6.0 Updates

Both Mac OS X and Windows have had small tweaks to follow up the v2.6 release.  For Mac OS X there is “r319” version of the 2.6.0 dmg which fixes a couple problems some Mac users were seeing.  For Windows there is a “Setup FlightGear 2.6.0.1.exe” which fixes one small 32bit vs. 64bit dll packaging problem some 64bit users were seeing.

February 17, 2012: Version 2.6.0 Released

There has been a large number of changes and updates to the download and information pages as part of the v2.6.0 roll-out.

Jan 29, 2012: New v2.6.0 Release Candidate Available

A complete test release for the upcoming FlightGear 2.6.0 version is available to try.  Follow this link to the FlightGear v2.6.0 Release Candidate page.

Jan 6, 2012: New Developer Snapshot Available

A new developer snapshot (v20120105) is available for download and testing.  This is a way to keep up with all the coolest new features and experimentation without needing to compile the code yourself from scratch.  You can find the download link on the main download page.

Dec 28, 2011: Contributors Section added

A new section has been added to the FlightGear web site: Contributors.  We plan to periodical add profiles of different contributors to this section.  If you’d like to be included here, or have corrections or updates to existing entries, please contact the web master!

Sep 27, 2011: Scenery Download Page added

A World Scenery Download page has finally been added to the new web site.  You can find the page in the main site menu.  The graphical download page has also been updated.  All the links should now point to the v2.4.0 version of the scenery (this corresponds to svn version 16700 from the terrascenery archives.)  Update: a small link error has been fixed so the download map should be working again.  Thanks to those who reported it!

Sep 27, 2011: New wiki and liveries server

The server hosting wiki.flightgear.org and liveries.flightgear.org has been upgraded and the content has been migrated over.  There shouldn’t be any problems, but of course if you spot something odd, please let us know.

FlightGear v3.2 Released

The FlightGear development team is delighted to announce the v3.2 release of FlightGear, the free, open-source flight simulator. This new version contains many exciting new features, enhancements and bugfixes. Highlights in this release include an experimental aircraft manager allowing users to download and load aircraft in-sim, a very capable built-in HTTP server, built-in voice synthesizer for ATIS messages, and many improvements to the Canvas rendering framework.

Founded in 1997, FlightGear is developed by a worldwide group of volunteers, brought together by a shared ambition to create the most realistic flight simulator possible that is free to use, modify and distribute. FlightGear is used all over the world by desktop flight simulator enthusiasts, for research in universities and for interactive exhibits in museums.

FlightGear features more than 400 aircraft, a worldwide scenery database, a multi-player environment, detailed sky modelling, a flexible and open aircraft modelling system, varied networking options, multiple display support, a powerful scripting language and an open architecture. Best of all, being open-source, the simulator is owned by the community and everyone is encouraged to contribute.

Download FlightGear v3.2 for free from FlightGear.org.

FlightGear – Fly Free!

Major enhancements in this release

Aircraft Modeling

  • A Failure Management Framework for FlightGear has been added
  • The JSBSim flight dynamics model now has support for ground effects like bumpiness, solid-ground detection and adjusting of friction factors. Additionally, bogey type contact points sink in non-solid surfaces, making it no longer possible to ride on water.
  • YASim now has versioning support. The YASim FDM now checks a version tag in it’s configuration file to allow improvements to the YASim FDM without risking breaking older aircraft.
  • Additional aircraft have started adopting the Canvas navigation display that was introduced with FlightGear 3.0.

Graphics

  • Improved rendering of VASI, PAPI, runway and taxiway lights.
  • Orbital rendering using textures from the NASA Visible Earth project
  • Additions to the Atmospheric Light Scattering (ALS) rendering include:
    • an experimental framework to render cloud shadows on the ground (requires Advanced Weather)
    • a substantial extension of cloud layer visibility using impostor techniques to 150 km
    • a new agriculture effect allowing to render fields without tiling artifacts
    • a new forest effect to simulate managed forest, varying tree size by patch
    • sparkle and fog effect on runway lights
    • much improved visual appearance of rock faces

Usability

  • An experimental aircraft package manager allows the download of new aircraft, and changing the current aircraft in-sim.
  • A new internal web server (aka httpd) based on mongoose httpd has been added. It supports various AJAX requests, a screenshot server, a property tree browser, and a web-based moving map and much more.
  • The integrated Map dialog now uses an azimuthal equidistant projection, for better representation in polar regions and across the International Date Line.
  • Windows users are now able to use the scroll wheel in dialog lists

Canvas System

Improvements to Canvas, FlightGear’s scriptable 2D rendering system include

  • Better performance
  • MapStructure-based layers can now be customized and styled
  • Support for mouse button and modifiers
  • CanvasImage now supports the http:// protocol for dynamically retrieving raster images.
  • An experimental Map dialog using Canvas is available under the Equipment menu.
  • Canvas Layout Engine

Nasal Scripting

  • A new fully-interactive Nasal GUI console based on Canvas has been added: Interactive Nasal Console
  • the hard-coded flight path history subsystem which samples aircraft position is now exposed via Nasal.

Documentation

  • Nasal documentation is now included,

Highlighted new and improved aircraft

Other

  • A text-to-speech system based on flite+hts_engine has been implemented, which is used for ATIS and other messages.
  • Improved loading behaviour for AI/MP aircraft

Bug fixes

  • A serious bug was found late in the release causing large numbers of crashes. Fixing this delayed he release, but had a nice side-effect of improving performance on some systems that were previously CPU-limited.
  • See our bugtracker for an extensive, yet incomplete, list of the bugs fixed in this release.

FlightGear v3.0 Released

February 17, 2014 – FlightGear v3.0 is Released!

The FlightGear development team is happy to announce the v3.0 release of FlightGear, the free, open-source flight simulator. This new version contains many exciting new features, enhancements and bug fixes. Highlights in this release include integration of the FGCom voice communications client within the simulator, improved terrain rendering, faster scenery loading, and improved usability. This release also coincides with the release of FlightGear World Scenery 2.0 – massively improved scenery data covering the entirety of the planet and incorporating OpenStreetMap roads and detailed terrain information from a variety of sources.

A list of major changes can be found at: http://wiki.flightgear.org/Changelog_3.0.

Founded in 1997, FlightGear is developed by a worldwide group of volunteers, brought together by a shared ambition to create the most realistic flight simulator possible that is free to use, modify and distribute. FlightGear is used all over the world by desktop flight simulator enthusiasts, for research in universities and for interactive exhibits in museums.

FlightGear features more than 400 aircraft, a worldwide scenery database, a multi-player environment, detailed sky modelling, a flexible and open aircraft modelling system, varied networking options, multiple display support, a powerful scripting language and an open architecture. Best of all, being open-source, the simulator is owned by the community and everyone is encouraged to contribute.

Download FlightGear v3.0 from FlightGear.org and “Fly Free!”

FlightGear – Fly Free!

FlightGear v2.12.1 Released

November 25, 2013

Update: FlightGear v2.12.1 (a bug fix release) is now available for download!

September 21, 2013 – FlightGear v2.12 is Released!

The FlightGear development team is happy to announce the v2.12 release of FlightGear, the free, open-source flight simulator. This new version contains many exciting new features, enhancements and bug fixes. Highlights in this release include improved usability, continued development of the Canvas rendering toolkit, and improved scenery rendering.

A list of major changes can be found at: http://wiki.flightgear.org/Changelog_2.12.

Founded in 1997, FlightGear is developed by a worldwide group of volunteers, brought together by a shared ambition to create the most realistic flight simulator possible that is free to use, modify and distribute. FlightGear is used all over the world by desktop flight simulator enthusiasts, for research in universities and for interactive exhibits in museums.

FlightGear features more than 400 aircraft, a worldwide scenery database, a multi-player environment, detailed sky modelling, a flexible and open aircraft modelling system, varied networking options, multiple display support, a powerful scripting language and an open architecture. Best of all, being open-source, the simulator is owned by the community and everyone is encouraged to contribute.

Download FlightGear v2.12 for free from FlightGear.org.

FlightGear – Fly Free!

FlightGear v2.10 Released

February 17, 2013 – FlightGear v2.10 is Released!

The FlightGear development team is happy to announce the v2.10 release of FlightGear, the free, open-source flight simulator. This new version contains many exciting new features, enhancements and bugfixes. Highlights in this release include improved usability, better terrain rendering and a fully scriptable 2D rendering system.

A list of major changes can be found at: http://wiki.flightgear.org/Changelog_2.10.

Oscar B., one of our developers made a movie to highlight some of the new features in v2.10

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cmhy9zjRBGs[/youtube]

LukeaFG has also made an excellent promo video showing some of the new v2.10 features.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZVCmHgAX6Y[/youtube]

Founded in 1997, FlightGear is developed by a worldwide group of volunteers, brought together by a shared ambition to create the most realistic flight simulator possible that is free to use, modify and distribute. FlightGear is used all over the world by desktop flight simulator enthusiasts, for research in universities and for interactive exhibits in museums.

FlightGear features more than 400 aircraft, a worldwide scenery database, a multi-player environment, detailed sky modelling, a flexible and open aircraft modelling system, varied networking options, multiple display support, a powerful scripting language and an open architecture. Best of all, being open-source, the simulator is owned by the community and everyone is encouraged to contribute.

Download FlightGear v2.10 for free from FlightGear.org.

FlightGear – Fly Free!

FlightGear v2.10 Release Candidates

February, 17, 2013: FlightGear v2.10 is official released.  Please proceed to the download page and download the full official release!  All the files shown here are old news.  Please move along, nothing more to see here. 🙂

This is the place to find the v2.10.0 release candidates as they become available.  We would really love for everyone to download these “test” releases and give them a try.  The target date for the official FlightGear v2.10.0 release is February 17.

Download FlightGear v2.10 Release Candidates:

(Release candidates can be updated frequently and the mirror system can take some time to update, so if a download link doesn’t work, please try another mirror.  If none of the mirrors work, try refreshing this page to get a new set of mirror suggestions.  Or try again in an hour or two.)

Download v2.10 Aircraft:

  • Download the newest versions of all the aircraft at the v2.10 Aircraft Download Page.  These are also have “release candidate” status and could be subject to changes before the official release.

Download v2.10 Scenery:

  • The FlightGear scenery is continuously being improved.  The newest available scenery works with both v2.8 and v2.10.  We update the scenery packages with any new models or changes every few weeks.  Get the latest scenery through the usual means from the Scenery Download Page.

Source Code

What’s New?

Comments or Questions?

  • If you have comments or questions regarding the release candidates, please go to the FlightGear forum.

Bugs?

12 Days of Flight Tips (Season 2)

Last year, Oscar (youtube user: osjcag) created a series of short “howto” movies called the 12 Days of FlightGear Tips.  This year he is producing Season #2!  Each day he releases a new tip in honor of the twelve days of Christmas. Make sure you check back each day for the new tip!  Even “seasoned” FlightGear pilots may pick up a new trick or two.  Enjoy!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoLuf3wfrEs[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMvGkJfoBVo[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AuEqnpnT0Q[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sSiSz2z9q8[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRYDHpjiTrM[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbfauLTlW90[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Szoyj2AniJQ[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jahhoLY9sQ[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aY3m9s10s4[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKsP-IgyYwY[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3kaBY0CFQA[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1u9mnWv3Cs[/youtube]