1 hour ago, dave2013 said:

How can 3 very different flight sims with different architectures and code have a single SDK???

It's possible, with differing levels of cost. For scenery, it's probably quite simple. At the end of the day there are only so many 3D model formats, and a texture is a texture. To rescale or load different formats (BMP vs PNG) is pretty trivial. From a purely capitalistic standpoint, it actually behooves the smaller players to facilitate use of the larger sim's API and SDK wherever possible, it gives them a much larger base of third-party content wherever possible.

Once you start getting into panels and add-ons that require native code, that gets "interesting", but that's also where Asobo is solving the problem with WASM. I'd prefer that over the C I deal with in X-Plane.

Unfortunately, the law is not settled here. Oracle sued Google regarding use of the Java APIs, and the Supreme Court held that Google was exempt under the fair use doctrine, but was silent on whether APIs are copyrightable, so the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit finding still stands. Big companies 1, capitalism 0 😞

There's nothing in capitalism that inherently makes it a zero sum equation. Cooperation can be perfectly valid in such a system, which I think the original poster missed.

14 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

Forest and trees, my friend. IoW: I look forward to the forthcoming FlightSim fruit of your Java collaboration with SayAgain. 🤙

I think you're being far too cryptic. While Java doesn't have much penetration on Windows desktop apps, my points still stand. And FWIW, if you are writing Windows desktop apps and want them to be cross-platform, you simply write them on .NET, which is the same fundamental technology as the Java ecosystem (cross-platform virtual machine and interpreted/JIT bytecode).

Cheers

Edited August 5, 2025Aug 5 by Luke

1 hour ago, dave2013 said:

Like I said, unfettered capitalism is not good, either, as it eventually leads to fraud, corruption, and monopolies.  This is painfully evident in our healthcare system, for example.  We need a system that embraces capitalism, competition, and risk-taking, but with reasonable regulation and safety nets for the good of all.......

....but you will still need aspects of that utopian society for it to work properly without the aforementioned "fraud, corruption and monopolies". In the end, human morality (or lack of it) is what rules the world.

3 hours ago, Luke said:

Cooperation can be perfectly valid in such a system, which I think the original poster missed.

Didn’t miss it, cooperation isn’t a bad word and doesn’t mean “communism” nor “monopoly” as other’s seem think it does.  BUT, cooperation in the capitalistic environment is NOT the norm and rarely is such cooperation implemented for the benefit of the consumer.  

Unfortunately, because MS/Asobo have a dominant position, their “capitalistic” swing would make them say “why should we, that might impact our user base negatively”.  Meaning more users using other platforms because more DLC will be available has the potential to shrink MSFS platform users.  “Choice” is NOT what MS/Asobo want to see as it “might” impact their revenue stream.  I can understand the fear, but IMHO, short sighted as opening the door to more DLC will likely improve platform longevity and draw more customers into the world of flight simulation (and just maybe enough to get out of the “niche” genre).

Scenery would be relatively easy to “cooperate” on a standard unified SDK (primitives, textures, lighting maps, compression, all currently fairly standard industry wide set of tools).  Aircraft might be a little more complex but entirely feasible especially if being operated thru Wasm and well defined specification.  The technology is there, no barriers other than fear of trying a new approach.

Cooperation, it does and can work out great for all (seller and buyer). 

Edited August 5, 2025Aug 5 by SayAgain

20 hours ago, LHookins said:

I always thought one reason to use a common high level language like C++ was so it could be compiled to run on different systems.  There will be some custom platform-specific code for each system, but the main code base should be the same.

Sure, under Wasm maybe, but not otherwise.

Not sure how JavaScript entered into this?  Nothing to do with Wasm other than it can be made to operate under Wasm.

 Personally I think JavaScript is the biggest pile of dog pooh (dynamically typed, no thanks) that evolved along the same lines as more dog pooh called VB Script.  JS is an endless source of security issues and encourages really poor coding … but that’s a different topic for a different day. 

19 hours ago, Luke said:

There are approximately 3 billion Android devices out there, all end-user. It is the most popular phone and tablet platform

True, but several reasons for that and none of them suggest because it’s popular it’s therefore the best end user option.  Android is 70% market share … it uses Linux Kernel which is “free (GPL)” … the Kernel can be tailored to meet one’s specific needs (so many flavors) … that’s why it has dominant market share (especially global market).

But Wasm IS different, it’s one of the few technologies that seems to be trying to unify and with some success.  Sure, there are some compromises and performance penalties but if “cooperation” can be earned, it has the best shot at success.

Bringing this back to a unified SDK … we need to stop re-inventing the same wheel over and over and over just because “capitalism” tends to be the barrier to cooperation.  As pointed out, not always, but in the majority of cases.  Finding the balance (no extremes) will bring about sustainability, not the quest for larger profit margins.

15 hours ago, SayAgain said:

Unfortunately, because MS/Asobo have a dominant position, their “capitalistic” swing would make them say “why should we, that might impact our user base negatively”.  Meaning more users using other platforms because more DLC will be available has the potential to shrink MSFS platform users.

I'm still struggling to see how this benefits the customer.

The vast majority of simulator users are running MSFS - an even higher majority of the users purchasing new content are using this platform. For them, MS/Asobo updating MSFS to use a different add-on format does nothing in the short term, and if anything runs the significant risk of decreasing their experience by (at best) slowing down feature velocity as the development team concentrates on this or (at worst) reducing the reliability of the sim overall.

I'm not aware of any content in the XP world that people are clamoring to have in MSFS, but probably the best thing for the consumer (add the creator of the addon) would be to create an MSFS port. That provides revenue much faster than waiting for some common format which may be years down the road. My observation of flightsim add-on groups is that the vast majority survive for 1-3 years, release one or two products and then people move on and it shuts down.

Lastly, if anyone has a very strong capitalistic urge to support a common add-on format, it's Laminar. I don't follow what Austin says or does - has he been pushing for something similar? He could of course always adopt the MSFS or FSX format to increase available content.

I suspect you're conflating "things I think would be a good idea" with "this would be good for the customer". Given the state of the sim market, I don't think that's correct.

Edited August 6, 2025Aug 6 by Luke

4 hours ago, Luke said:

I'm still struggling to see how this benefits the customer.

You pointed out a very good reason with your Android/Linux analogy … 70% (or so) … platform owners (aka Sony, nVidia, etc.) will join the party, more customers, more content, win win.

I’ll disagree with your other comments, you’re just repeating the same old process and not thinking outside the box … which is probably how Austin and others are thinking also (which is a shame).  A little pain for a lot of gain with cooperation, if only they could shed same-old same-old and stop putting up barriers.

I’ve seen this same process repeat and rinse for decades, it’s exactly why development is SO SLOW.  Maybe AI will solve this human limiting factor and we can be done with the road blocks.

Edited August 6, 2025Aug 6 by SayAgain

9 minutes ago, SayAgain said:

You pointed out a very good reason with your Android/Linux analogy … 70% (or so) … platform owners (aka Sony, nVidia, etc.) will join the party, more customers, more content, win win.

The success of Android was yes, a common standard. The reason for its success is that the smartphone market was fragmented, few vendors had the resources to build an OS and ecosystem from scratch which would have been a tremendously risky endeavor given all the competition and odds for success. There are a few things you need to remember:

• This was not a cooperative venture. While companies may add onto Android, it's driven by Google. Alone.
• Content producers didn't drive this at all. They had access to the Apple Store, but non-Apple vendors were locked out.
• Even then, it was the second-best platform. It succeeded in part because Microsoft had their heads up their rear.

Compare this to flight sim. Right now, there is a dominant standardized ecosystem - it's called MSFS. There's no shortage of content there, it's easy to find and purchase add-on content and MSFS has a mechanism for importing content you get from outside the store. In order to replicate the Android situation, you need to have a few competing simulator vendors who group together to create an alternative because the other option (reading MSFS content) is not open to them. There's only one alternative (Laminar) and there's nothing stopping them from reading MSFS or FSX models and textures. They're open standard formats, IIUC.

Let's also not forget that for almost two decades we had a standard add-on format - it was FSX. There was no shortage of content that was created for it. Unfortunately, that standard in a way held us back, because certain sims stopped development and for maximum compatibility you stayed at the FSX level, rather than taking advantage of all P3D could provide like PBR. The amount of P3D-native scenery was pretty low compared to the recycled FSX content.

26 minutes ago, SayAgain said:

I’ll disagree with your other comments, you’re just repeating the same old process and not thinking outside the box … which is probably how Austin and others are thinking also (which is a shame).  A little pain for a lot of gain with cooperation, if only they could shed same-old same-old and stop putting up barriers.

I'll say this as gently as I can - when you think everyone else in the room is blind and dumb except for you, there's a 99% chance that it's exactly the opposite. Things are the way they are for reasons - they may not be good or fair but the ecosystem has evolved in a certain fashion because of them, and unless you understand the selection pressures at play your idea will be another evolutionary dead end.

Development isn't slow at all, BTW. In the past five years we've seen an absolute explosion of content for MSFS. And instead of accusing me of "not thinking outside the box" (which IMO when I get accused of that someone is about to start handwaving) please let me know how the world is going to get better for the 99.9% of simmers who are using MSFS and buying/downloading new content for it.

You're trying to solve an theoretical problem that has little to no evidence to suggest it exists in real life.

Cheers

6 minutes ago, Luke said:

I'll say this as gently as I can - when you think everyone else in the room is blind and dumb except for you, there's a 99% chance that it's exactly the opposite. Things are the way they are for reasons - they may not be good or fair but the ecosystem has evolved in a certain fashion because of them, and unless you understand the selection pressures at play your idea will be another evolutionary dead end.

Happy to be the 1% … yes there is a reason and there is a better reasoning.  We shall see, like I said AI is going to influence “old-school” reasoning.

13 minutes ago, SayAgain said:

We shall see, like I said AI is going to influence “old-school” reasoning.

As your signature says, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." 😉

Cheers

On 8/5/2025 at 4:09 AM, dave2013 said:

The Soviet Union is a prime example.

Like I said, unfettered capitalism is not good, either, as it eventually leads to fraud, corruption, and monopolies.  This is painfully evident in our healthcare system,

“People” lead to problems, not one system or another. 
 

there was and remains plenty of fraud, corruption, and monopolistic tendencies in the former USSR, and we see similar even in China. 
 

it’s not the economic system, per se, but how people pervert them for their own benefit. THAT is the inevitability that must constantly be fought against. 

21 hours ago, SayAgain said:

rarely is such cooperation implemented for the benefit of the consumer.  

It’s NEVER implemented for the benefit of the consumer. Companies act in their own self interest, as do we all, to varying degrees. 

this isn’t a bad thing, because the consumers retain the ultimate power - voting with their wallets. 
 

so what we’ve got these days is a pretty good situation. And it wasn’t too long ago when the choice was just one fairly stagnant sim in Prepar3D vs one fairly complacent sim in X-Plane. 

then Microsoft decides to jump back in, and suddenly things are cookin! Thankfully, Austin regained his competitive spark and is keeping X-Plane relevant to consumers (in fairness, he’d laid been laying the groundwork for years. XP12 didn’t just pop out of a hat…). 

I guess I just don’t know where your motivation for a universal SDK is coming from…

is there an example you can share where a similar idea has worked out well?

In the meantime, I think having choice is great, and I spend money with the vendors who are delivering great/innovative products. And yeah, part of that choice means making commitments, and im good with that.

1 hour ago, SayAgain said:

Happy to be the 1% …

It’s just not the 1% you seem to think it is…

”AI” isn’t going to solve this “problem”. 

AI is going to reflect the priorities and biases of its creators- and then execute their mistakes at truly breathtaking speed. 

it’s not going to be pretty, either…

2 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

this isn’t a bad thing, because the consumers retain the ultimate power - voting with their wallets

I’ll disagree, they do not … a companies objective will do it’s best to make sure you don’t have a vote or your vote is not relevant.

The motivation for universal SDK is coming from seeing the same work done over and over and over again … just not efficient to rinse and repeat and takes time away from producing different content.  Do you really believe XP12 has as much DLC available as MSFS?  Heck, XP12 still hasn’t caught up to the volume of content choices available to P3D.

It’s really simply motivation, pick your airport, pick you aircraft use it any simulator you like (that supports the unified SDK).  Prefer the flight dynamics in XP12, use it there … prefer the visual quality in MSFS, use it there …  etc.  Like I said, from the 3D modeling aspect, the process is VERY similar, event processing for input is also very similar.  

 

6 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

AI is going to reflect the priorities and biases of its creators- and then execute their mistakes at truly breathtaking speed.

No, for AI to be effective, the LLMs used will need to come from many sources … why do you think nVidia and other companies are pushing it and using it?  The race is on and it will have fundamental changes and considerable fear mongering … but as the LLMs evolve and the information will progressively get more and more accurate.  It will not prevent people from not believing the information, heck, facts have never stop anyone’s diehard beliefs … those will continue to the end of time.  But the beauty in the AI LLMs and data sources is the fiction will eventually be tossed with nothing but facts left over.

AI already providing significant help in the work I do, reducing coding errors, optimizing code, research, building more realistic high quality video/imagery, conversions, self detection of adjusted (aka fake) images/video, security, etc. 

But sure, people are going to fear it because they don’t understand it … nothing new with human behavior.  However, the realization of its importance extends globally.  The race is on … because facts (not beliefs) result it better decisions.

8 minutes ago, SayAgain said:

ll disagree, they do not … a companies objective will do it’s best to make sure you don’t have a vote or your vote is not relevant

And for any company that does, you simply take your money and spend it elsewhere. 

your position makes sense when you’re talking about big societal things like intermodal transportation, but not at all when considering consumer entertainment software. 

you wanna run Windows on a Mac…? It’s a janky compromise - at best.