Free ACARS?

[tweatherford]

Looking for some feedback:

In the past, VA Solutions developed ACARS for clients on an individual basis, starting from scratch each time. In order to reduce cost, we've written our standard "in-house" ACARS, which we intend to offer customized versions of at monthly or one-time pricing plans.

With so many "free" ACARS out there, I'd like to know if anyone would be interested in the release of a free version? It would be generic, branded, and non-customizable like most free ACARS. With so many choices existing already, I'd like to gauge the community interest in releasing this. The goal of our ACARS is lightweight. This keeps crashing to a minimal. No in flight radios, no call outs, nothing to weigh the software down. Its job is to log your flight and nothing else; just what it is supposed to do. Adding unnecessary features is what I believe to be the folly of most other ACARS available. The goal of AirCARS is to keep it "light" like air.

That being said, there are already so many freely available ACARS in existence, I do not want to commit the time to finishing the phpVMS module for the free version if there is no interest in additional software choices.

Any feedback from the community? - Shoutouts and kudos to all of the other ACARS developers that already have released the many quality products available in our community. I have nothing but the highest respect for each of you.

Tim Weatherford

http://virtualairlinesolutions.com/

[atulumello]

Looks awesome Tim!!

[tweatherford]

Thanks Anthony!

The screenshot is the "unskinned" plain version that we would offer if the free version were released. Paid customizations look much better than this. I'll have to screenshot a "Porterfied" version for you.

[atulumello]

I would... absolutely love that!

[Vangelis]

Where have i seen that before ? Ah wait i remembered

I would like to remind you the terms of use of APVacars Opensource

APVA is licenced under

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported

That means you are free to modify everything except the About Box as it hold's all reference to all modules and DLL's that i have used and also not making a profit by selling it.

[tweatherford]

I can assure you, that while I did base the appearance of the bottom bar off of APVacars, AirCARS is my original work. Therefore, I'm not sure how your licencing agreement would apply to my product. I admired the appearance of the status bar and incorporated that look into this, however, seeing as how your product is written in VB and mine is written in Ruby, more specifically IronRuby.

If the similarities in appearance bother you, I can remove them... that being said, there are only so many controls available in Visual Studio.

[Vangelis]

It doesnt bother me and if it is as you say then i apologize

but as far as i havent seen a compiled version to be able to verify it then i will stick to this as there are members that are taking the code and offering payed versions.

If you want you can send me an exe of a compiled exe to my email

Best regards

[tweatherford]

I agree with you 100% -

As I said, I borrowed the status bar design almost directly(minus some obvious differences) from APVA for the "free" version of AirCARS. I believe this to be the most efficient way of displaying the information. I will re-work this, so as to avoid any confusion at all. (Don't want other people to think that this is stolen or violating the terms of your license) This is very much a work in progress. I apologize for borrowing the bottom portion of the form without crediting you, however, it was the ONLY element taken from APVA. Since it was not code, and only a form element, I did so without thinking about how it might make the project appear to be based even slightly on APVA.

APVA is brilliant, and follows many design philosophies that I agree with completely (lightweight, efficient, simple), however, Ruby allows me to more efficiently retheme ACARS, and allows members of the VA Solutions team already familiar with Visual Studio to adjust the GUI without having to learn to program Ruby. Not only will I rework the bottom status bar before launch, but I will still send you a compiled version of the .exe. I still have work to do to finish the GUI anyway (namely the "flight briefing" tab). The purpose of the thread was to gauge whether or not the project was worth finishing, based on the community interest, not to say that that the project will be released anytime soon, or that it will look anything like the picture posted.

Not opposed to letting you take a peak at the source either; as I am a big fan of your work.

[Vangelis]

Thank you on the aproach as always competiotions makes us better awaiting for the exe

Best regards