MobiFlight Community Support

I think MobiFlight is an excellent step forward in using the Arduino Mega with FSUIPC and various simulators.

Before I invest a lot of time building a simulator around MobiFlight I would like to know the future plan of MobiFlight:

1 Will it become open-source, on Git Hub for example?
2 Will it become a commercial product, licensed for money and supported?
3 Will it continue to be developed and debugged for many years, and still available to download?
4 Will product development and support stop, and possibly no ability to download?

The reason I ask these questions is that if MobiFlight development stops, I may not be able to get a simulator working and be forced to abandon the hardware/software and revert to Opencockpits I/O boards, for example. Hopefully there will be long term stability!

regards
Paul:

Hi paul_max,

welcome to MobiFlight!

1. So far as I know, MF is soon open-source. For more information you should search the forum.
2. No
3. What the future will bring is not known. At any rate, MF will continue to evolve and support will continue. Whether this will be years now, only the developer knows, this is Sebastian. I think that depends on his personal situation and his professional burden. But Sebastian should then make a statement.
4. This concern is currently unfounded because there is no evidence to support it

Apart from that, you can build up in parts or completely with what MF currently offers and makes an absolutely cost-effective HC.
Looking here in the direction of the OC, I consider inappropriate, especially since the cost factor would then increase significantly.
Even if theoretically MF would not be further developed from now on, there would be enough users who could and would still provide support. This concern is therefore unfounded in my view.

1.
Yes.... It´s still Open source.... But until now there are no other programmers that work on it.... Some people start.... But no reluslts until now i think.
If you have programming skills.... Or you like to bring some new ideas.... Contact Sebastian or Stephan or Myself..... Or write here in the Board !

2.
Basicly NO.... Whatever we all can make a Donate via Paypal and say "ThankYou" via this Money !

3 and 4.
Nobody know the future.... Only the Oracle in the Matrix !
But let me quote my Informatic Teacher from 1998..... A System that is working today on your Computer will work in 2000 Years on the same computer already ( alsong the Computer not get broke)
So.... Even if Sebastian will Stop everything and kill the Homepage..... When you already Download the Mobiflight software and save it on a USB Stick you can use it Forever !
Shure if he stop there will no update for a future Version of P3D and so on..... But aslong you use the Simulator that is working today...... It will work forever !
But i don´t think he will stop completly..... The Whorst Case is that he stop implementing new things..... But Bugfixing and support will be able for long time i think/hope !

Stephan, pizman82,

Thank you for great replies! Open source would be an excellent step forward, because MobiFlight is a good design, on low cost hardware and does not need complex programming. Just a good knowledge of the simulator variables in FSUIPC, for which there are hundreds of articles and tutorials.

I am a software engineer with 35 years experience after my Elec Eng degree. I develop C++ these days and understand microprocessors at the hardware level; although I expect MobiFlight is written in C#.

The "max" in my name is because I'm interested in the 737-MAX cockpit, the 787 cockpit, and the A350 cockpit. They are so modern, even with touch screens now.

What impressed me is I could wire up an 8 digit module ($3!) in a few minutes and display the height of the plane in FSX. Well done!

I'm sure there will be some load balancing issues to sort out for complex cockpits, but with Mega boards at such an economical cost the future is obvious!

cheers
Paul

Hi again Paul.....

About Open source and the Code..... Look Here... https://bitbucket.org/mobiflight/mobiflightfc
If you like to work on it please use this plattform and talk to Sebastian via Email !

****
Another thing !

Parallel to Sebastians work on Mobiflight we think about a "new way" to expand the tools of Mobiflight.
Lots of advanced stuff can´t get implement into Mobiflight cause it make the system to difficult and confusing for "normal" Users.
The "Key" is LUA via FSUIPC..... there the user can do nearly everthing with little scripts..... And we can combine them with Mobiflight technology.

The Problem.... I Got all the Ideas.... I got knowledge about the logics in the code..... But i not be able to write the code myself cause my experience in scripting is verry poor.
As i know LUA is based on "C".... So you are pretty shure be able to do that.

Additional we have some projects that need self written scripts for the arduino IDE itself ( C Based scripting i think) .... ( For difficult improvisional elements. that are not simulated)

So if you like you can support us in the future !


My Email for personal contact.... pizman@freenet.de

Thank You,

I have just looked at the repository in bitbucket and it looks familiar to GitHub that I have used professionally. I'm sure I can pickup bitbucket and the C# - I just need to understand the bitbucket process first. I have used SourceTree, the desktop client, extensively. I presume the latest Visual Studio is used.

There seems to be an outstanding Pull Request, due to problems with ALPS encoders although I did not follow the entire thread.

cheers
Paul

Hi Again....
I Think Sebastian not realy support all informations there cause he still work aloane on that stuff..... So its not profitabble to do your own way at the moment.... For example the ALPS Encoder Script is still in Beta Testing process and nearly finished.....

PLEASE.... get in personal Contact to Sebastian..... Talk to him about your ideas and then find a way together in what segment you can help him maby !