it0uchpods wrote:I think the biggest reason that people leave is 2 things (and I am guilty of this, while I still dev flightgear, I mostly do my flying in P3D+VATSIM)
1) Not one FGFS arliner is *complete* AFAIK.
2) No professional environment, it is possible to bring FGFS on VATSIM, but it's not pleasant... yet.
Once FGFS planes gain maturately, and completion, then we can go more into connecting to VATSIM, and other more realistic ways of simming. Then more people will stay with FGFS.
I am working to get MD-88/90 and A320Family VATSIM compliant at some point.
So yeah... :/
So, I think one issue that is the reason for #1 above is the lack of control, management and decision making power. It's a bit of a 'problem' with lack of efficiency in open-source projects I think. In a commercial software you can lay out a plan as a manager and just tell people to work on things and on the larger level of planning that makes it more efficient.
With FG I agree that the lack of planes being complete is an 'issue'. But a lot of times we see nice planes abandoned because a new version of an aircraft comes out, and people lose interest in the old version. To me the 737-300 is pretty nice but it doesn't feel complete. The makers of that plane moved on to make the best plane in FG which is the new version of the 737. But then you have to wonder if they will see
that version through to the end.
It's easy for me to say of course because I don't develop for FG, I just fly. But since the question was about users that's a valid perspective I think. To me it would make more sense if developers spent X hours on completing the old model of the 737-300 or 747-400, instead of X+100's of hours making a new 737NG or 747-8i.
But like I said, this is all voluntary work and nobody is forcing anyone to do anything, so I doubt this will improve.