http://ozreport.com/toc.php?title=Flytec 6030 and WGS84 ellipsoid&articles=22.122/1,22.126/2,22.129/1

Joerg Ewald writes:

Allow me to clarify a few things. To give you some context, I work
for Volirium, the Swiss company that was formerly known as Flytec. My company
(well before my time there) developed the 6030. In 2016, to save us from
crashing into the ground, Naviter took over the Flytec brand name, along with
the Element series of varios. The 6030 is still ours, we have all the rights to
it, produce it, and sell it exclusively through Flytec/Naviter (because we
didn't want to go through the trouble of teaching everybody that besides "Flytec
6030" and "Bräuniger IQ Compeo+", there is now a third name for the same vario).

All pricing decisions regarding the 6030 are ours, and ours alone. Our friends
at Naviter are nice enough to support us, even though we are also a competitor
of theirs (or at least hope to become one again eventually). They buy the 6030s
we produce, and sell them to their customers. They host the software upgrades,
and they now also handle the feature package sale for us, without earning a
single Euro from that, all the proceeds from the WGS84 feature package sale go
to us, Volirium.

You may not remember, or not have been exposed to it, but there have been paid
software options for the 6030 before: The extension from 20 to 300 airspaces,
and the FAI triangle assistant had to be bought in the past. Nowadays, when you
buy a new 6030, it comes with those packages already released.

Why do those feature packages cost money? When developing a new device, and
setting the final sales price, besides many other things, we must factor in a
certain amount of money for future software maintenance and development. This
allows us to pay our employees' salaries, or (as was the case with the 6030
until recently) the external developer who created the software, and rightfully
wants to be paid for further work on it.

Then, for every device we sell, a bit of money comes in that can be used for
further development. The more devices are sold, the more money will be
available, the more we can invest in additional features. We may even decide to
spend more than that on a new feature, expecting it to drive up sales and
recapturing that cost later. Or, and that's the option we chose here, we decide
to have those pilots who want to use the feature pay for it (this can of course
only be applied to new features, and not to things that were advertised as being
already built in when the pilot bought the vario). But all in all, we have to
cover our costs, in order to pay salaries, pay rent, and survive as a company.

That's at least the theory, and how I handle things now. I have no idea how
things were done before I started at Flytec, but I can assure you that when I
came in, there was no money left for further 6030 software development. And the
ongoing 6030 sales, at the current price, do not bring in a lot to pay for
further development either - hardware becomes very expensive when purchased in
small quantities. Therefore, we had decided to not do any further development
for the 6030 at all (well, once I finally got a hold of the source code, I
couldn't resist and still cleaned up a few things, fixed a few bugs and sadly
introduced a new one for a short time, sorry Serge!).

Enter CIVL with their decision to switch to WGS84. You may or may not know that
I have done a lot of work for CIVL over the last few year (FS and WPRS
maintenance and development, paragliding CCC definition, formal scoring
specification), and have a good working relationship with the CIVL Bureau.
Unfortunately, that didn't prevent the last Plenary from deciding (against
explicit recommendations to stay with the FAI sphere by Andrej from Naviter,
Cristiano from Flymaster and myself) to move to WGS84. I have spent countless
hours before and after the Plenary, debating over email and in person, trying to
revert that decision. But eventually I had to accept that these are the
conditions we fly in right now, and make the best of it.

So I sat down and implemented WGS84 for the 6030, to make sure pilots will be
able to use their vario in all competitions for the foreseeable future. Now,
since we are a very small company, every hour I spent on the 6030 software meant
an hour less working on other things, things that bring in the money we use for
paying salaries, rent, etc. So by working on WGS84 instead of those other
things, we as a company spent money. If we were a big and prospering company, we
may even have decided to write this cost off as marketing expense. But we're
not, we're a small (re-)start-up, everything we do has to add to the bottom
line, or we won't be around much longer.

But we certainly do not have the intention of milking anybody. If we did, we
would now increase the price for new 6030s by 42 EUR, and in return include
WGS84, have everybody pay for something many of them will not need. I prefer to
give pilots the option to pay only for what they need. If you just bought a 6030
(before WGS84 for it was mentioned at all, so you can't have expected it to be
included), or buy one in the future, this package will not be included in the
regular purchase price. Because most pilots will not need WGS84 at all. Right
now, only participants in the paragliding Europeans next month will truly need
it. For hang-gliding, the first competition that will require it are the Worlds
next year. In other competitions, if they are scored with the recommended 0.5%
tolerance, or a smaller tolerance using only the FAI sphere, you can fly without
purchasing this package. And by the time you truly need it, you can still decide
whether you'd rather spend 42 Euro for this feature on the 6030, or buy a new
vario.

Writing that most pilots do not need WGS84 will probably be very bad for the
sales of this package. So let me give you another reason - besides participating
in a competition that requires it - for purchasing it: By doing so, you support
us, Volirium (that is Jorge, Silvano and myself), and enable us three to
continue doing work for you, improving the 6030 software, repairing your vario
when you break it, producing new 6030s in case you need to replace your broken
one or just want a new one, and eventually developing a worthy successor. All
that for 42 Euro! Most likely a very small amount, compared with all your other
flying-related expenses in a year.