Drudge Report....

[j6cubic]

That's exactly how my apps will be distributed. Sorry, but I'm not writing some glorified install-script just so users can bypass their brains. And unless someone uploads them elsewhere, they'll only be available from my homepage. I have no problems with others doing the crappy installer for me, but I'm not going to be doing it myself, PND or otherwise. The "unzip here, put roms there, tape images there, disks in that folder there" has worked fine for me and my users for the last ten years, I see no reason to change it now.

Do expect lots of requests to make a proper .PND package and/or negative comments from people who accuse you of doing the bare minimum to support the Pandora as a platform.

If the .PND format is picked up like OS X application bundle (and I expect it to), you can expect that the average Pandora user will see them as the way things should be and anything else as substandard and betraying a lack of effort. Because nobody wants to copy files manually, hack together their own .desktop file and integrate that with .PND frontends that might not actually be designed to support arbitrary .desktop files when you can have one-click installation.

From what I can tell it should be fairly simple to create a working .PND – once you have written the metadata once, creating a new .PND should be something you can automate away in the makefile. Sure, the user still needs to manage their ROMs, BIOS ROMs, plugins and/or whatever else the emulator needs separately – but they don't need to jump through hoops just to execute it.


It's not about "not using their brains". It's about integration. I expect applications for a given platform to properly integrate themselves in order to give me a decent experience. For the Pandora that means supporting the gaming controls and being available as a .PND. If the developer can't even be bothered to package the application correctly, why should I assume that he took the time to make it work decently?

Granted, I'm a Mac user and we tend to be integration junkies but still – installing a game or emulator on a console should not involve more steps than absolutely neccessary. Otherwise it's not much of a console, isn't it?

 

[bzar]

Well, we could have some dedicated pnd packager members. Doesn't require experience, easy to learn, entry-level way to contribute to the community. Some of our less experienced members would probably like something like this to feel useful.

 

[j6cubic]

Perhaps something as simple as an example makefile that reads the application's version number from one file (preferably from a C header so one only needs to change one file for the app and the .PND), plugs it into a PXML template and uses that to generate a .PND containing all files the app needs to run. One would only need to copy and paste the relevant parts of the makefile over and adapt the PXML template and could instantly generate .PNDs with a minimum of hassle.

 

[x68000]

Can't say it's a suprise that an Appstore is in the works. Devs such as ZodTTD have been charging for some of their wares over on the Cydia Iphone Repo for some time now.

It is understandable that some people may be a tad agrieved by the thought of being forced into paying for some of the homebrew/emus after initially donating to the dev fund.

Clarification is needed on how the dev fund is being used, after all, it is our money sitting in there.

 

[Asmo]

It is understandable that some people may be a tad agrieved by the thought of being forced into paying for some of the homebrew/emus after initially donating to the dev fund.

Clarification is needed on how the dev fund is being used, after all, it is our money sitting in there.

I'd feel a bit of a mug if I ended up having to pay 'twice' so to speak, especially since (knowing as little at this point about what the plans are exactly) this sounds so far removed from the expectations for the file archive. I don't begrudge the authors payment for their efforts, I just thought I'd already made one.

 

[j6cubic]

At least all GPL'd emulators can just be built by someone else – if someone offers them and charges money, they're obliged to make their source code available to any customer or they're in violation of the license, which means the emulator will have to be removed from the app store (and/or several people open themselves up for litigation).

Of course, this does not apply to non-open emulators or those under a less restrictive license.

 

[borgqueenx]

I hope psx4pandora will be free....

And i hope alot dev's will go for donationware.

 

[fusion_power]

A little bit late to tell us we have to PAY for Pandora Software?!?!?!?!
Sorry, this wasn't the deal and the philosophy behind this Project. We have the Dev-Fund and I think people can donate for the devs onto their pages if they want.
I don't have a credit card, I don't want a credit card, I don't need a credit card and I'm sureley don't give any private Informations about me or my bank-data into the Net and that's the reason why I don't use PayPal or every other internet payment service. I only made ONE bank Transfer to ED to order my Pandora and this was "offline" like it is very common here in Germany (and much more secure than pure Internet-Payments). And as long the Net is not really save, I simply can't pay anything online, no "STEAM", no "App Store", nothing.
So I hope, the Pandora Project stays free, NOW it is to late for such a "twist" and very mean If you ask me. I wonder if Craigix want to get some of the money for the Devs if the payment goes over his site, I don't know.

 

[WizardStan]

A little bit late to tell us we have to PAY for Pandora Software?!?!?!?!

You don't have to pay for software. You have the option of not getting the pay stuff and sticking with the free software: there will be a lot of it.
But who are you to tell me that I have to give away my stuff for free? Your right to free software should not infringe on my right to charge for software if I so choose. If I come up with something I think is really great and want to sell it, should I be forbidden from doing so because some people want everything to be free?
Note, I'm unlikely to put any stuff up for sale, and anything I write is very likely to be for free, as is a lot of software, I'm just saying that I should have the option to ask for monetary compensation if I want to.

 

[craigix]

A little bit late to tell us we have to PAY for Pandora Software?!?!?!?!
Sorry, this wasn't the deal and the philosophy behind this Project. We have the Dev-Fund and I think people can donate for the devs onto their pages if they want.
I don't have a credit card, I don't want a credit card, I don't need a credit card and I'm sureley don't give any private Informations about me or my bank-data into the Net and that's the reason why I don't use PayPal or every other internet payment service. I only made ONE bank Transfer to ED to order my Pandora and this was "offline" like it is very common here in Germany (and much more secure than pure Internet-Payments). And as long the Net is not really save, I simply can't pay anything online, no "STEAM", no "App Store", nothing.
So I hope, the Pandora Project stays free, NOW it is to late for such a "twist" and very mean If you ask me. I wonder if Craigix want to get some of the money for the Devs if the payment goes over his site, I don't know.

The only way to attract commercial games and software (for example iphone ports) is to offer them a way of charging for their work. Look at the success of the iPhone app store.

Sticking with this old 'oh someone will do it for free' stance is out of date - people will just go to a platform like the iPhone instead. If you want the Pandora to have an awesome software base we need to do this.

Also I can absolutely assure you the devfund (and thousands more of our own money) is being well spent on software already.

Oh, and you can easily charge your account by a bank transfer if you want to buy something for the Pandora.

 

[fusion_power]

A little bit late to tell us we have to PAY for Pandora Software?!?!?!?!

You don't have to pay for software. You have the option of not getting the pay stuff and sticking with the free software: there will be a lot of it.
But who are you to tell me that I have to give away my stuff for free? Your right to free software should not infringe on my right to charge for software if I so choose. If I come up with something I think is really great and want to sell it, should I be forbidden from doing so because some people want everything to be free?
Note, I'm unlikely to put any stuff up for sale, and anything I write is very likely to be for free, as is a lot of software, I'm just saying that I should have the option to ask for monetary compensation if I want to.

Of course YOU can sell whatever you want. Maybe I have not understood the entire concept but if the Pandora Software woule be only available through some kind of "App store" then there is sureley not a reason anymore to give Software for free.
Like I've sayed, there already is an Dev-Fund, maybe this is a good way to have a balance between free Software and a reward for the hard work of the devs. Maybe it is one of the first real rewards, homebrew-devs will get for their work, unlike onto the GP2X developments (except Coding Competitions)
I just hope there will be at least SOME free Sofware. And I WOULD Pay for great Software (for Example if you are bringing "Torchlight" for Pandora, you will have 25 Euros more onto your bank depot ) ,but you should have a german bank Account so I can make a Bank Transfer offline. Like mentioned before I mainly have a Problem with INTERNET-PAYMENT in general.

The only way to attract commercial games and software (for example iphone ports) is to offer them a way of charging for their work. Look at the success of the iPhone app store.

Sticking with this old 'oh someone will do it for free' stance is out of date - people will just go to a platform like the iPhone instead. If you want the Pandora to have an awesome software base we need to do this.

No worries, I would never switch to Apple. And I think there will never any parallels between our Pandora and Apple. :lol:
I have to say, Apple has a great Presentation for their Products, the Commercials of the iPhone are a pure Quality and very clear and effective in what they want to tell you, I really want to see similar things for the Pandora. But the rest? Well, People buy a Apple Product because it is a hip and trendy thing. I buy a Pandora because it is exactly the Device I wanted for Years!

Oh, and you can easily charge your account by a bank transfer if you want to buy something for the Pandora.

If ED offers such a service (I trust him) it is worth to think about it.
BUT I only pay for solid and usable stuff, no bugy Beta-Ware or not continued Betas, which is sadly often (NOT always) a problem in Homebrew sector, I hope the money can change also the quality a little bit. If Coders want money for their work there should be at least some kind of "standard quality level" for the Software. Maybe someone can make quality rules for a Software product to get in the official Pandora-App-Store. We know the "Nintendo Quality seal", good Pandora-Software could also benefit from such a branding.

 

[emil10001]

Eh, for $5 each for a couple of emulators, I don't really have a problem with that. The way I see it, that $5 allows me to play a couple of hundred games. That said, I also like to try things out once or twice and never touch them again, and my favorite thing about linux is that typically I get to do that for free.

If the devs who charge for their apps also provide free trials or whatever, then that's cool. I can try it out for a bit, and see if it's worth buying. If they don't, I'm not very likely to risk not ever using it, so I'm much less likely to buy. I dunno, I'm happy to leave it up to the devs to figure out how to best entice people to buy their product, or just use it, depending on the goals of said dev.

In addition, I'm sure that there will be a litany of youtube videos, and in the absence of free trial versions, that will be the next best thing.

I think that in the end, there will be plenty of choices for free/donation software that people won't really need to worry about not having anything to do on their device. It does stink a bit that every user won't be able to show off all of the bleeding edge stuff without paying a bit for it. On the other hand, if a payment system like this encourages more devs to develop for the pandora, especially if those might be smaller indie studios or something, then it's us who are getting a better deal out of this.

@fusion_power
I don't think that devs will automatically charge for stuff that they wouldn't normally have. I think that it really comes down to the goals of said developer. If their goal is to create an app that everybody with a pandora is going to use, then they won't want to charge for it. If their goal is to make enough money to buy some hardware for testing, or make enough money to justify their time spent on the project, then sure, they might want to charge for it.

It's really just up to the dev, and the dev will do what's best for them. And, since we are relying on the devs to keep us entertained with good software, I'm all for making the devs happy. Though, I always have the choice of whether or not I am willing to pay $X for an app.

 

[craigix]

By paying you are also going to get yourself some support from the dev, and encourage bug fixes. It's win win.

 

[elwing]

and encourage bug fixes.

depend if there's a way for user to report what they think on an app or some kind of refund if no support are given...

 

[WizardStan]

I just hope there will be at least SOME free Sofware. And I WOULD Pay for great Software (for Example if you are bringing "Torchlight" for Pandora, you will have 25 Euros more onto your bank depot ) ,but you should have a german bank Account so I can make a Bank Transfer offline. Like mentioned before I mainly have a Problem with INTERNET-PAYMENT in general.

There will be a lot of free software by legal necessity (while not exactly true, the way things work with the GPL it's effectively true).
So you'll get most of your emulators, all the open source games (including Quakes 1, 2, and 3 engines for example, if you've got the data files (and a lot of data files can also be obtained for free around the net, including the demos (but I digress))), all the existing productivity software like Abiword or OpenOffice and the gimp. And there will be many developers that make new stuff entirely free because they want to, as well. The appstore seems to just be to encourage outside developers that would normally not be interested to produce something for the Pandora.
I agree though, something needs to be decided about the dev fund that so many people donated to. People are already holding torches and looking for pitchforks

 

[matzesu]

If, the Emus are free like gba snes gbc gb megadrive and n64, and you have caster and world of goo in your app store, and i can pay over my bank acount, than i find it good..

and yes, its a bit too late: the most pandora orderes has orderet the pandora for the free programms: all emulators that whe saw in the videos this yeahr and last yeahr, the quake port, zeq2lite, scummvm, thats all programm im interestet, but im not interestet in mame

so if i only want the older versions of the emulators, do i must pay something?

and i dont want paypal or kreditkart pay, because i have only the bank account..

 

[Trip]

Also I can absolutely assure you the devfund (and thousands more of our own money) is being well spent on software already.

I agree though, something needs to be decided about the dev fund that so many people donated to. People are already holding torches and looking for pitchforks

Looks to me like Craig and Co. are holding onto some surprises for when the Pandora is released.

The bad thing about seeing all the development process etc., is that there will be very few surprises on release day. Keeping what the dev fund has been spent on and a couple of software projects a surprise is a fantastic idea.

People should put away their pitch forks and torches for now and have a little faith

 

[j6cubic]

The way I see it, the presence of an app store will not preclude much or most of the content being free. I expect that, unlike Apple*, Craig will not charge anything for getting something onto the store. There is no disincentive to publishing something through the store at a price of 0. Therefore, we'll see the same thing we see at Apple's App Store – a plethora of free apps and a lot of commercial ones.

Since many homebrew apps have to be free for legal or practical reasons (while I can charge for a GPL'd app there's nothing to keep someone else from offering it for free) you can expect there to be lots of free content on the app store.



* I know, Apple charges you for being a developer but the effect is the same.

 

[borgqueenx]

im also curious what the suprise will be will it be a emulator, a game, a piece of eyecandy for the os?

 

[Tom`]

I just hope there will be at least SOME free Sofware. And I WOULD Pay for great Software (for Example if you are bringing "Torchlight" for Pandora, you will have 25 Euros more onto your bank depot ) ,but you should have a german bank Account so I can make a Bank Transfer offline. Like mentioned before I mainly have a Problem with INTERNET-PAYMENT in general.

There will be a lot of free software by legal necessity (while not exactly true, the way things work with the GPL it's effectively true).
So you'll get most of your emulators, all the open source games (including Quakes 1, 2, and 3 engines for example, if you've got the data files (and a lot of data files can also be obtained for free around the net, including the demos (but I digress))), all the existing productivity software like Abiword or OpenOffice and the gimp. And there will be many developers that make new stuff entirely free because they want to, as well. The appstore seems to just be to encourage outside developers that would normally not be interested to produce something for the Pandora.

If I can see one problem with this it's that many homebrew developers (at least in my admittedly limited experience) are already not all that likely to respect the GPL, and craig has an incentive to support this behavior, since illegal proprietary forks being sold = more commissions from his app store). It's been my experience that users mostly don't care much about this either. It doesn't help if software is under the GPL if the developers won't release source for ports (well, it doesn't matter for a lot of systems, but certainly some will need a lot of work - for example, what would we do if Ari64 one day decided, well, everyone wants this emulator enough to pay $10 for it, why should I let anyone have the source?)