Drudge Report....

[matzesu]

And what ist whit the Carring Cases? are there ordered, or forgotten?

since 6 X 2 Months(tm), whe have heared nothing about they,

 

[WizardStan]

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

Doom 3 would make me very happy. Actually paying for the rights so they can actually sell it complete with data files would be nifty, and really demonstrate the capabilities of the hardware.

 

[Jumpman]

I think the app store is a great idea. It adds a level of quality to the overall project. I have always donated to developers in the past, who had a donation link. If someones wants to charge a few bucks for there hard work, I can't complain. Openpandora, keep up the good work and bring on the PANDORA!


Jumpman

 

[Paradox]

so when you say dev fund money and thousands of your own money has been spent, do we know on what exactly? or is that a secret for now? are some super fun games / programs being developed in the background, to be released when the pandora comes out? sorry if it's been said but I havn't seen anything on this.

 

[Poem58]

Wasn't it like $50US to do a Bank Transfer!? So If I want to have an emulator that costs $5 I have to Pay the $5 and the Bank Transfer Fee!? I Do have a debit card with credit card usability. So if we can use that straight up without Paypals etc. Than OK, every few months or so I could probably buy something for $5 maybe $10. But I will never do it if I have to do transfers or currency conversions or Paypal setups etc.

 

[WizardStan]

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).

GPL violations are usually addressed, especially if someone is making money off of it. Look at the backlash when the GP32 came out using GPL code without the source.

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?)

Then he would be violating the GPL. Basically your argument is that people can violate the GPL, but I don't see how that can be used to discourage for-pay software.
People can steal my car; that shouldn't be a valid argument to encourage mass transit.

 

[j6cubic]

e 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).

Yeah, but the FSF and the EFF have become a lot more active in the last few years. And even if they won't become active in this case, one could still look at which libraries the emulator/game/app uses (for example SDL) and have their devs send the person in question a nastygram.

Plus, I'm not entirely sure but I do think that an application that uses a library against its license can't legally be redistributed. If Craig sells it knowingly, he might open himself up to lawsuits and possibly commit a crime. I'd expect any application that is proven to violate a licence to be taken out of the store simply to cover Craig's ass.

Think about this: He already makes money off the Pandora as well as his regular business. Selling illegal software would threaten the faith people put into his business if it becomes known – for instance, GPH might decide they want someone else to sell their systems. It would also put a black mark on OpenPandora and the system itself and scare away publishers. And all that for a couple hundred bucks he might make. Not a good idea.

 

[Tom`]

GPL violations are usually addressed, especially if someone is making money off of it. Look at the backlash when the GP32 came out using GPL code without the source.

Well, at least until fairly recently (may still be the case, I'm not completely clear on this) the Dingoo and Wiz still didn't have source code available for the OS or any of the GPL built-in emulators/applications, despite the reaction to the similar problems with the GP2X. (Notaz said there's kernel and bootloader source for the Wiz available, but I couldn't find it, so maybe I'm misunderstanding something). I don't see anyone complaining about that.

Basically your argument is that people can violate the GPL, but I don't see how that can be used to discourage for-pay software.
People can steal my car; that shouldn't be a valid argument to encourage mass transit.

The problem is that this app-store model incentivizes GPL violations for both OP and the developers, and OP (or Craig, at least) hasn't shown any particular concern for the GPL in the past (and there's a history of GPL violation being accepted in this community). Furthermore, users have no recourse except to refuse to buy the software, which is not going to have much of an impact when it's a very popular application.

If I'm not making sense, it's probably because I've only slept about six hours in the past week.

edit:

Plus, I'm not entirely sure but I do think that an application that uses a library against its license can't legally be redistributed. If Craig sells it knowingly, he might open himself up to lawsuits and possibly commit a crime. I'd expect any application that is proven to violate a licence to be taken out of the store simply to cover Craig's ass.

Think about this: He already makes money off the Pandora as well as his regular business. Selling illegal software would threaten the faith people put into his business if it becomes known – for instance, GPH might decide they want someone else to sell their systems. It would also put a black mark on OpenPandora and the system itself and scare away publishers. And all that for a couple hundred bucks he might make. Not a good idea.

I don't know UK law - if it's similar to US law, he could be sued if the developer was in the UK, but I don't know how it works internationally.

Anyway, this isn't theoretical - he already sells software in contravention of the GPL (and/or has in the past) - (at least some of) the emulators on the Wiz are IIRC known to be ports of GPL ones, and, not surprisingly, no source is forthcoming from China. GPH didn't supply source for the Wiz kernel for a long time as well, even if they do now (which I couldn't find in any case, and even if it exists in full and is up to date, it was found by a third party - GPH is apparently refusing to provide it).

(In spite of my walls of text, I'm not trying to be fanatical on this issue, I'm just saying we should expect the same level of compliance with the GPL as with any instance where proprietary software was being illegally distributed.)

 

[MDave]

As far as I know, you don't actually break the GPL if you release the source code with the binary, commerical or not.

That means you can actually sell something that uses GPL code.

For example, the ID Tech 3 engine (or better known as the Quake 3 engine). As long as all the content and assets are yours, and you don't have any copyright material that belongs to someone else you are free to sell your total conversion using the Quake 3 engine, as long as the source code is also available. That is the only catch. If you don't want the source released, then you have to buy the engine.

Check this for more information: http://www.idsoftware.com/business/idtech3/

 

[Asmo]

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?

Sort of what I'm feeling. I'm principally interested in the classic emulators that we've been promised - I'm not that interested in 'unique' titles, though I'm sure to be tempted if something interests me.

I'd like a clear picture of what this all means for the emulators in particular, the stuff we've been watching so far. The things we - at least I - thought I'd already contributed to via the dev fund (more than one payment). I don't want to unbox my Pandora and then have to fork out a fixed sum of money straight away when others made no donations and would no longer feel obliged to, as it's covered by this new arrangement.

 

[craigix]

The problem is that this app-store model incentivizes GPL violations for both OP and the developers, and OP (or Craig, at least) hasn't shown any particular concern for the GPL in the past (and there's a history of GPL violation being accepted in this community).

You had better back that up with something.

I mean do you even understand why the Pandora project came to exist?

Do you remember the GPL fight we had with GPH?

 

[Sturatt]

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?

To be fair, it doesnt really make sense for some apps to be distributed as pnd files (emulators are a perfect example, with you having to put your own files in with the application's), which is why libpnd also considers a directory with a pxml file in it executable. It will still be the exact same amount of work to install, only you will be copying a directory over instead of a file.

 

[WizardStan]

The problem is that this app-store model incentivizes GPL violations for both OP and the developers, and OP (or Craig, at least) hasn't shown any particular concern for the GPL in the past (and there's a history of GPL violation being accepted in this community). Furthermore, users have no recourse except to refuse to buy the software, which is not going to have much of an impact when it's a very popular application.

1) "China" does a lot of things. They get away with it because of differences in the laws there, physical separation with their customers, and language differences: if an English speaking person complains, they can very easily just ignore them. I expect that a large portion of the developers come from English speaking countries, either primary or secondary, or show themselves sufficiently active in the community that they can be reached, which leads to
2) The community as it stands is small enough that if one person violates GPL, it will spread like wildfire and that person will be shunned in the community. If something is in the official repository or appstore or wherever, violating GPL, and Open Pandora do not do something about it, the community backlash will be quite large I would expect.
I have faith that, if told about GPL violations, Craig would do the right thing, if not because he agrees with the GPL, then at least to save his own skin from threat of legal trouble.

 

[gaterooze]

I have donated hundreds to devs in the past, but I wouldn't feel right "buying" an emulater or port (although I will continue to donate to those devs who do provide them). However, an app store for original software is a cool idea.

Now, buying an original from-scratch emulator? That one's a quandry... I would definitely donate to the creator but I can't explain why I wouldn't feel comfortable actually "buying" it.

 

[j6cubic]

To be fair, it doesnt really make sense for some apps to be distributed as pnd files (emulators are a perfect example, with you having to put your own files in with the application's), which is why libpnd also considers a directory with a pxml file in it executable. It will still be the exact same amount of work to install, only you will be copying a directory over instead of a file.

Why? Emulators for OS X are distributed as application bundles, just like everything else (save command-line only tools and daemons). Just because the application needs to reference something in a certain path, that path doesn't need to be in the application's $PREFIX or hardcoded somewhere.

What I think about is the following: The emulator is in a .PND archive. When I start it I need to configure where it looks for ROMs, etc. (if it doesn't just use a file chooser of some sort) and from there everything works just as if the emulator uses a plain directory structure. If the emulator explicitly needs me to install files to my home directory before I can use it, PXML either supports automatically installing a skeleton file or its use as an installation helper is fairly limited anyway.

My assumption here is that no sane application ever needs to modify itself. And an application modifying itself is the only reason why its files need to be in a writable location as opposed to a mounted ISO.

I mean, this isn't Windows 9x where application settings are stored in that application's directory. .PND or no, an application should be able to read from the rest of the directory tree as far as permissions go and it should be able to write to ~/.appname. And emulators really don't need much beyond that.

 

[Sturatt]

To be fair, it doesnt really make sense for some apps to be distributed as pnd files (emulators are a perfect example, with you having to put your own files in with the application's), which is why libpnd also considers a directory with a pxml file in it executable. It will still be the exact same amount of work to install, only you will be copying a directory over instead of a file.

Why? Emulators for OS X are distributed as application bundles, just like everything else (save command-line only tools and daemons). Just because the application needs to reference something in a certain path, that path doesn't need to be in the application's $PREFIX or hardcoded somewhere.

What I think about is the following: The emulator is in a .PND archive. When I start it I need to configure where it looks for ROMs, etc. (if it doesn't just use a file chooser of some sort) and from there everything works just as if the emulator uses a plain directory structure. If the emulator explicitly needs me to install files to my home directory before I can use it, PXML either supports automatically installing a skeleton file or its use as an installation helper is fairly limited anyway.

My assumption here is that no sane application ever needs to modify itself. And an application modifying itself is the only reason why its files need to be in a writable location as opposed to a mounted ISO.

I mean, this isn't Windows 9x where application settings are stored in that application's directory. .PND or no, an application should be able to read from the rest of the directory tree as far as permissions go and it should be able to write to ~/.appname. And emulators really don't need much beyond that.

I suppose it just comes down to preference then. I would rather have my roms in the same folder as the emulator to keep everything together. I don't really see a problem with an app being distributed as a directory rather than a file. If you do, nothing is stopping you from packaging it into a pnd file, all you have to do is execute a script or run the gui program and select 3-4 options.

 

[elwing]

my guess is that if someone try to sell a program that violate GPL it will quickly be pirated and it won't disapear from some trackers...

 

[Pleng]

Hmm seems like there's a lot of debate about the appstore due to the ambiguous nature of the dev fund.

I'm sure somebody at some point suggested that the lack of specifics on the dev fund and what it would be used for would cause debates, argumnts, and people feeling better... :blink:

On a side note I personally think the appstore is a good idea. I'm sure there will be free versions of most emulators, which means paid-for versions will be mostly ignored.

 

[j6cubic]

I suppose it just comes down to preference then. I would rather have my roms in the same folder as the emulator to keep everything together.

So do I (at least for DOSBox), but with the way OS X abstracts things away (even though an application bundle is technically a directory, the OS treats it as a file) that means I have a directory which contains the DOSBox app bundle, a DOSBox frontend's app bundle and the DOSBox C:/ folder. When I want to start DOSBox or the frontend I just double click their app bundles.

Essentially I see no difference between the .PND and the emulator's executable here (although the file to launch is probably the .PND-generated .desktop file). Ideally, clicking on the .PND (.desktop) file should result in the emulator being started. Granted, it's not quite as easy from the command line unless Ångström Linux has adopted OS X's open command. Still, there ought to be a way of launching it form the command line in one invocation.

That's one reason why I love OS X: Applications can be as complex as they want to be – for the user they're one single file. I see an approximation of that in .PND, as well.

 

[Tom`]

As far as I know, you don't actually break the GPL if you release the source code with the binary, commerical or not.

That means you can actually sell something that uses GPL code.

For example, the ID Tech 3 engine (or better known as the Quake 3 engine). As long as all the content and assets are yours, and you don't have any copyright material that belongs to someone else you are free to sell your total conversion using the Quake 3 engine, as long as the source code is also available. That is the only catch. If you don't want the source released, then you have to buy the engine.

Check this for more information: http://www.idsoftware.com/business/idtech3/

This is quite true (actually it's even broader than that - you don't even have to distribute the source with the binary, just give it to anyone who asks for it). The problem is that a lot of violators won't even do that...

As for the other stuff, I may have been too harsh in my earlier post. I am disappointed, though, that GPH appears to have done exactly the same thing with the Wiz that they did with the GP2X, except no one seems to be upset about it this time (or if they are, they aren't making threads here about it or posting on other sites the way they did with the GP2X). The most recent thing I can find is this post from notaz:

GPH have made no source available. However thanks to one member of this community we now have kernel and bootloader source, but the menu is still closed. Root filesystem is mostly standard busybox stuff, so it can be built from OSS sources.

Any kernel and bootloader can be flashed using their "firmware upgrade" mechanism, just name u-boot polluxb, kernel uImage, copy to root of SD and hold R while booting. Be warned though that it performs no checks on what it's flashing, so you can easily flash some junk and brick your Wiz!

Doesn't seem all that GPL-compliant to me - the GPL says the company has to provide all code derived from GPL sources on request, and the post directly contradicts that.