Release idea - seal of approval

[Bagera]

I was thinking a bit.
I really like open source and it's communities but what strikes me quite often is that stuff could easily be a bit better.
Therefor I thought of some kind of seal of approval for the pandora.
It would be a group of ppl appointed by the community to supervise and approve software for the pandora.
No fascist thing. No one should be locked out á la Apple. It would just be that if a developer lives up to certain criteria they get the seal.
This could get them promoted on a Pandora app site or something too.
The criteria could be like:
Using a standardized notification system
Working properly
Looking sharp
and so on

The group should also help devs getting the approval ie. you submit and get feedback on how to change to gaet approved. It could also be more direct help, like helping implement code or help with the graphic design.

Just my thought. What's yours?

 

[Pleng]

If I recall correctly the archives give the ability for users to rate software (out of 5? out of 10?) and leave comments on what is good or bad about said software.

I don't really see the need for a 'seal or approval'. If something gets 4 and 5 star ratings from the users, it's gotta be worth checking out. If it gets 1 or 2 then I wouldn't go near it unless I was *really* interested in what it did (or promised to do).

 

[lulzfish]

Maybe you could have someone look through the code and make sure it's not malware, then run the program and see if it crashes, but anything beyond that is subjective.
I dunno. Why don't you start this committee and we'll see how it goes?

 

[Esn]

I don't see why this is necessary. Whoever wants to find out about the quality of a project can just search for the topic devoted to it on the GP32x forums (and there will almost certainly be one) and see what people are saying about it. Or look at the comments on the archive.

That's how it worked years ago for the GP32, then the GP2X, and it seems to be a good method...

Besides, there will be tons of programs coming out. Who's going to have the dedication and free time to test all of them and give them ratings, unless it were a paid position?

 

[Aethix]

Sort of like the Nintendo seal of quality? We ought to have some kind of quality control, as lulzfish has said, to make sure damaging software is kept out of the community. It's not so much of an issue how good something is--it's a safety issue.

I mean, what if software has:

• Viruses?
  
• Surprise porn?
  
• Spyware
  
• etc. etc. etc.

We ought to be protected against those things.

 

[Esn]

Why were those things not a problem with our prior two consoles?

 

[Izolo]

For one thing, a virus/spyware on the Pandora could be much more destructive than on the gp2x/gp32 because the Pandora would be storing information such as passwords and private info due to it's wider range of non-gaming features.

 

[Trevsweb]

i think the idea is sound. The whole ethos of the pandora is to go to the next level with what we had with the gp32 etc i think it wouldnt be too hard to give extra credit to software that is must have. But the figures and votes will tell all that. The virus malware issue is very worrying

 

[lulzfish]

I'm wondering how this will work with respect to versioning and such things.

Are you thinking of approving a website, a developer, or an individual application package?
Will this be something like a digital signature or just a link that says, "We approve whatever this developer puts online"?

Should the Pandora have some kind of digital signature thing anyway, as part of the PND / PXML standard?

 

[Aethix]

It should probably be a combination of the two. When a new developer publishes his first few applications, they should be reviewed. If that developer makes an application that intentionally screws up your Pandora, that developer should be permanently blacklisted.

 

[surt]

I mean, what if software has:
...

• Surprise porn?

...

That's easy to spot. They'll be the ones with the surprisingly high ratings.

 

[Bagera]

I think it could be a thing to strive for. The seal should not be about if the game is fun or not but more if it coheres to rules set up by the group/community. It would be a help to ppl who are not die hard linux hackers.
Ratings can be tricky. An app with hard to find severe bugs should not get the seal but could get high ratings even if it make 1 in a 100 pandas blow up and creating a black hole in the process.
It can be like giving a good deved app a bit more credit

 

[david_dark_heart]

Unless the user login as root (a super-user with admin privileges) there are nothing to be worried about... no program will be able to delete or modify any important file for the Operating System, so no viruses could be created. At most, you can create a "malicious program" that affect files in the user-space (a program which deletes every files in a SD card), but they would be easy to spot and I don't think they can be called "viruses" or anything similar. Just have a backup and everything will be OK.

Trust me, as long as you don't login as root (and this shouldn't be done by default), you are more safe running a "random program downloaded from Internet" on a Pandora (or any Linux-based machine) than running on Windows a "random program o crack downloaded from Internet". The only thing to remember is: don't execute as root ANY program if you don't trust the developer.

 

[Dauric]

Sort of like the Nintendo seal of quality?

Look carefully, there's no such thing any more:

http://www.retrothing.com/2008/09/hey-nintendo-wh.html

And this explains the shovelware....

That bit of commentary aside, It would be nice to have a community supported forum/group/whatever of developers, long-time supporters and users that Give a "Must-Not" to "Must-Have" rating, as well as easily followable set-up instructions where needed. It's one thing to say "This program is a 10/10 Must Have", it's something else to make sure others can share in your experience.

 

[Bagera]

If you have tried silverstripe you would have seen that they have something they call supported modules. these have their supportforum and bugtracker and ticket submision on the silverstripe.org site. this could also be the case for "approved" apps for pandora. If we get a community/official site together (something i surely could help with if needed)

 

[Skofo]

Absolutely not. There should not be an official seal of approval. The lack of such standardization is exactly why I'm buying a Pandora as opposed to a PSP.

This is a community thing, there should definitely not be an official hierarchy deciding what is good and what is not. A community rating system is better by far. People being "appointed" by communities to judge and lead things stemmed from a time when we weren't all connected by the internet, so communities couldn't communicate with each other efficiently. That problem is solved today, it's just a matter of people realizing that it's 2009 and converting legislation systems into a truly democratic online polling systems. We, a generally more technology aware group of people, shouldn't go backwards in terms of efficiency and fairness and appoint people to say what's good for us. All of us should be able to do that.

But if you want to start some little thing where you deem Pandora software as good or bad on a blog or something, then by all means go for it.

 

[Alpha2]

I remember back when a few people tried to create a rating system for emulators, how well they worked and their level of compatibility but it suffered every time a new version came out and not everyone would rate it. The repository rating system is good but would suffer fron the same problem. When you look at having a panel of people to bestow some form of seal on a product based on some set of qualifications you run the risk of people calling them biased if they dont pass.

With nintendo all you have to blame is a faceless corporation, with Pandora you'd know who the people are.