Small amount of money support for APPS PORTER making ports for OP - Poll

[mcobit]

Yes, you can charge fory your work involved. As said, try it!

 

[moxie]

Firsty, this is only idea, and i wanted Your opinion about this. More people more polarised opinions in a subject. Thats no problem for me. Strange thing is everytime someone says something about money, community dump that man in a kitchen sink..

You have gotten it backwards. There is no problem talking about money. The problems (regarding money) are talking about getting money before something is finished - Heck, we all own (or wants to) pandoras, we are all well aware of paying good money for something that is not finished


Further problems, though, are the motivations - As I said before (which you have not commented), you won't get much sympathy for stating that you need the apps to raise money, since you yourself has made the decision to move to a more expensive hosting solution with worse user throughput. These decisions, of course, are up to you, but then again the consequences are really up to you. There really exists a simple solution - If you want free hosting, maximum exposure to users and a working donation system, you use the Repo. If you don't, you will get fewer users, and thereby fewer thankyous and less donations. Deal with it. You make the decisions, you carry the consequences.


That is nothing against commercial offerings. I bought Vektar and Payback, I bought Wind and Water: Puzzle battles, I've bought Humble Indie Bundles. All solid, finished apps. I've nothing against donating - I've donated to several devs of my commonly used apps. Money is not a problem in the discussion. Not taking responsibilty for ones own actions is, at least for me.


And yes, I've read the thread now. And while I agree with you that 40 quick ports are better than 1 hyperpolished one, I fail to see that that is the case here - ZX Dunny raises some VERY relevant concerns about writing to the NAND, which is a big NoNo. I'd much rather have a single app that works as intended, than 40 apps that will, in the end, physically shorten the life of my pandora. That is not "hyperpolished", that is "meets minimum acceptable standards". That rather lends weight to Dunnys concerns about careless porting, and even though it could have been delivered more smoothly, ought to have been received by you with a "Thank you, I didn't realize the seriousness of the issue. I'll look into it". Instead, you seize on a quote from yourself, throw a fit, and decide to pull your apps from the Repo. And now you want the users to help offset your cost for that fit? That does not really inspire my confidence to try your apps, or even less to donate to get access to them.

There was a small plan of mine and 3 folks from poland to release a small commercial game for OP [and well known in Poland] [that i really wanted to introduce in next month], but since there's a not a big demand for comercial releases , i would really think it's just waste of time and power, this time.

If I was a little bit spiteful, I'd say this is the same thing, only with some sort of moral support instead of money. "If I won't get you to {agree with me | give me donations}, I won't do this awesome thing!". Well, do the awesome thing. If it is awesome, you will get my money. But if it isn't, you won't. Simple.

 

[StreaK]

.. ZX Dunny raises some VERY relevant concerns about writing to the NAND, which is a big NoNo. I'd much rather have a single app that works as intended, than 40 apps that will, in the end, physically shorten the life of my pandora. That is not "hyperpolished", that is "meets minimum acceptable standards". ..

That its not the case since from +40 apps/games only THREE uses NAND [writes on it]. Everything else should perfectly fits in pandora-quasi-standard.

If I was a little bit spiteful, I'd say this is the same thing, only with some sort of moral support instead of money. "If I won't get you to {agree with me | give me donations}, I won't do this awesome thing!". Well, do the awesome thing. If it is awesome, you will get my money. But if it isn't, you won't. Simple.

Very important thing i found here, and very important question rises: will pandora community help to sustain a indie dev even if games from this developer will be good, but not excellent or awesome..

 

[milkshake]

Very important thing i found here, and very important question rises: will pandora community help to sustain a indie dev even if games from this developer will be good, but not excellent or awesome..

with such a small community it would be hard to sustain an indie dev, that doesn't mean the community wont try to help, but hopefully as and when ED can get more pandoras out into the wild this should change.

 

[moxie]

.. ZX Dunny raises some VERY relevant concerns about writing to the NAND, which is a big NoNo. I'd much rather have a single app that works as intended, than 40 apps that will, in the end, physically shorten the life of my pandora. That is not "hyperpolished", that is "meets minimum acceptable standards". ..

That its not the case since from +40 apps/games only THREE uses NAND [writes on it]. Everything else should perfectly fits in pandora-quasi-standard.

Well, as I have no doubt you realize, the problem is more that I have no idea which three these are. And when you brush it off as "quasi-standard", it kinda hints that this is not a serious issue for you, which makes it difficult to trust that future releases from you won't do anything similar.


Once again: I'm not trying to come off as being snarky here. I am seriously trying to help out. It seems to me that you are missing important parts.


In this, I also think that your many-quick-ports are working against you. What does it take for someone to click that paypal button as a response to a particular app? Well, apart from actually being able to find the app and the button, the app must fill a need, of course, and do it well enough to be useful. It needs to fit with the way I play or work. Now, most everytime, the first stab at porting something is slightly off. The screen layout is a bit awkward, there is a weird bug when saving to a nonstandard location, some shortcut can't be used because of the pandora keyboard layout, and so on. So, people try it, report back the problems - plain bugs, certainly, but also little niggles or suggestions. The developer/porter looks at it, fixes stuff up, argues for this or that solution, releases a new version, and so the cycle repeats. After a few iterations, we suddenly have something that seems to be made for the pandora, fits like a glove. Then it becomes an app that people love to use, and will happily donate for. But not before then.


See, using an app on our pandora machines is also with an element of trust from user to developer. I need to believe that this thing won't kill my nand or my wifi reception, that it is stable enough to not corrupt my files or overwrite my savegames. More than anything else, I need to know that if such an error appears, that there is someone on the other side who can and will deal with the problems. Perhaps a better way to look at it is this: Donations won't come to the app porter, but to the app maintainer. If no one is willing to maintain the app - Receive bug reports, fix things, answer questions, making it into a pandora app - then there is noone to donate to.

Very important thing i found here, and very important question rises: will pandora community help to sustain a indie dev even if games from this developer will be good, but not excellent or awesome..

That depends on what your expectations for "sustain" are. Cheer and applaud - Certainly. Buy the game for a few bucks - Likely. Donate/buy enough so that you recover the cost of the coca-cola drunk during development - Possibly. Donate/Buy enough so that the hours put into development actually gets paid to the amount of a not-illegal hourly pay - Never. Won't happen.

 

[StreaK]

Very important thing i found here, and very important question rises: will pandora community help to sustain a indie dev even if games from this developer will be good, but not excellent or awesome..

That depends on what your expectations for "sustain" are. Cheer and applaud - Certainly. Buy the game for a few bucks - Likely. Donate/buy enough so that you recover the cost of the coca-cola drunk during development - Possibly. Donate/Buy enough so that the hours put into development actually gets paid to the amount of a not-illegal hourly pay - Never. Won't happen.

Thats why i created another poll, it will help me and few other people to decide. Drop commercial app or try to release it. So far, i see black clouds on my project . Anyway.. we will see..


btw. I wonder where's gone "No Siesta Studios" created especiallyt for releasing OP games

 

[SavageMind]

Inherently I like to donate to groups for thier hard work especially if they actually have overhead costs. :blink:

 

[moxie]

I'd like to riff a bit on the accessibility bit again. I use facebook, more than is healthy for me. I have "like"-d your page, so I get your updates. Still, I don't think I have a single one of your PNDs on my pandora. Why is that? Well, it is not because I ideologically boycott software not in the repo, or because I hate everyone who discusses money together with software. The reason is that I have no idea what you have there, and what might be useful.


I mean, yes, I get your announcement that you have a new version of dosbox or whatever, and I might think that that sounds cool. But since I read this on my mobile on my way to work, I can't do anything about it then. And then, of course, is a full workday, and my FB stream is filled up with the usual chatter of people having lunch or visiting relatives or just having taken a really satisfying after-dinner dump, and at the end of the day, the announcement has disappeared under tons of FB-crud, both in my mind and in the stream. And where do I go, in the late evening when all the family business of fetching kids and eating dinner and putting kids to bed and cleaning up the house is finished, and i finally have some time to do something on my own, for instance check out whether there is something for the pandora that I've missed? To the Repo, of course. That is the first stop. Then to the archive, and maybe to the appstore. I check the forums here, if someone has spoken about something new. But I don't naturally go to facebook to check for new apps. Not out of principle, but out of economy - I have a limited time before I need to go sleep. The Repo pays dividends. The facebook page is forgotten under heaps of copied status updates and pictures of kittens.


But if I do remember, a week later, that there was somehing DosBoxish a while back, and perhaps it was on 4th floor? So I actively seek out the facebook page...Now, where do I find it? Where can I see what is available? I can't really, not without scrolling down through a just marginally less crudfilled stream of updates, wall postings, polls, occasional announcements...There might be something useful there, deep down, but I'll never know. Heck, I tried just now, and half of the postings I can't even figure out what the app mentioned is, even less whether it is available somewhere as a pnd or just mentioned for fun or just a progress report...I mean, amongst the uppermost posts is an announcement that BleachBit is available in the pandora library. Where? Is there supposed to be a download page somewhere, or was that just a general shoutout? What with FreeHeroes2? It works, and someone is happy for that, but can I download it? I don't know, and I cant seem to find out.


Now, as I said, I'm facebook-savvy (fairly so, at least). I know your page is there. Still, I can't figure it out. How do you expect to pull in others? How are you going to get reactions or thanks or donations for your work, when it is impossible to get at your work? Compare to Sebt3, who has a few pnds that are not on any of the repos/archives (mainly beta versions, if I remember correctly). These would also be a bit harder to find (as in I have to look at Sebt3s forum sig), but once I do, there is an organised page with all the pnds, a quick description or link, status info (i.e. "This is an attempted pnd build which don't work") and download links either to the repo or locally (if I remember correctly). And, of course, everything that is considered of release quality is in the repos. So, it is findable. It is possible to see what is available, see what kind of work has been done, ask Sebt3 for details, and donate if on so wishes. Which people obviously do. How do you expect anyone to get an overview of what you've done?

 

[mcobit]

If it is in Beta state, you can just mark it as beta or even alpha in the PXML! It will be shown in the repo and nobody should have high expectations, till you fix and reupload it.

 

[ckblackm]

Is it legal to port something released under the GPL and then charge for it?

 

[ivanovic]

Is it legal to port something released under the GPL and then charge for it?

Yes. You only have to make your changes available to those buying your stuff. Meaning: you have to give everyone buying the apps the same rights to the sources you changed that you had.

 

[Pickle]

Ive stated my reasons for not being real comfortable taking donations from normal users for regular ports before, so i dont really want to repeat all of it since it has been said earlier in the thread.


I think with taking money from others for free software can be a very grey area. To most normal users they dont have a clue what amount of work usually went into a port. I see most works falling under 2 types, one being recompiles and the other being ports. Take fhereoes2 for example, this is a recompile, there are little things that can be tweaked for the pandora, but you could have it running in a couple of hours. For port take my work on lugaru as an example. It amounted to days amount of work to convert incompatible code that could run on the pandora.


Now a normal user might see these 2 works and have no clue what it took. All they know is fheroes2 was their favorite childhood game so they will praise and donate to the releaser and who cares what the heck lugaru is. But from a technical view one can justify that the 'port' work was more involved so it deserved the donations.


So the way the donation system works by picking winners and losers can be highly discouraging to developers.


Also most works are based on a massive amount of time and effort by other people that may not in the community. I think taking donations for something like that devalues other peoples work and it very disrespectful to them. I think the same goes with private releases to donaters.


I think if a developer really wants to generate monetary gain for personal work, it should be from original works that have value.

 

[Caine]

Also most works are based on a massive amount of time and effort by other people that may not in the community. I think taking donations for something like that devalues other peoples work and it very disrespectful to them. I think the same goes with private releases to donaters.


I think if a developer really wants to generate monetary gain for personal work, it should be from original works that have value.

Exactly, I fully agree. If I were doing ports (which I'm not), I would forward the majority of the donations to the original authors. When you need to do a lot of work for a port, you can a slightly larger cut from it. Nevertheless, I would feel like I'm earning money on the work of someone else.


Well, I have only skimmed this thread for now and will read it thoroughly at a later time. A quick reply to several raised issues.


Streak, if I want to download Pandora software then I first check the repo, next I check the appstore and finally the wiki. If you do not have a link on at least the wiki then I won't find your software at all. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. I have never used nor visited any facebook pages and have no intention to do so.


I read that some of your applications write to the NAND. As a porter, you are now on my "download-with-care" list. If any of my applications do so then I expect users to report this as a serious BUG. I need to read some of the linked discussion first before making a more severe decision on it, but if you consider this tolerable behaviour then I will blacklist your ports.


From the threads I see you starting, I get the impression that monetary gain is your primary reason for porting. You might want to switch to development of IOS and/or Android applications as the Pandora lacks the required user base to make a decent buck.

 

[StreaK]

From the threads I see you starting, I get the impression that monetary gain is your primary reason for porting...

And another one.. this is really enaugh. Today i started a topic with "money" in the background. Previously never created any, and You say my only reason for porting is money? isnt it ridiculous? I vomited +40 apps without saying a word about money previously, so i dont really know why this impression comes..


EDIT:


Not to be rude this time but i wonder how many of You donated to proper author of original app / game [not the porter]. FHeroes2 , PrBoom, ioquake3 , anyone? Because most of You saying "i would pay original author more, than a porter". I really wonder how much bullsh*t is in that words , and how many of You really donated to original authors of games that has been ported to Pandora.

 

[Caine]

And another one.. this is really enaugh. Today i started a topic with "money" in the background. Previously never created any, and You say my only reason for porting is money? isnt it ridiculous? I vomited +40 apps without saying a word about money previously, so i dont really know why this impression comes..

Come on, I didn't mean it like that. I shouldn't have said primary reason, sorry for that.


As for the source of the impression, you have two or three recent threads about the issue which read like you are discontent with the lack of donations. Let's see,.... this one, this one and (in context of the other ones) this one. They look like you are probing your market and are planning to shift from donation based to commercial development. Which is fine, don't get me wrong. Best of luck to you if you do and sorry for misunderstanding your message if you don't.


I merely wanted to state that if it is your goal to earn money through software development then you can better invest your time into larger communities.

 

[StreaK]

Anyway, yes im probing the community, You're right. I was always interested in release a small commercial stuff, but only for the test , to check how community will behave, and i always though gp32x / op.org community is good enaugh. There's no commercial competition on OP right now, but now i see that the probloem is not in competition ,its in something else. OP People just get used to "free for all, share for all" stuff, and this can be main factor for all failed commercial future attempts..

 

[DaMummy]

Also most works are based on a massive amount of time and effort by other people that may not in the community. I think taking donations for something like that devalues other peoples work and it very disrespectful to them. I think the same goes with private releases to donaters.


I think if a developer really wants to generate monetary gain for personal work, it should be from original works that have value.

Exactly, I fully agree. If I were doing ports (which I'm not), I would forward the majority of the donations to the original authors. When you need to do a lot of work for a port, you can a slightly larger cut from it. Nevertheless, I would feel like I'm earning money on the work of someone else.

i figure when some people donate, they donate to the dev and not the exact app, say one wants to donate to notaz, he might just pull the first notaz app he can find on repo and donate on that one, doesnt mean hes specifically thankful for that app, but for all notaz has done for pandora

 

[Caine]

i figure when some people donate, they donate to the dev and not the exact app, say one wants to donate to notaz, he might just pull the first notaz app he can find on repo and donate on that one, doesnt mean hes specifically thankful for that app, but for all notaz has done for pandora

That's a valid point.

 

[Pickle]

Also most works are based on a massive amount of time and effort by other people that may not in the community. I think taking donations for something like that devalues other peoples work and it very disrespectful to them. I think the same goes with private releases to donaters.


I think if a developer really wants to generate monetary gain for personal work, it should be from original works that have value.

Exactly, I fully agree. If I were doing ports (which I'm not), I would forward the majority of the donations to the original authors. When you need to do a lot of work for a port, you can a slightly larger cut from it. Nevertheless, I would feel like I'm earning money on the work of someone else.

i figure when some people donate, they donate to the dev and not the exact app, say one wants to donate to notaz, he might just pull the first notaz app he can find on repo and donate on that one, doesnt mean hes specifically thankful for that app, but for all notaz has done for pandora

I think your right in most cases the users in our community are usually informed about who has done what and who is deserving of something. But you look at the mass devices, iphone, android. They could care less and throw a couple of bucks to who ever supplies them with no regard of where the actual work came from. And when you hear the amount of money generated for these people its disgusting. The best case i can think of is mupen which every single "porter" that sold it used the arm recompiler by Ari.

 

[StreaK]

Also most works are based on a massive amount of time and effort by other people that may not in the community. I think taking donations for something like that devalues other peoples work and it very disrespectful to them. I think the same goes with private releases to donaters.


I think if a developer really wants to generate monetary gain for personal work, it should be from original works that have value.

Exactly, I fully agree. If I were doing ports (which I'm not), I would forward the majority of the donations to the original authors. When you need to do a lot of work for a port, you can a slightly larger cut from it. Nevertheless, I would feel like I'm earning money on the work of someone else.

i figure when some people donate, they donate to the dev and not the exact app, say one wants to donate to notaz, he might just pull the first notaz app he can find on repo and donate on that one, doesnt mean hes specifically thankful for that app, but for all notaz has done for pandora

I think your right in most cases the users in our community are usually informed about who has done what and who is deserving of something. But you look at the mass devices, iphone, android. They could care less and throw a couple of bucks to who ever supplies them with no regard of where the actual work came from. And when you hear the amount of money generated for these people its disgusting. The best case i can think of is mupen which every single "porter" that sold it used the arm recompiler by Ari.

This is really complex thing. For example.. atari800 emulator which is developed by many people right now. Who should i support by donation. Original author [that not maintain emulator anymore] or someone else from a team, if someone else then who i should choose?.. there is a quastion: how the team will share the donation? How to slice 1$ donation on whole team