Development Team?

we don't find a consitent way to publish our apps after beta (a very easy issue imho). how should it be arranged to develop together ??? sorry for my negative mind.

br

Dijaboro

ps : nice denglisch

I think it is a good idea although I don't know whether John would like this. Cause till today he seemed to be rather reluctant to do so or even take part in the discussion. (No offense intended!!!)
I don't think I could be of a lot assistance (other than suggesting stuff and testing) as the only language I speak (besides english and german) is NSIS :-).
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts” - Richard P. Feynman

If I understand Ryan's idea correctly, he doesn't mean making alternative PAMs like Simeon's or Netroid9's, but rather having the bleeding edge source code for PAM 2 (whatever it's actual name might come to be) in SVN, so all those who speak Delphi can help John with the Menu, and those who speak NSIS can help with the installer, and everyone (or a group of people expressly authorized) can add to what's in SVN.
The trademark and branding issues become inexistant from the moment these are not "other" menus, but just people helping John with the one and only original Portable Apps Menu®

Of course, everyone would be advised that the source code in SVN is the bleeding edge, and as such has the newest features but could have all sorts of bugs, so don't go there unless you're very brave or very foolish or both.

And from time to time, there would be a call to stop adding features, and thoroughly debug what's already in there, and when satisfied with the new feature set and its quality, John would make a zip and call it Version [previous + 1] and make it an official release, also apt for cowards, rookies, and any other kind of non-brave-or-foolish people.

I would love to see this happen. I would love to see all those little additions currently being made to different alternative menus go into one same Menu with the sum of all cool features. I would love to help with the coding. And I would love to see a more Open Source Style developement. Something more collaborative, not just having the source after the program is out, together with the promise that any changes I make to it will be superseded by the impending new version.

Of course:

@Ryan: please correct me if I misunderstood you.

@John: it's up to you to pick whatever developement style you like the most. You're the creator and owner of this, so it's yours to do with it as you please. You don't need me to tell you that. And we'll all still be gratefull for all this hard work you've put into this and for all the hard work you probably will go on to put into it, and for the quality software you're providing. That won't change. "Opening more" (sooner, before release) the code is only what "I" (and probably others) would like, but still your call.

Ideally, I'd like to have the same thing. I have a few things I'm working through to make that happen.

1. I'm not really as familiar with SVN as I should be. I've used it to check out code from other projects, but haven't used it full on as a developer.

2. I'm asking SF about combining the 9 different projects the apps are distributed across into the main portableapps project. It would be easier to manage. And all the other projects are using the old names anyway (portablefirefox, for instance).

3. I'm finalizing the licensing of the PortableApps.com Menu. It's still GPLed (of course), but an additional permission is being added that will allow it to be linked with specific closed source DLLs published by PortableApps.com. These binaries will act as a go-between between the GPLed menu and manufacturer's closed source binaries that allow access to higher-end drive features (passwords, encryption, etc). None of the manufacturers were willing to release APIs or go open source (I tried), so this seemed like a good way of allowing us as an open community to be able to get access to them without having to go the closed source route. And, it would prevent any manufacturers from splitting off the menu and closing it (which would be possible if we switched to BSD, for instance) and then forking it and not making their changes available back to us.

4. I'd need to figure out who to put in charge of what. Ryan and Steve have been around for a while and I trust them to do the right thing (for those who don't know, Ryan had full mod access to the site in January while I was offline for a couple weeks after I watched one of my best friends get hit by a car and then helped take care of him). Marko and Simeon have been around long enough that I trust them with the translation stuff as well (I think I floated to Marko to be the overall translation lead, but I can't recall).

5. I'm still swamped trying to keep the site online and trying to make a few deals with manufacturers and software publishers to allow the site/platform to be self-sustaining. We're already the oldest portable setup with the most popular portable app in the world (Firefox Portable) and the most popular platform (by far) with the best media coverage, but I want to ensure that it's going to be around 5 years from now even while some of our commercial competitors fail. I've already transitioned off my last paying development client... so I'm staking my future, life savings and investment from family in this.

So, that's the long and longer of it. I'm still trying to get the next package of the menu up. I wound up stuck working on the installer for OO for hours on Sunday, so I missed my window. I should have more time this week.

J