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Jack Haller, Advisor and Father of Our Founder, Has Passed Away
So beyond the fact that I can't really even find a draft of the .paf specification on this site...
Has there been any consideration to submitting this specification to a standards body? It would be a lot easier to convince developers to develop for a ratified platform.
Does anyone know what's involved? Ever been a part of such a process?
For .paf.exe or for .paf?
I've thought about this a lot actually. I was planning on getting some documentation up on it on the wiki, but I had no idea where to start. I'll see if I can get a wiki page up on it later, but ideally, I'd love to have it formalised. I've thought about getting a domain name for it, but I'm a little short of money 
And it'll be on PortableApps.com, of course.
There is much afoot behind the scenes in terms of non-development stuff right now that is vital to the longterm future of PortableApps.com.
Could have fooled me. I mean, seriously, the point of an open source project is to have people collaborate. By doing things behind the scenes, it just infuriates people who want to help (i.e. developers (i.e. me)).
*claps*
Ryan, taking a stand. 
I'm pissed.
But, there are also financial considerations at stake here and that's what I'm talking about. That's what I've been working on behind the scenes. This site can't subsist on donations, Google ads and the money I've put into it forever. (Neither can I, for that matter.)
And, with all due respect to openness, the financial stuff I'm working on has to take place behind the scenes. Especially when there are multi-billion dollar companies who would *LOVE* to see this entire thing go away.
PS - Ryan, check your email.
Multi-billion dollar companies?
is Microsoft as they teamed up with sandisk to do a successor of U3.
And the have to fear this little (:)) Open Source community caus we`re better 
Maybe they have spies surrounding John's house, tracking his every move! Maybe even with Patrick, Ryan, Steve, Marko,and Tim!
that's what the white van parked outside is!
and if you don't want to trigger the self-destruction mechanism, don't open the new locker in your living room
Well, technically, anyone can get my address with a simple WHOIS on my domain. 
So anyway, I've got 3 blue vans parked outside. Hmm...
The cloak and dagger attitude is getting very old.
I understand that you need to find ways to monetize the platform, and I respect that quite a bit.
But these vague hints about how wonderful the future is going to be are getting harder to accept at face value. You have people on the forums trying hard to volunteer. People keep asking for information and getting "there is much afoot". If you want to build a strong open source platform, it starts with a community. You've got a strong core of developers working on improving the platform and nothing's above the board right now.
If there's stuff you can't share, this is understandable. A "state of the union" post sharing a bit more than you have been might help us all hang in there.
With all due respect to "Have Some Patience", more and more of your core community seems to be losing theirs.
*cheers*
Thank you maggotb0y, that part about community and volunteering is exactly what I was looking to say.
And John, don't try to hide these comments as you did with Ryans. This is an open source community, and there's people who want to help and contribute, so don't shut them in the dark as usually happens to all of us. If the source is open, so should be the development - to EVERYONE
I addressed Ryan's concerns privately and included a copy of his post if he wanted to repost it as some of what I was discussing with him is information that can't be made public at the moment. As a moderator, Ryan knows a bit more than has been made public in terms of what I've been working on.
I'd think you'd know me better than to think I'm trying to censor a moderator by now.
I don't know anymore. I believe this is one of the rare experiences you've really addressed me since the only e-mail I recieved 5 and a half months ago.
I'm worried I may turn out as the next Ryan as well - the developer of two years with no releases.
Just a little frustrated.
I know, and as I mentioned in the below (earlier) post, I'm sorry. Much of this was due to my delaying app releases because of the platform, which was waiting for contracts.
I'll do a post and the popular, repackaged open source apps that have been waiting to go (things like WinMerge, Rocks and Diamonds, etc, etc) and have been through decent testing, will be made official and released this coming week. Starting Monday, I'll put my energies entirely behind making this happen.
I'll hold you to it.
I know, I'm aware and I'm sorry. The behind the scenes stuff is legal and financial. And it has stalled the ability for us to move the platform forward temporarily (thus the lack of shared development on SVN). I'd been delaying releasing apps and making official some of Ryan and others apps as there are some major changes happening on the platform itself and it always seemed like the issues would be resolved in just one more week.
As it appears that this has gone on too long, I'll address it on Monday and we'll start development and posting of apps back up without the changes being included. Some apps will need to be re-released once the platform changes are made, but that's a small price to pay for keeping things moving forward both in terms of the project and in terms of public feeling in terms of users.
Now, I'm going to sign off for a bit as it's 9:30pm and I just spend a chunk of my Friday night upgrading the Drupal install to patch some security issues and I need to eat.
UPDATE - I've posted a brief version of what's up here for public comment:
https://portableapps.com/node/10870
It is nice to stop by months later and realize the same stuff is going on. Wait, not going on. As stated before this is an open source project and its mostly closed. This is much more than one man or a small team of people could handle and yet this is the way is has been from the beginning and continues to be now. This leads to slow if not any releases at all, no formal outline, no standard of practices, no template for creation and no means to "help".
You can throw out as many excuses as you like but when people are pissed off because you won't accept help or advice you are digging your own hole. They won't always sit here and wait and keep being spoon-fed.
I had to say something. This has just been going on too long, it is like beating a dead horse.
Speaking of dead....not to be funny but currently if you were to have an accident or something, pa.com would pretty much be SOL right? I think that's a rational thought and one that should be addressed in case of an emergency.
Stuff is going on. Read the new thread where John apologizes, and then look around at the few changes that have taken place, and all the others that are planned. Not much has happened on the surface, and things really are much more open than they were before. A lot of negotiations with commercial companies and about financial stuff have been taking place behind the scenes, and only one person can handle those details.
Oh I read.
Wheres the new releases promised days ago.....
Same [Language removed by moderator PP, see below] different day....
You guys keep taking the spoon he feeds you with.
[Removed by moderator PP. Please keep the conversation civil.]
Maybe most of the developers shouldn't be here then...
Things are moving. John has to update all the apps before release, a fair amount of work. He said things will start moving Monday, not releases, I'm sure they will come. You seem to be the only one still fighting this.
Hang on Patrick, I can understand pkeffect's anger. Especially since he'd very kindly offered to help get things moving with hosting an IRC channel earlier and things of that nature.
As mentioned, I posted an apology on Friday night that addresses some of the why. I can't go into the details of the what was going on behind the scenes other than that it was legal and financial. If you have additional issues not addressed there or questions, please post them within that thread.
As promised on Friday, I posted a State of PortableApps.com on Monday. This includes the plan for the next couple weeks including releases of the apps, spec, installer and platform. It also opens up official app status to folks following the current unfinished spec guidelines. This includes the finalization of the Development Test splash screen for developer use and the Development Test Tracker.
On Tuesday, I finalized the new moderators that will be helping out. This adds Tim, Steve and Patrick as forum moderators in addition to Marko, Ryan and myself. This will help with the additional users we get as new apps are added.
I know things have stagnated several times over the last 12 months, but I'd ask for your patience and understanding right now. See where things are at a week from Friday before making up your mind on things.
Kind Regards,
John
We were on that IRC channel for a while
Although, we mainly sit on #portableapps on Freenode now (I even made a bot). So, going to join in?
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