This topic has been replaced by a newer one:
https://portableapps.com/node/13504
I must apologize for the last of updates the past few weeks. I wanted to do a very brief one tonight before I begin a stint on the road tomorrow and return next Thursday morning.
PortableApps.com Format Spec
First off, I've posted PortableApps.com Format Spec Outline (DRAFT 1) in the forums for public comment. This is a simple outline so folks can see what's what and not the final word. If you'd like to contribute, please do so in that thread.
App Updates
Second, most all of the apps are now again up to date after quite a flurry of updates across the board. Task Coach is still in a pre-release for a final bug and the language integration and KeePass is in pre-release for testing of the language switching and waiting for the final French translation to become available.
Platform/Suite 1.1 and 1.5
Third, I'd like some thoughts from others on 1.1 vs 1.5. Right now, I'm thinking about just getting 1.1 out the door as the current 1.0 Beta release (with a few final bug fixes) for both the Platform and Suite as soon as I return. Not a ton of fanfare or anything, but just to keep folks from downloading the extremely outdated version of the Suite. I can have it up within a day of getting back on the 24th and we could have the final posted for public download on April 29th.
I could then do a series of 1.5 Alphas with the promised features with input from the other volunteer devs to get the platform back on track. To be perfectly honest, not as much is completed on the 1.5 platform as I'd like and I'm a bit embarrassed about releasing it. I did make a stripped version (new features disabled) of it available as a pre-pre-alpha to our two most active themers so they can get a feel for it and offer input, though.
I think it would make more sense to take a couple days, finalize what I have and put it up after finishing the 1.1 release on the 29th and then let the other devs have at it on SVN. It may take a bit to settle what we'll include and how, but it will probably be best.
Drupal 6 Upgrade
We're still waiting on the Views and SimpleNews modules to be upgraded before we can upgrade the site. We really need this upgrade as it'll improve performance and finally let our forum mods be full mods.
Beta Testing Issues
It seems we're having trouble keeping enough people beta testing apps. There was a lot of noise about it with the original team thread and we have an RSS feed of the Beta Test forum, a mailing list on SF, email notifications of posts in the PR or Dev Test categories on the main SF project, etc... but we still don't have enough people actually testing the less exciting releases. Mozilla Sunbird, Portable Edition's last release only had something like 3 testing reports after several days, for instance. Any thoughts on this? I'm thinking a Beta Testing page on the Development page listing out all the ways to be notified and maybe a list of testers and lead testers would help. Thoughts?
Downloads Server
I've priced out a downloads server and will be bringing it online within a couple weeks when I return. This allows us to host freeware releases.
Outside Development in PortableApps.com Format
After I get back and we handle the opinions of the first draft of PortableApps.com Format, I'll be updating it to draft 2 and we'll be opening it up to outside developers of open source and freeware software. There will be a new forum for announcements of freeware releases so folks who are interested can find out about it. It won't appear in the tracker and all links will be NOFOLLOW to prevent spammers from taking advantage. We may have a special format for announcements (ala the Dev Test format Patrick created).
Financials - Donation Push for Non Open Source Stuff
I'm toying with the idea of doing a donations push after the 1.1 or 1.5 release to help fund the downloads server and a few more projects that are more business related (but that will help keep us financially stable in the long run). Essentially, it would allow us to become financially stable and then whatever money is raised during that fund raiser would be paid out to the open source community once financial stability is achieved. In other words... say we raise $10k to use to get things moving... once PortableApps.com is financially stable, we'll donate that same money back to all the open source apps we package to help them out. This is, of course, in addition to the revenue sharing we'll be giving back to all the apps we package based on any income from hardware partnerships as well. Any thoughts?
Next Developer Contributed Apps?
We need to do another round of developer contributed apps, but we need a WAY better system than me looking through the list of what's ready and saying that looks good. We need some criteria (popularity in terms of downloads, usefulness, no duplication of current apps) for the decision that are less arbitrary. I'd LOVE to hear any thoughts on this.
An Apology on Slowness
And also, I wanted to apologize for being a bit slow on some of these things. I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist and I'm a bit embarassed to release some of this stuff before it's 'ready'... like the specs for instance... or the 1.5 release. Realistically, in open source... you need to just get over that and trust that everyone will understand and help work towards the goal. It's something I'm working on. 
Ok, sorry for the short update. I'm exhausted and have to leave for a flight in less than 5 hours. I'll have my laptop in tow and will be checking in daily. Best to all.
Kind Regards,
John
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I think I just heard the sound of progress
As for the suite stuff, yes yes yes! The sooner we get an update out the better I think so that we can start to rebuild the community, I have noticed it hasn't been overly helpful recently (specifically my Wikipedia and App Compatibility) and I hope that the influx of new users that will come in might want to help out
As for 1.5 I think it would be best just to churn out a series of alpha, put out the first one with progress so far, put the code up on SVN and then let the community dictate it from there. This kind of links in with your last post actually, I think that although you might have some people complaining, I suspect the majority of us will just be glad that progress has happened
Perfectionism does make stuff tough, and we are all guilty of it, for example I was going to hold Toucan 2 back until I was ready for a pre-release, but as it was taking a while I chucked out an Alpha, now there were plenty of bugs and a stack of missing features, but the feedback I got was immensely valuable, for example, although it looked good on my screen, it turned out that on small screens it was too cluttered, if I had left it until a pre-release it would have been far harder to rearrange and make changes than it was at the alpha stage. One of the phrases that is chucked around a lot in Open Source is release early, release often, and I think that it might be more applicable here simply because of the huge user base we have.
With beta testing I think a page with all of the info about testing would be good, links to the feeds and mailing lists, and a set of things that you need to look out for, it wouldn't surprise me if some people would be interested but they don't really know what you want. That and a note saying that posts saying there is no problem are fine would help too.
The freeware stuff sounds good, however I am slightly worried about competition, if we already have an open source alternative will a freeware one still be promoted? I guess this is actually a question about the future of the site, are we aiming to give a single option or lots of options?
As for the financial side, I hope that when you do a fund raising push you are going to detail what the money will be spent on! Just saying a download server and 'some other projects' wont cut it with a lot of people. Actually just an idea, we have ~54,000 registered users, we could do a donate $1, even if one in five people did that then $10,000 would be fairly easy, and some people would donate more.
Enjoy your flight, and I am pleased to see things are moving
The main page of the site trumpets the suite, with an incorrect picture of the PA Menu (that dang non-existent eject button especially).
The PA Menu is possibly the oldest app on the site, and has required a patch just to get it to work in all OS's since 2006.
Just saying that having your flagship app outdated and misrepresented so obviously belies the excellent work being done to keep all other apps current and stable.
I'm willing to wait for other app updates if it will help get the PA menu finished.
I made this half-pony, half-monkey monster to please you.
... and don't worry about 'slowness'. A stable release is allways better than an unstable 'quickshot'.
Btw. Did You find a solution to make PortableApps.com Backup/Restore Multilang?
I found a quit simple solution for the Updater (Settings Gui comes with Beta1). This could be used for this tool too.
Please let me know if I should make a development draft for it (for 1.5)
Regards
Marko
Paid for Software more or less?
What You need is OSS!
Thanks for the update, it shows some progress at last!
About the apps to release. Don't just look at download stats as it's not a popularity contest. Look as the completeness and usefulness and uniqueness of an app to have it released (first). Having said that, you also have to realize that by calling for people to release Development Tests you are actually implying they will eventually be supported as official app. What I mean by that is, you can't just call for people to invest time to create portable versions complete with launchers, splash, tweaks and after going through the whole route and then decide whether or not the app would be released or not.
There are about 150+ apps current in beta test forum and probably a lot more. While not all apps might be useful and so on, its a huge waste to pick say 10% of those in the coming year. I agree we don't need 4 apps that are duplicates, but looking at all these development tests, it's already much time and energy spent on them... would be a shame to let it go to waste... Other sites might jump in and harvest all these apps and put them into releases and I rather have PortableApps.com release them. It was kinda implied developement tests would be released as official else you would not have insisted on a PortableApps.com trademarked splash screen and absolute correct specs.
About freeware... Although I would be for support for freeware apps, I have mixed feelings about getting these pushed to the forefront. Past experiences have lead me to avoid freeware and look for open source first. Even more when you want to support shareware and commercial software. It may not be the case because it earns a buck commercial software would push other open source apps out of the picture. (I hope you understand what I mean). But even allowing freeware apps to be posted in the forum would be a step in the right direction. You hosting ALL applications is to me secondary, really. Allowing portable freeware posted in the forum should be allowed ASAP. (If the developer of the apps agrees/allows a portable version!)
About the future menu's. I understand you want a perfect release, and I also understand you might feel embarrassed for releasing it due to the lack of new features. But really, get over it and release it. The longer you wait, the more embarrassing you will feel because of the same reason.. And then I read you removed newly added features again for some in-house skinners. Or the thing I read you downgraded many apps to the old specs (because you din't released the new menu.) That seems to me anything but progress yet extra work. Release it and let the community and menu devs get to work on it too. I know for a perfectionist it's never good enough, which could mean there will be never anything good enough to release. I hope you allow the Menu devs some freedom also.
Financial and donations.... $_$ 10K dollar, eh? thats like ... much... And donating back to the open source apps seems noble but not all apps accept donations. Also stating you give all this back to the open source community seems strange as it implies you then have still no money for a server, etc. To be honest, I'm unsure about all this money things in open source. I understand a domain and traffic cost money, I personally have experience with it, but theres always solutions. Maybe sponsors for web space and traffic and such. Set up a shop and sell stickers, USB drives, t-shirts, etc. Alone or together with hardware manufacturers or something. Thats sounds much more interesting that starting a fund raiser and implying it will be for (some of the) open source apps.
So put out 1.1 final and 1.5 alpha/beta so things finally can go ahead. Let those Menu boys go mad else it's a shame they abandoned all their work on these fantastic mods. I'm using beta 1.1 for so long now that a 1.1 final would not get me exited as much the mods and new versions of the menu would do.
Oh, and John, try to think about actually releasing something when you promise dates and so on. We understand its an approximate but still it would be best to get and keep things rolling from now on. Release often, early and plenty!
Have fun on your trip!
Good post. I'm leaning heavily towards everything you said. I agree with app usefulness, and everything else in the paragraph.
I also agree with everything about freeware.
I agree completely with everything you mentioned about the menu.
You're right. Sponsors and such might be a good idea, and as hard as it may be, a shop would be FANTASTIC! I know I would but stuff. Even if we just started with generic stuff like flash drives and such, it would still be great.
So yea, I really like your post, and basicially agree completely.
That saved me some time.
I had some money to get one.
Say, if there's going to be a drive shop, what drives should we brand?
I'd say either SanDisk, Kanguru, or Super Talent. Or anything that's fast and small w/ a lanyard.
I need a new drive really badly.
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I'd say avoid Super Talent, their stuff is really just knock-off versions of quality products in most cases. They sell for cheap, and don't typically work well. I've never heard of Kanguru.
The developer formerly known as ZGitRDun8705
and their picos appeal to me. You happen to know another brand that has those same things too? (They're small enough to fit in my paper wallet.
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get the titanium or regular version. It's small and I use it and it fits in my wallet as well.
I like the titanium because I like the colour of titanium.
I've also dropped this and had my wallet run over by a car and it has survived.
Don't be an uberPr∅. They are stinky.
It has to fit in a paper wallet. My Cruzer Micro's controller is corrupted, won't work for five minutes at a time.
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is actually pretty small, it's the Freestyle SurfShorts that I got from Sports Chalet, and I just remembered that the reason why it worked so well w/ me was that it had a small loop where I can clip on my usb key to it.
I even modified a small clip from a id badge holder to loop onto the sandisk, then clip to the wallet.
I keep 7 cards (id,credit,lacma, etc) in one side, and 10 bills cash on the other, and the sandisk on a the outside loop, tucked in.
My friend is going to send me the 8gb cruzer titanium in the mail.
Very happy!!
Don't be an uberPr∅. They are stinky.
I'd say go for a PNY Attache. The SanDisks have U3, and too many are fakes.
PNY Attache's have U3 as well ::(.
But I'll get a mini, perhaps.
I decided not to go w/ A-data if they're not responsible enough to fix their own web site.
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Beta testing: Is there one person being designated "lead" for testing each app? If not, maybe that would help; that one person could push for or encourage enough testers to report back on that app, or declare no interest and move on to the next one. It might also help if the Development Test summary page included the name of the "lead" tester as well as an indication of how much testing is still needed (3 reports back, need 7 ... or whatever).
Releases: Having the suite be "John's personal picks" is okay as long as there are some alternatives. Choosing can be complex if there are too many choices, and the "value add" could be having the choices already made. Having some objective measures (counted downloads) would be good too, especially if everyone can see the comparison on one page. On the other hand, I'd recommend against having things stay in "development test" limbo for a long time. If something is working okay and meets the platform specs, but serves only a small niche or has a more popular alternative in the "suite", it would still be nice to get it out of the dev test category.
Freeware: the main reason for having a freeware option is if there is no open source product available ... or if people prefer the freeware version. It would still be good to promote the open source alternative, if there is one, and limit the freeware apps somewhat. That can be hard too, since some people like what they like. And don't be too surprised if you have six text editors available and people still complain that the one they like isn't supported.
Developers: there are some folks here who like the challenge of being a developer, but who can't find an app to make portable. A few of them might make good beta testers. It would be good to see if other tasks might be found for them. I'm not sure what, especially if the development environment for the menu/platform is either commercial or complex enough to put it out of their reach. If it is not the primary mission of PortableApps.com to support a community of novice developers, maybe that could be split off into a related but different site.
MC
Hello John;
If you do put a Beta testing section on the Developement page. Perhaps you would all so consider listing teams that are in need of testers or are aviable. Perhaps a person could then join one or two. I think a limit of the number of teams joined would be a good idea unless the person has lots of experiance and lots of free time.
All so consider allowing people like my self who have never done this sort of thing join one team as a Novice to gain experieance. I do have an app I would not mind testing but have no idea how
Frank
only do apps of a certain genre.
Say, maybe 'next week' is getting old now. How about 'next month'?:P (It'll make sure that John doesn't get too busy to not up to his promises).
I need a drive recoverer.
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Progress! And that wasn't that short.
About the Beta Testing Team: I've been bogged down with school, and instead of just trying to test a few apps that I could, I stopped entirely. Maybe assigning each tester a set of apps, or types of apps would help, so they don't have to choose what seems important.
Hi John,
The first thing I want to mention is that I can't wait for the new PortableApps menu, no matter what version it is, to come out. I do feel it will be a good idea to get 1.1 out and then go onto 1.5 with more features. I've only joined in August/September 2007, so I'm still relatively new to all this, I get excited easy! The good thing is, if you get the 1.1 version of the Menu out now, it'll stop everyone waiting, and it'll make them look forward to a new Menu. I've been using 1.1beta as well, but I'm excited for a new menu anyway!
On a more disturbing note, if you do start to support Freeware and Shareware, you'd need to check each freeware/shareware PortableApps program for viruses, and malware, at least with most Open Source programs, you don't have that problem. I'm a newcomer to Open Source, but I like the sound of it better than Freeware or Shareware. In my opinion, Freeware programs can have limitations, and Shareware programs will have Trial periods, which I'm sure you won't want to turn people away who are into Open Source like me. I've been using Open Source programs since I found out about PortableApps and I'm proud to say it is because of PortableApps that made me realise how good it is! Please don't involve Freeware and Shareware, that's the bad way to go. You may get more programs available for each category, but what would you prefer, a program that nags you to register and cuts certain features short, a program full of Spyware or a program that does none of that, just totally free? I like the idea of you selling PortableApps USB drives, you should do that instead of fundraising!
Well, that's my good/bad 2 cents worth. I'm really looking forward to a new menu.
Bradley Eaton
(eltonbrad)
It'll be great that we can finally add freeware apps to the list... However i think this site should remain as open source as possible and only do freeware if there is no comparable open source alternative. i don't really want to see Adobe Reader portable if we have Sumatra. Also, we should try to limit the freeware apps to ones that are free for all uses, not just "free for personal use" or "limited versions". We need apps like those from Piriform that are free for whatever. One of the nice things about having this site of open source apps is that anyone can use them for personal or for work and not worry; i would like to keep that with the freeware also. Also, there should be some way of distinguishing between the open source and freeware apps, whether they're on separate pages or if they're just marked.
I think its best to only use non-open-source software if there is no open source alternative.
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
I just saw this teeny USB software that's freeware, I would use it over OO.o because its smaller.
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Its teeny enough
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
And I actually prefer Word over AbiWord. But somehow PowerPoint wasn't on the office disc. I love making slideshows.
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Office 2007 is nice. If OpenOffice.org had a GUI like that I might consider replacing my AbiWord with it. Right now it's just too huge for me if all I'm ever going to use is the word processor.
Can't wait for the next menu!
(Not meaning to rush you). Glad to hear about the freeware too!
Release Team Member