Re: [pygame] App Store

On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 5:07 PM, Cary Harper <cary.harper@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

@Evan - The pygame.cnr.com would be for all platforms and devices, so to answer your question, no, we could leverage the platform independence of Pygame. The ARM app store would be another instance of the main app store dedicated to ARM devices. The devices will have a bundled client set to load the app store, so everyone who buys one of these devices will be routed to the app store. There could potentially be many app stores, one for each device manufacturer.

@Yanom - For Debian Linux we use the debian packaging system to manage dependencies with dpkg as the installer and apt-get as the solver. For Windows systems would we need some sort of atomic package or as has been suggested some sort of packaging management to insure the proper dependencies are installed with the game?

@Jordan - Those sounds like some pretty cool features. We have a rating, review and popularity ranking system now. We would need to work on the rest of it.

Thanks for the feedback. I am going to move forward setting up a site. Please keep the ideas coming.

Regards,

Cary

On May 13, 2009, at 4:34 PM, Jordan Applewhite wrote:

I've also been dreaming of a pygame distribution platform. I imagined something Steam-like that had social features like a friends list, a minimal chat client, reddit or digg-like user rating system to rank 'hotness', and the ability to invite people to multiplayer games. Also, since it seems like most pygames are FOSS, you could do neat things like p2p distribution and some kind of integrated support for mods or accepting patches.

I know I went overboard seeing as all you're talking about is a package manager, but it seemed like an appropriate time to pipe up with this idea soup I've been simmering for awhile:)

On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 6:44 PM, Yanom Mobis <yanom@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

how bout some sort of "Pygame Deployment System" like this:

Pygame, SDL, and common libraries are built into the PDS.

The user selects the game to download from a Tkinter interface.

The game will be downloaded from a server. It will contain a file that describes dependencies. Any dependencies are downloaded (and compiled, if necessary, with the instructions provided by the game's file) into $HOME/.pds/

Upon launching the game, the PDS will run something like this:
import sys
sys.path.append($HOME/.pds/)
import game_mainfile

just my idea. tell me what you think.

--- On Wed, 5/13/09, Evan Kroske <e.kroske@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

From: Evan Kroske <e.kroske@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [pygame] App Store
To: pygame-users@xxxxxxxx
Date: Wednesday, May 13, 2009, 5:03 PM

Would the store really need to be specialized to ARM devices? One of pygame's main goals is platform independence, so it seems that an app store providing PyGame-based games would appeal to all Linux distros..

I think this sounds like a timely idea that will fill a growing niche: the desire for games on Linux without installation hassles. Many more people would try PyGame-created games if they could install them and run them through a gui without copying files or using the terminal.

Anyway, that's my two cents.

Regards,
Evan Kroske

On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 9:00 PM, Cary Harper <cary.harper@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hey Folks,

Over the last two years the company I work for has been putting Linux on x86 based netbooks, but now MS has squashed that with offering exclusive deals to hardware companies for distributing Windows 7. In a couple of months, some of these hardware companies will be coming out with Linux based netbooks on an ARM architecture that we hope will server to ignite more interest in ARM and Linux.

To do this, we know that we need to create excitement and a good user experience for the end user. To that end we are polishing the UI as much as possible and we are looking to get the support of communities like Pygame to develop and publish applications for these netbook devices in an app store dedicated to ARM-based Linux devices.

The app store will support all software licenses with download links for source code where applicable as well as an ecommerce module for non-free software. To evaluate the app store experience you can check out presto.cnr.com, eeedownload.cnr.com and www.cnr.com.

The reason I think the Pygame platform is so important is because 70% of the applications downloaded on the iPhone were games, with another 20% being entertainment type applications.

We are doing work to make sure SDL and numerics are optimized for running on this ARM platform.

What I would like to know is if this kind of opportunity is something this community would be interested in.

Additionally, I can also offer to host an app store just for Pygame software, supporting all OS types, for free. The url would be pygame.cnr.com and I would give creative control over the branding of the site and the promotion of software on that site to the community.

Hopefully you don't think this offer too lame or spam-like.

Regards,

Cary

On May 9, 2009, at 9:59 AM, Chris McCormick wrote:

Hi,

Yes. Anything to break the current app-store hedgemony run by the big corporations.

Best,

Chris.

On Fri, May 08, 2009 at 03:56:18PM -0700, Cary Harper wrote:

Would anyone be interested in putting their software into an App Store
for ARM Linux Netbooks?

-------------------
http://mccormick.cx

Cary Harper

Senior Software Development Manager
Xandros, Corp.
858.774.0943 | 858.587..6700 Ext 153

Cary Harper

Senior Software Development Manager
Xandros, Inc.
858.774.0943 | 858.587.6700 Ext 153