OpenHandhelds.org

I know this thing is open source, I pay for stuff less and less it seems these days with great freeware alternatives. I know it can run android and thus use its apps, but what about a pandora specific app store created for users and by users, I mean I would gladly pay or donate, even my itouch has great free and paid apps.

It may run Android and it may run those apps, eventually, but don't count on it.
Also, there is an official archive that will be populated with tons of apps around release. And since it's public, anyone can add things to it--so there will be more apps than you have time to use! And since it's just a website, you can easily fire up a browser on your Pandora and download straight from it, making it, essentially, an "app store."

I'm also hacking around on a webapp that could integrate the PND packages (aka the "application installers", like DMGs on a Mac) with the Pandora very closely, so that you can have a "browser" on the Pandora itself. Nothing official yet, of course.

The iPODTouch has an App Store because it is locked down and there is no other way to get programs onto it.
The Pandora will be able to run programs from any part of the Web, from SD cards, from hard drives, from network shares...

The Pandora has little need for a centralized store. It will have something like a repository [download.com equivalent I guess?] and you will be able to download other software from any other site on the Internet.

The iTouch is a vibrator sort of device Or So I Heard.

This is part of what I'm trying to accomplish: You have a web page à la any download web page, and THE OPTION to use a local application to do autoupdating, efficient browsing etc for you. I'm making a custom web applicationf or this so as to make it efficient (it wouldn't work if you added a repo.xml file to the Pandora File Archive because of the extra overhead required)

I still dont know why this gets entirely poo poo'd when its suggested.
with my wii which is hacked you get the homebrew channel which is where the magic happens. bit like gmenu is going to be with the pandora
anyway then theres an additional file called the homebrew browser supported externally from HBC but not only does it allow you to download new software for your wii but tells you when the files have been updated. ok we can all use a browser but later in the day when our pandoras are chock-a-block with programs, wading though all the files to see if our version 1.0004 of linux super app has been updated to 1.0005 and then upgrading would be less of a hassle if something did it for me.

yep i'm that lazy..

ok not demanding it for release or anything but way down the line maybe thats a feature that could be built into the file store already in place to keep track of what files youve downloaded and new updates...
i hope that one day there will be a need for an app store because commericial games would be all that is missing from the platform.

Dude, I'm working on it
(If I ever get time to, that is...)
I want a system like this as much as you do, and I'll make my own and host it on my own server, and use it just by myself, if that's what it takes

the pandora file archive is quite nice imho, but I doubt we're allowed to host all files there. So will there be a list of external software and/or howtos as well?

Like where to get/buy (legally)
- original doom I,II,... levels
- descent levels (descent 1, 2, ...)
- MAME- and MESS-Roms
and how to install them on pandora?

Regards,
Holger

Post it on the wiki!

omg i never saw that page before thanks man!

By the way this archive is really awful…

And it's not themeable (I mean… try to add a beautiful css style to this… BIG table…).

There's a good point in here.
I myself would probably like to become an owner of a copy of the doom or quake game content stuff...
On the other hand, maybe it's half the problem, if the engines like prboom or xreal (or other ioquakes) would have the capability of extracting the copyrighted stuff from an original CD / DVD / Blu-ray . I would consider extracting those, form a nethood optical drive. It's not that big deal, (If the engine could do it on it's own) but i doubt i would have the opportunity to buy the old doom levels, and that's where a store for commercial stuff would be the right solution.
We, as a community would have to check out the licences, and check if we can use our quake CDs to get the original media from there.

We are open ;p our hardware will be open... our software should be open, but it's all about copyrighted content

Okay, an "App Store" could essentially be a repository manager like Synaptics for Ubuntu or the App Page for Boxee with a little more tacked on (user reviews, ratings, seals of approval, whatnot). Repositories could simply be added by putting a link in the "repository sources" settings, like in both of the aforesaid programs. Multiple sites could host different content, and the "Official" one could leave out anything that is remotely a grey area with the law.

I'm sure there is a way to code in a repository of "For Sale" apps/games as well that require a transaction before download.


Well, that's my two bits.

and that idea actually solves the problem... how bout for example somehow integrate it with paypal, or make a pandora account system, which would be charged on installation.

I say that you should NOT make an application store for payed products for the Pandora.
Not only would this be very expensive to do (PayPal and similar want a lot of money for their services), but it would also be very difficult to manage (you need permanent SSL connections with certificates, copy protections, a closed-source client application for the downloads, etc).

Let's just stick to easy-to-manage open-source/gratis applications for now, ok?

That and you have to start being careful about what content goes through your system, especially things like emulators. Even with a "we do not monitor content" clause, that only goes so far legally. When there's money involved, it's blood in the datastream for the copyright attorneys. Even if they're not in the right, simply making you go through the legal system can break you financially if not in other ways. A lot of corporate lawyers rely on simply wearing down people without the resources to make a real fight of it. If you're not making any money as a distributor then there's no money to manage the content and the "we don't monitor content" clause goes a lot farther.

Why? As surprising as it may seem, lots of games are still sold without any form of copy protection. Look at World of Goo. They just trust that you won't distribute the executable. Any games sold for the Pandora could follow the same honor system model.

Because:

• SSL: you need to be able to make trusted payments. PayPal won't accept you if you aren't a certified website, and an user won't trust a site that operates over http because someone can be a middle man and intercept your bank info etc (you know this already, don't you).
• Copy protections: OK, this is actually up to the app maker. There must be some basic copy protection systems in place, however, for example something that prevents the same download URL from being used multiple times on multiple computers, something which *can* be a pain to manage.
• Closed-source client application: If you want to be able to make the payments for applications in a local GUI app, it has to be trusted so that it doesn't get modded to report "Well, yeah, the guy has payed for the product!" for every application in the store or similar. There are other ways of doing this, such as creating a close PGP relationship between server and store, but it can become very complicated.

Granted. I don't think it's as big of a problem as you're making it out to be, though. And there are lots of alternatives to paypal that just take a credit card.
Again, why? World of Goo is doing quite well with no DRM. The download link I was sent is still active. I can download any client I choose. I downloaded the Linux client first, then later the Windows client. I could download them again and again if I choose. This is straight http, no secure connection or anything. Lots of cheap programs use this or similar model, with absolutely no DRM.
I'm not certain what you're getting at. Are you saying the gui buys from one site, and then somehow tells the repository it can be downloaded? It's entirely possible to get Paypal to send a message of some kind, even over a secure link, when a purchase is made. If it's going through paypal, the gui makes the purchase through paypal, paypal sends the signal to a known server, the GUI doesn't need to know anything about what happens next, just that a previously unavailable app has now become available. Alternatively, you can link the store and repository as one, as you say. That's the model Apple uses. In that case, you really do need SSL, but I don't really see that being the problem you make it. Perhaps I'm wrong.

I'm not talking about THAT kind of link erasure; you as an user should always be able to redownload your bought product. But maybe it would be wise to make the download URL bound to your store username, so that you can't publish the download link on a forum (such as gp32x) and just let everyone download form it.

OK, if you just make the store into a frontend to the web page, then it shouldn't be a problem of course.