Is there a plan yet for a good automatic portable updater?

[bzl333]

and by that i mean something that maybe we pay a small monthly or yearly fee to have portable apps automatically updated and have money divvied up to the authors? i mean if someone came up with a good setup that did this automatically its something i think i would pay about $100/year for....and that's if i could pick from the thousands of programs out there and the ones that i used a lot, those authors would get most of the $$$...

do you think a million people might pay $100/year for such a service?

[JohnTHaller]

The PortableApps.com Platform has a built-in updater that updates the hundreds of apps published in PortableApps.com Format. Because they're in a specified format, the updates are handled automatically. It also has a built-in app store called the Portable App Directory which allows you to quickly look through a list of hundreds of apps sorted into categories and tick off the ones you'd like. They're downloaded and installed automatically as well. It's all fully portable and requires no software installed on the local machine: no .NET, no Java, no virtualization software. There's no lock-in with the apps artificially tied to the platform or hardware (think U3) and with it being open source, you know you'll never be 'stuck'. And it works on Windows 2000 to Windows 7 as well as on Wine on Linux and Mac (though not all apps support Windows 2000 and Wine).

You can see screenshots and details of the features as well as download it to try it out in the PortableApps.com Platform Next PR3 Release Announcement. We've just about completed release 4 which will be adding in even more features and functionality. Soon after the final release in the coming weeks, we'll be ramping up the number of apps in the app store to even greater numbers (and taking suggestions ).

As for the payment, the platform (including the integrated updater, app store, backup utility, menu, etc) is all free of cost and 100% OSI certified open source software. We get income from donations and a small amount from ad revenue. We're switching our income stream to working with hardware and software publishers and providing services to them. We will be sharing this revenue back with the apps we portablize based on usage numbers and specific needs and functionality improvements once we've completed it. We'll be announcing more on all that thing month, in fact. Our software is free to use, but we may also create an optional 'Supporter' membership level that would mean sharing those funds directly back to the projects we work with. It's something we've talked about before.

Give the current platform release a try and please feel free to share your thoughts and suggestions on our site in that release announcement topic or the linked topics for bug reports, translation improvements, etc.

[bzl333]

Thanks for the response John...

i just had the feeling that PortableApps.com was going to stay at around the major 200-300 or so apps and i was thinking that there must be thousands of other small worthwhile apps available out there...

also, i tried the PortableApps suite a few years ago but i'm not sure how to organize that along with my own folder of portable freeware...i would be looking in 2 separate places all the time...i wish that you guys would consider going to 1000 or so apps but maybe that's not manageable for now?

i appreciate the work that you guys do over there making portable editions of some programs for us when apparently the authors have little or no interest in doing so...

[webfork]

i just had the feeling that PortableApps.com was going to stay at around the major 200-300 or so apps and i was thinking that there must be thousands of other small worthwhile apps available out there...

There are and its a noble idea with real merit. I can some issues with getting something like this together:

• Should packages with TONS of features such as LibreOffice get a greater percentage of the money? Perhaps give out money based on usage by individual users? I almost always have Firefox up, should that get more of my cash?
• Individual developers have multiple different ways of accepting payment. Some loathe PayPal, some won't use anything else. Some have a favorite charity they'd like you to post to. Its possible to get money out to people who sign up for the service, but there are challenges there too.
• If I'm paying money, can I get support for the software I use?

Essentially it seems there's a lot of logistics that would need to be overcome.

Of course one way to attack the problem is what the PortableApps folks have done by putting a wide variety of software under one umbrella. PortableApps works with many programs already present on SourceForge, which itself had a donation/payment system already set up. So working with established groups is probably the only way to approach something like this.

Unfortunately, PortableApps can't possibly hope to unify all software under its umbrella. They've done a good job unifying many of the major open source projects (and increasingly many minor freeware projects), but as you point out there's simply too much great freeware to add. Too many niche programs that I think are fantastic for their users (for example, I love TaskSwitchXP but not too many other people do).

[JohnTHaller]

i just had the feeling that PortableApps.com was going to stay at around the major 200-300 or so apps and i was thinking that there must be thousands of other small worthwhile apps available out there...

We're going to keep adding. One big holdup was our site structure as it's also holding us back from going fully multi-lingual. We've been working with some Drupal gurus and fixing the bugs so we can upgrade to Drupal 7 and go properly multilingual with an integrated app directory and updater rather than updating things in 4 different places when we upload a new version of software like we do now.

Also, PortableApps.com Format is the first (and only) fully open portable software format based on all open source software that's also licensed for free use by freeware publishers. That plus the fact that most apps require no code changes and no code writing to portablize and package and can then handle installs, upgrades and all sorts of other neat features means a low barrier to entry. We have lot of publishers that package their own apps in PortableApps.com Format, many of which aren't even listed on PortableApps.com yet. As well as probably 150 apps in PAF that are basically ready to go awaiting release, plus hundreds more in the pipe. Once the Drupal issues are done and the new platform is finalized, we'll be starting another app flood.

also, i tried the PortableApps suite a few years ago but i'm not sure how to organize that along with my own folder of portable freeware...i would be looking in 2 separate places all the time...i wish that you guys would consider going to 1000 or so apps but maybe that's not manageable for now?

You can install both your PortableApps.com Format apps and your other ones to the X:\PortableApps directory and the platform will automatically find and list both. PAF apps will automatically be sorted into their correct category (Internet, Office, etc... localized to your language) if you decide you want to use folders and non-PAF apps will show up in an "Other" folder. You can then, of course, manually move them around to any category you'd like. All your PAF apps can be automatically updated. And we're gonna add in a report you can run to display which of your apps are not managed by the platform updater so that you can either update them yourself or find a PAF equivalent to switch to at any time. Eventually, we may even add in the ability for the platform to detect when there is a PAF version of a non-PAF app you're using an offer to upgrade to it so it can then be automatically updated from then on.

i appreciate the work that you guys do over there making portable editions of some programs for us when apparently the authors have little or no interest in doing so...

You're welcome! As time goes on, more and more publishers are seeing the benefit of getting their apps into PortableApps.com Format. Add to that the fact that they're getting their apps in front of the millions of PA.c users and the millions of unique visitors we get every month. And then the fact that we'll do it for them, or build it for them and they host it, or help them build it and they can host it, or they can do it entirely themselves. And the fact that there's no lock-in, they can list their apps on PA.c or not, their users can use their app with PA.c Platform or PStart or something else or by itself and it'll still have the ability to easily install or in-place upgraded. With all that, we're hoping more and more publishers get on board and make things easier on their users.

[JohnTHaller]

There are and its a noble idea with real merit. I can some issues with getting something like this together:

• Should packages with TONS of features such as LibreOffice get a greater percentage of the money? Perhaps give out money based on usage by individual users? I almost always have Firefox up, should that get more of my cash?
• Individual developers have multiple different ways of accepting payment. Some loathe PayPal, some won't use anything else. Some have a favorite charity they'd like you to post to. Its possible to get money out to people who sign up for the service, but there are challenges there too.
• If I'm paying money, can I get support for the software I use?

Essentially it seems there's a lot of logistics that would need to be overcome.

There are. And that's something we're going to need to figure out as a community with some discussions, some voting polls, etc. I don't have all the answers to how it'll work. But I think it'll have to be some balance of everything you've mentioned. And we'll still encourage users to donate individually to all the apps as we're the only project that makes a point to direct users to donate directly to all the publishers that accept donations (and we're about to increase that presence).

As for support, that likely will not be a part of the equation from the individual app publishers at least. Mozilla is the only big open source project that tried to do paid support and it failed pretty badly. You need lots of trained paid employees for that. We have decent support for folks in our forums and knowledgebase (which are being reorganized as part of the Drupal upgrade to make them easier to use) as well as being one of the only free projects to offer live chat support right on our site. But there may be a way to improve support through some sort of donation option. It would have to be handled right and expectations managed so people aren't expecting being able to call a toll free number and get an hour of someone's time for $5.

Of course one way to attack the problem is what the PortableApps folks have done by putting a wide variety of software under one umbrella. PortableApps works with many programs already present on SourceForge, which itself had a donation/payment system already set up. So working with established groups is probably the only way to approach something like this.

We've worked pretty well with SourceForge and you will see some interesting things develop as a result of that partnership over the coming months. Most of the apps we do at SF, we still approach the publishers directly, though.

Unfortunately, PortableApps can't possibly hope to unify all software under its umbrella. They've done a good job unifying many of the major open source projects (and increasingly many minor freeware projects), but as you point out there's simply too much great freeware to add. Too many niche programs that I think are fantastic for their users (for example, I love TaskSwitchXP but not too many other people do).

Quite true. But that's also one of the reasons our format is so open and well-documented and why so many publishers are doing it themselves. We're bigger than U3 ever was and the publishers had to do the work there entirely themselves (and then they were stuck artificially locked to a software/hardware platform), so our size and publicity is helping as well. Oh, and TaskSwitchXP is coming to PA.c and will be a special format app that can understand what OS it is on to decide whether it should auto-start or not. It's one of the features we're adding to the platform

[webfork]

There are. And that's something we're going to need to figure out as a community with some discussions, some voting polls, etc. I don't have all the answers to how it'll work. But I think it'll have to be some balance of everything you've mentioned. And we'll still encourage users to donate individually to all the apps as we're the only project that makes a point to direct users to donate directly to all the publishers that accept donations (and we're about to increase that presence).

Lets be clear: someone that can enable consistent, predictable donations in freeware will be doing the community an enormous service. If I was a developer and someone was giving me a even a little money every month to work on something I enjoyed anyhow, that's an enormous motivation.

The only two requirements I can think of for something like this are:

1. Make it as easy and painless as possible for the giver to contribute whatever they're comfortable with
2. Somehow try to make the giver feel appreciated for their contribution

In doing so, whatever collectively is decided for the default method probably isn't going to make everyone happy. Potentially no one. Here's some possible routes:

• Could certainly be done like Nealson ratings: a small percentage of users agree to run some software to monitor what they're running on their computer. Those programs that almost never close (like Office and Browser programs) would get the majority of funds so maybe the program that's the "active" window?
• Alternately (or maybe in addition), some manual control might be nice for a program that's a lifesaver (as MDB Viewer Plus was for me a few months ago). I think most undelete / file recovery programs fall into this category. You have them on their computer and they basically gather dust until they save a bunch of pictures of the best vacation you ever had.
• Although I'd put in $5 / month on something like that but the option to do almost any amount (or change it) on a monthly basis would be great. If I was much better off financially, I'd be thrilled to give quite a bit more.

It would have to be handled right and expectations managed so people aren't expecting being able to call a toll free number and get an hour of someone's time for $5.

The support question is a difficult one (possibly an issue I'll come back to), but I like that idea.

Oh, and TaskSwitchXP is coming to PA.c and will be a special format app that can understand what OS it is on to decide whether it should auto-start or not. It's one of the features we're adding to the platform

The publisher has walked away from it in favor of a prettier and more processor/memory-intensive version so I didn't anticipate any new developments on that. Good news.