[Scummvm-devel] Creating demos.scummvm.org ?

Max Horn max at quendi.de
Mon Mar 21 15:03:39 CET 2011


Hi there,

I was wondering: Should we perhaps start hosting some game demos on our own servers, maybe even creating a new demos.scummvm.org subdomain?
The content could be based on Robert Megone's excellent collection <http://demos.robertmegone.com/> (note that I greatly appreciate Robert's efforts to create this in the first place; I am CC'ing him about this, to make sure he can participate in the discussion).

Hosting could be done on our (currently little used) HostEurope FTP space. We have about 4GB free there, and could easily get more if needed.

Reasons why we might want to host the demos on our own:
* Hosting demos is useful for engine developers, GSoC students, interested user's etc., as they provide an easy and legal way to test games when one does not own the original. This is e.g. useful for the GSoC task about automated regression testing in ScummVM; likewise, they would be helpful in an automated testing framework for the ScummVM audio encoding tools.

* Robert's site has a low bus factor right now, meaning that he's the only one who can modify it. If he looses interest or for some other reasons becomes unavailable, it would rot. If the team has direct control over it, it'll (hopefully) become easier to modify the site.

* In fact, Robert's hosting doesn't even include any contact information (well, one can find it by manually editing the URL... :)

* That said, I wouldn't want to rob Robert of his child, and anyway, it's often enough difficult to find volunteers to help with maintaining things. As such, I would offer Robert to become "demos maintainer", i.e. he could be (if he wants to) be in charge of our demo site.

* Hosting this on our own would allow us to integrate this with the rest of our websites.


One caveat: The legal situation of some demos might not be clear. If we are not sure that we can legally distribute a demo, we could just include a HTML placeholder for that demo, which briefly explains the legal issues, and perhaps contains a pointer to some off-site place hosting it, if that seems legally safe.


Cheers,
Max



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