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

[Max Horn]

Hi again!


Am 21.03.2011 um 23:35 schrieb Travis Howell:

> On 22/03/2011 1:03 AM, Max Horn wrote:
>> 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.
> 
> No, complete duplication would be pointless.

Huh? I wasn't even talking about duplication, more about transition to a new location. But since you brought it up (and have brought it up before), I can't resist asking: Why is duplication pointless? To me it seems very valuable to host certain resources in as many places on the net as possible. Makes it less likely that all of them go away forever, as so many other places hosting demos have done in the past. 


> 
>> 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.
> 
> Which was why the existing site was setup.

Yup, exactly. I just wanted to include this point in case anybody was wondering why we should be interested in hosting demos at all :-). Glad to know you agree.

> 
>> * 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.
> 
> Several other developers have already have access, as already mentioned.

Very nice, but as I already mentioned, this does not quite change the bus factor: Robert is AFAIK the only one with full control over 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.
> 
> Robert offered the use of the site for game demos long ago, via this 
> mailing list (specifically on 27/04/2009),

Yup, and on the day after, I suggested moving it to demos.scummvm.org and our own hosting, but then nobody ever followed up on it :)

> and I'm the current maintainer.

I wasn't aware of that last bit :). Since you are maintainer of the site, could you please extend the HTML to add this information to every page, so that people who surf to it can learn this fact, and know how to get new demos added to it? I mean, even people who were not on this mailing list in April 2009, or don't have an eidetic memory ;-).


> I added the majority of the games demos to the site, and add 
> any new game demos which are located, via our game demos request thread 
> on the forums.

Nice. Can you please add the demos for the Hugo games then?

> 
> Overall the site doesn't change much,

Yeah, I noticed. It really could stand some love improving the overall presentation :).

> other than adding game demos, for 
> new game engines. Since we have almost all game demos for older game 
> engines.
>> * Hosting this on our own would allow us to integrate this with the rest of our websites.
> 
> I already have the game demos linked on your web site, when they are 
> completely supported by ScummVM.

Sure, but people also want to be able to find not-yet-completely-supported demos, in order to do testing. Also, it seems strange that we manually link demos on http://www.scummvm.org/demos hosted on an external site -- it would seem much more naturally if either http://www.scummvm.org/demos contained the files directly, or if it just forwarded to the actual site hosting all the demos. That site then should contain a nice index page. 

> 
>> Not to mention feature requests such as providing some more info about each demo file (for what game is this a demo? does ScummVM support it? etc.). Maybe Robert is planning to do such a thing anyway?
> 
> Game demos are already divided into sections for each game engine, and 
> use a common name scheme, which makes it clear which game/language they 
> are for, and whether they are interactive.

This is good and fine for developers, but not really what an average user would consider as "clear" :).

A custom generated index page, which also includes extra information (e.g a link to the ScummVM wiki page for a given game demo) and other meta data would be much, much nicer. A usable search feature wold also help. Etc.

I could work on some of these, but since the site is external and I have no access, I can't. Sad. :(


Cheers,
Max