Develop Bugs

[Q] Implement Reputation System?

Hey guys (mostly the senior/mod/admin folks, but anyone feel free to chime in). Could XDA implement vBulletin's (I think there is an official plugin/option... I may be wrong about this though; I cannot say for sure since I am not an admin on any site that uses vBulletin, $user = phpbbWhore reputation system? If it's not built into the latest version of the code, I'm sure there is a 3rd party plugin available from VBulletin's official site (I know of at least a few of those that exist and would help if needed).
My thought behind this is that sometimes someone posts some really useful information and adding a reply that says something like "+1 thanks!" almost seems like a waste of a post to me (I really dislike "filler"/OT threads, but I still want to give the person credit). However if I was able to give a person a point (+) or if someone was just being a jerk for no reason (-), I think more people would take the time to think before they posted. Plus, since we know "post count" mean nothing in terms of someone being a helpful person or not, this would allow new users to spot trustworthy/reliable folks.
My only qualm is that I don't know if XDA as a whole is mature enough to use this kind of system responsibly, but I have faith that any real abusers could be weeded out fairly quickly. I think it would be cool to at least trial run this. Thanks for your time .

Hi DeeBG,
Yeah, it's good idea generally, thou i'd prolly advocate XDA going a step further right off the bat, and implementing a point trading system as a supplement to the donate buttons, especially for those without easy access to paypal credit.
Reputation has issues when someone on the fringe of the group is battered down for being different. Like imagine someone says "Let's make an iPhone section!". They might lose a years reputation in like a day. At least with a point trading system you're dealing with actual assistance or virtual services, rather than base emotional responses or crowd bullying.
I'm still learning about XDA's donate system, which seems fairly arbitrary or opaque. Maybe someone can explain how well that system is working out so far.
Cheers.

Reputation is built into vB, looks like they opted to turn it off. Good thing, every forum I've been a part of / admin'd, it's been abused.

I7redd said:
Reputation has issues when someone on the fringe of the group is battered down for being different. Like imagine someone says "Let's make an iPhone section!". They might lose a years reputation in like a day. At least with a point trading system you're dealing with actual assistance or virtual services, rather than base emotional responses or crowd bullying.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The reputation system only works through "thanks", doesn't it? So your reputation cannot get worse, but only better.
I7redd said:
I'm still learning about XDA's donate system, which seems fairly arbitrary or opaque. Maybe someone can explain how well that system is working out so far.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's not much of a system - you can donate directly to xda, which will help cover costs of running the servers, or you can donate to individuals (like me ) whose work you like.

Well there are really two types of systems. One is where you can give a thumbs up or thumbs down on a comment (sometimes represented by a [+] or [-] sign), and then there is the "Thanks" system, as seen on such sites as http://androidforums.com.
I agree that the first system can and sadly usually is abused (I think I saw it work well on one private torrent site I used to belong to a long time ago). There is a somewhat "pack mentality" that some users can fall into, whether someone is "outed" (falsely or not) for being an abuser of the forums or sometimes members are found "guilty by association".
I would like to see at least a "Thanks" system in place, again the folks at androidforums.com (which I'm sure at least some of you are also members at or at least have been directed to a post there before) have this successfully working within their vBulletin-powered site and would happy to help XDA admins if needed (not that I don't have faith in the XDA site owners/coders, you guys are pretty awesome yourselves =p). Of course I would be happy to lend my ~10 years of PHP/MySQL/etc experience to the process if it'd help.
I would start a public poll, but I think it's really in the interests of the site owners (also they can probably setup a more wide-spread poll than I can if they want public opinion).
Your friend in code,
DeeBG =)

I think it would be good to show appreciation to other users but It would be abused knowing that you can knock down someone's reputation (last thing we need is more flaming)

Captainkrtek said:
I think it would be good to show appreciation to other users but It would be abused knowing that you can knock down someone's reputation (last thing we need is more flaming)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, that's why I think a system where you can ONLY give thanks would be cool. Again, forum admins, let me know if you need any assistance getting it up and working (it shouldn't add a performance performance hit to the backend database/system... the php code would be very light and the mysql db would maybe grow a few hundred kB since users without thanks wouldn't have any data).

Developer Bidding...
Livven said:
The reputation system only works through "thanks", doesn't it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Still open to cheating using multiple accounts to "Thank" themselves here and there and everywhere.
It's perhaps harder to gain anything with requests from yourself, and gifting points to yourself, while offering up public solutions. Thou i wouldn't put it past someone to try.
It's not much of a system - you can donate directly to xda, which will help cover costs of running the servers, or you can donate to individuals (like me ) whose work you like.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm... There seems to be a growing trend on XDA towards "donation requests" or "developer bidding" in certain forums. (see Xperia x10 Froyo request topic for example).
It involves people collectively posting that they will each donate a small amount to their favorite cause. (Android on Samsung Wave being another good example)
The current running tallies of offered donations is also interesting idea, thou there is some concern that those who have offered to donate $10 or $20 dollars will actually do so once the developers have done their magic.
Again, the opaque or arbitrary nature of hidden donations is a problem here.
Without going as far as escrow payments system (for requests that could likely need time limits and a refund), a basic "pre-paid" point system should work pretty well. For instance, once a task is completed the points could then be traded back for paypal dollars, completing the "circle of trust".
Any other ideas on this?
(or is there already an active "services" marketplace here somewhere that i've perhaps overlooked?)

[ATTENTION DEVS] Donations and Open-Source/Freeware Discussion

I just thought I'd start this thread to ask other developers about their opinion on the matter.
I spent many hours across several weeks reverse engineering the Samsung Galaxy S flashing protocol and then programming, testing and distributing Heimdall as open-source software.
Based on bandwidth consumption Heimdall has been downloaded anywhere between 2000 and 8000 times (depending on whether the source or binaries were downloaded). I have received no more than eight donations, a very sincere thank-you goes out to those eight people! Let's assume that 25% of the total number of downloads were repeat downloaders, so we have somewhere between 1500 and 6000 unique users. So only 0.134-0.534% of users actually donate. Those sorts of donation rates are barely able to cover the cost of bandwidth, if at all.
I know there are a lot of people out there who consider themselves avid supporters of open-source and open-source software. I wouldn't necessarily call myself one of those people, however I do believe there is definitely a time and a place for open-source software, Heimdall being a perfect example.
I also know a lot of people who distribute ROMs, apps, tools, mods etc. are hobbyists who do what they do in their spare time, and the community should be very thankful of that. As for myself, I work as a independent software/games developer, not particularly the most monetarily rewarding profession around.
As much as we do enjoy releasing free software for the community, it is difficult for developers such as myself to justify the work involved when there is little to no return, after all the bills need to be paid somehow.
My question is this, is it possible for developers releasing open-source software directly to the community, not large corporations, to make a living off their work? Furthermore, how do we encourage community members to give back to developers who have donated their time to the community?

Can't you use Google Code instead for hosting? or SourceForge? all provide free bandwidth IIRC.
Don't expect any donations as a rule, if you are expecting profit then either use ads on your website or charge.
I would have thought the primary reason for developing OSS on your phone is to improve the product you originally bought.
Cheers,
MiG

If you want free hosting, I can hook you up at http://www.sgscompilebox.dreamhosters.com/ that I'm paying for anyway for z4mod. Unlimited bandwidth/space. Offer goes out to anybody who wants to host anything for the SGS.
EDIT: Oh, and to answer your question: No, I don't believe it's possible to make a living off making 3rd party open source tools that only a fraction(technical users) of a device's users will use. If you want to make a living off open source, the best bet is through a company such as Canonical, or by creating applications focused at casual users with as much potential marketshare as possible. Or do what most people do: get a regular 'closed' job, and do open source stuff as a hobby.

MiG- said:
Can't you use Google Code instead for hosting? or SourceForge? all provide free bandwidth IIRC.
Don't expect any donations as a rule, if you are expecting profit then either use ads on your website or charge.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think you fully understand what I'm trying to discuss. The bandwidth costs are fairly negligible, especially if I'm approximately able to cover the costs with just eight donations. A developers time however is substantially more expensive, and in some ways the effort and intention is priceless
I'm not expecting profit as such, nor do I particularly wish this discussion to center around myself (I'm just using my statistics as an example). I'm just curious to know whether people think it is possible to be a "sustainable" open-source developer who contributes software directly to a community? As opposed to large open-source products targeted towards large corporations who pay technical support contracts.
I'm also not a big fan off stuffing ads down the throat of my user-base. Also, in this particular context I seriously doubt that sort of approach would work, especially if third-party free hosting (sourceforge, github etc.) is used.
MiG- said:
I would have thought the primary reason for developing OSS on your phone is to improve the product you originally bought.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not necessarily. In my particular case I've simply released a tool to further enable the community to do something that other users (myself included) could already do, in some capacity or another.
For most developers releasing open-source software isn't so much about improving something they own. It's more about providing something for a community to use and benefit from without constraints. It's not unreasonable to ask the community to support you in return. After all there is nothing that forces developers to ever release the software they develop, unless you've used GPL code which is another matter entirely.
MiG-, based on your answer I'm assuming you're saying, no you do not think it's possible, which is definitely a perfectly valid answer to questions I've asked. Although I would definitely love to hear what more community members, particularly developers, have to say about the topic.

RyanZA said:
If you want free hosting, I can hook you up at http://www.sgscompilebox.dreamhosters.com/ that I'm paying for anyway for z4mod. Unlimited bandwidth/space. Offer goes out to anybody who wants to host anything for the SGS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bit of topic.. you can host roms?

DocRambone said:
Bit of topic.. you can host roms?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Until someone stops me, sure.

RyanZA said:
EDIT: Oh, and to answer your question: No, I don't believe it's possible to make a living off making 3rd party open source tools that only a fraction(technical users) of a device's users will use. If you want to make a living off open source, the best bet is through a company such as Canonical, or by creating applications focused at casual users with as much potential marketshare as possible. Or do what most people do: get a regular 'closed' job, and do open source stuff as a hobby.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree with pretty much everything except the part about targeting casual users in order to make money. In my experience technically inclined users, who have an appreciation for a piece of software, are substantially more likely to donate that casual users who lack the knowledge of the work involved. Of course selling software is something that can be more easily achieved when targeting a casual user base, especially if they know nothing of piracy. However it is generally not possible to sell "open-source" software directly.

Benjamin Dobell said:
I agree with pretty much everything except the part about targeting casual users in order to make money. In my experience technically inclined users, who have an appreciation for a piece of software, are substantially more likely to donate that casual users who lack the knowledge of the work involved. Of course selling software is something that can be more easily achieved when targeting a casual user base, especially if they know nothing of piracy. However it is generally not possible to sell "open-source" software directly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Of course it is. Why do you think all of these app stores and market place etc is all catching on? You're never going to get rich off it, but putting up a popular open source application with an advert (and the option to turn it off even) should be able to bring in a pretty good revenue! Social networking seems to do the best for these types of apps.
Also, you'd probably want to diversify if relying on ad money - one banner ad in 25 open source apps, with 100K users each could easily reach a lot of money. And it should be possible to crank out a simple, well made open source app that serves a definite purpose in under 3 months. So with some time investment, in a couple years you'd be able to live off it. No different from closed sourced apps when you you use advertising.
Most important thing though is to make something that
1) the average user understands what it does
2) does the job as simply as possible
3) actually helps the user
4) has as wide a potential market as possible
You could look at firefox as the ultimate in this type of thing.
This is all a lot of work though, I'm sure, and if you're after money, a regular desk job is almost guaranteed to work out better.

RyanZA said:
Of course it is. Why do you think all of these app stores and market place etc is all catching on? You're never going to get rich off it, but putting up a popular open source application with an advert (and the option to turn it off even) should be able to bring in a pretty good revenue! Social networking seems to do the best for these types of apps.
Also, you'd probably want to diversify if relying on ad money - one banner ad in 25 open source apps, with 100K users each could easily reach a lot of money. And it should be possible to crank out a simple, well made open source app that serves a definite purpose in under 3 months. So with some time investment, in a couple years you'd be able to live off it. No different from closed sourced apps when you you use advertising.
Most important thing though is to make something that
1) the average user understands what it does
2) does the job as simply as possible
3) actually helps the user
4) has as wide a potential market as possible
You could look at firefox as the ultimate in this type of thing.
This is all a lot of work though, I'm sure, and if you're after money, a regular desk job is almost guaranteed to work out better.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed, I mostly meant that it's difficult to "sell" open-source software. If your software is truly open-source then users are likely to download it, compile it and then redistribute it for free, which is sort of reasonable given that it's meant to be open source.
However advertising in a free application is slightly different than selling an application and it does have a lot more potential to succeed. However depending on what you mean by "putting up a popular open source application" I might have moral issues with that. Unless the popular application is your own or you've substantially modified (added a UI etc) to an existing piece of open-source software. Although a lot less likely to happen if your app is free, if it is open-source there is still the chance someone else will distribute it for free, unless of course the non-code assets aren't open.
I definitely do believe that at the moment it would be extremely difficult if not impossible to live off the type of open-source software I initially described. It's a bit saddening though to realise how massively one falls short, hopefully this will change in the future.

About those donations. If I would use it, I would probably donate.
I worked my a** of for the community, providing ROMs and kitchens for 3 years for the HTC S710 and S740 and I got about 4 or 5 donations over that period of time. Sometimes it get's very frustrating, but hang in there, it's worth it after all (there would be no WM 6.5 on the Vox or the Rose without me (dare I say that ), but I wanted it anyway, so I made it and just released it for others as well)!
PS: SAP r3 is open source and it sells veeeeeery good

I think the community can recognize such invaluable work & devote a part of their donations to them, if they are using his software & really think its worth.
I think however small percentage it could be, it would make the developer feel wanted & make him continue devoting his valuable time.
I just read an article either today or yesterday regarding a conference of software developers for android community, & when one developer went to the podium & said he is earning a steady $1-$2 per day, people actually laughed. He retorted, THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE GOOD. Android hasn't penetrated the markets YET like iPhone. So awareness & earnings are still low.
BTW, a nice GUI would change everything.
Just my 2 cents worth.
PS : In continuation to RyanZA's talk, I would like to mention that if you think you have something worth using, MAKE A LOT of noise about it. THAT's how people notice, use & donate. No one can understand a software's worth until you tell them. Like some WWii prime minister said, if you want the world to understand what you are telling, tell it like you are telling a donkey.

Ben, I think you need to differentiate between recognition, fame & money. Ideas are many have you tried http://www.ideaken.com/ ?

Benjamin Dobell said:
Agreed, I mostly meant that it's difficult to "sell" open-source software. If your software is truly open-source then users are likely to download it, compile it and then redistribute it for free, which is sort of reasonable given that it's meant to be open source.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Most companies "built on open-source" provide binaries, and real support for those binaries, and earn a living from that. In an enterprise environment giving support can earn a lot of money (mainly because a lot of companies have policies to only use software/hardware that has decent support). On my last job we had to use a really crappy software, just because the (really) good alternative didn't had a support center in our country.
For the casual users: the marketplaces + ads are a good place to start. If you manage to create something that casual users will use, then it might pay of. Those users don't actaully care about the software being FOSS or not. Actually there aren't many people who care how free an application really is (except for most people working in IT or similar)

If bandwidth is an issue then host it over megaupload and such, problem solved.

ragin said:
BTW, a nice GUI would change everything.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And give users the ability to think they are actually a power user. Most people here at xda can't write even simple scripts, but they do want to try out new and experimental stuff. (on the other hand there are a lot of users who want things that just work, for them give a simple gui saying: "DO DA STUFF")

EarlZ said:
If bandwidth is an issue then host it over megaupload and such, problem solved.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hate when people upload source code to megaupload. There's github, code.google.com and sf.net. sf.net is although quite old now, the other too are still great when it comes to hosting FOSS stuff.
Github is even nicer since they've added a big "Download" button for the end users.

[Q] Information about the nitty gritty of XDA

hey, i recently joined this page on facebook (i've withheld the name of the page as to not seem like i'm here to promote it or such, not that it requires promotion with its 2 million members) and a many of us including the owner of the page there are a free-thinking bunch. The problem is that whenever some user finds something we say offensive, we get reported and are blocked from posting for 10-12 hours, sometimes entire days...
The gracious admin there took it upon himself to finance an entirely new site as a refuge for us. But most of lack the technical know-how of getting a site up and running. We have a few volunteers ready to devote their time and skills to help in the site's construction.
The owner suggested a forum-esque feel to the site rather than something like facebook itself and when anyone mentions forum the only thing my mind thinks is XDA!! This site is the epitome of what a forum should be about!!
So i was hoping if anyone could give me some sort of information as to what the site is based on (HTML, PHP, etc)? what type security measures should we be looking at? we read something about a using social networking engines to enable features like instant messaging...
i was hoping if someone could point me (and by relation, us) in the right direction.
Any help would be much appreciated.

psychocyst said:
hey, i recently joined this page on facebook (i've withheld the name of the page as to not seem like i'm here to promote it or such, not that it requires promotion with its 2 million members) and a many of us including the owner of the page there are a free-thinking bunch. The problem is that whenever some user finds something we say offensive, we get reported and are blocked from posting for 10-12 hours, sometimes entire days...
The gracious admin there took it upon himself to finance an entirely new site as a refuge for us. But most of lack the technical know-how of getting a site up and running. We have a few volunteers ready to devote their time and skills to help in the site's construction.
The owner suggested a forum-esque feel to the site rather than something like facebook itself and when anyone mentions forum the only thing my mind thinks is XDA!! This site is the epitome of what a forum should be about!!
So i was hoping if anyone could give me some sort of information as to what the site is based on (HTML, PHP, etc)? what type security measures should we be looking at? we read something about a using social networking engines to enable features like instant messaging...
i was hoping if someone could point me (and by relation, us) in the right direction.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This site is running on vBulletin 3.8.6 which is commercial software. There are free bulletin boards out there. As for security, this is a massive topic that I don't think anyone can summarise. Obvious things like good password policies (long and random, never re-used, etc) and keeping all software patched up to date are key. Other than that it all depends on the implementation. Also, there are penetration testing tools that you can find off the internet to test your site.
Dave

thanks a million Dave. i'll look into it and pass the message on to our group.

psychocyst said:
thanks a million Dave. i'll look into it and pass the message on to our group.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What Dave said, but beware that your site is only as secure as the system it runs on.
Your system can be the most secure in the world, with lovely nice PHP code, the latest patched vBulletin install, and I might still get into it...
If you are using shared web hosting, and some peon is using an out of date wordpress install, they can likely wreak a fair bit of havock on a poorly setup server.
Unfortunately most shared hosting is poorly setup. If you have 2 million members, you WILL need dedicated server space. I would also suggest you need to seriously consider the undertaking here - 2 million people is A LOT, and I don't know how many simultaneous users you are talking about, but it sounds a big target...
You will need a fairly powerful server from the sounds of it. I would suggest looking at the available forum systems, installing them (free ones), or trying out the demos.
I assist in the running of a number of sites, from single figure numbers of visitors per day, through to hundreds of thousands/millions per day... The requirements for these differ HUGELY. While something free like SMF might be good for a site with 200 folk, it's not likely a good idea on a site with 100,000 visitors per day posting...
Consider backup strategies too, for WHEN the worst happens - not if... Where will you store backups? How will you secure them?
Finally, remember to look to the future. phpBB is pretty poor, I suggest avoiding it. But what will you move to next? Make sure you pick a system that ain't gonna die tomorrow... If it does, you are stuck without security updates, and you might find it hard to migrate to another one... Be sure to go with a system that has good support to migrate further if/when the time comes...

woah!! ok, this was a big help...although we have close to 2 million people signed on, only about 30 - 40% of those are regularly active and perhaps 100 or so who're almost always there...
i saw BBCode implementation at linux mint forums and found it a total fail compared to XDA...i had completely forgotten about the back-up portion...
knew i could count on XDA for a lil' help...God i love this site!!

psychocyst said:
woah!! ok, this was a big help...although we have close to 2 million people signed on, only about 30 - 40% of those are regularly active and perhaps 100 or so who're almost always there...
i saw BBCode implementation at linux mint forums and found it a total fail compared to XDA...i had completely forgotten about the back-up portion...
knew i could count on XDA for a lil' help...God i love this site!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haha no worries.
From those figures I would size the site based on coping with 5000 simultaneous users minimum. I doubt you will get as much tbh, as many people hit the homepage and look at the latest, then go to the next site they visit.
If you can afford, aim to cope with 10k+ simultaneous, to cover you for if you get a bout of publicity...
I'd reckon on a well-run server you would be OK with 8 to 16 GB of RAM, and a few hundred gigabytes of hdd. Bandwidth is hard to gauge without info on the site and content...
But I think it could be run for under $400 per month, and that is a very high estimate to cover things like multiple backup locations.
You will instantly ruin your site reputation if you need to use backups and they don't work...
If nobody is experienced in server management, hire someone to do it. These things are often best left to the experts where you are unsure... It will likely pay for itself in their expertise at least 3 times a month (or at least that's how often some of my clients proclaim I saved their "lives" )

PLEASE encourage torrents over upload sites

I posted something quite similar to this in the thread for Nexus Beam, but I wanted to post it here too. I think it would be awesome if the xda community began to promote generation of torrent files of ROMs instead of the de-facto standard now of upload sites. It is simple to create the torrents, especially for people who are ROM developers, and it allows us to access the files easily, indefinitely, and without additional cost. I would really love it if this mechanism became widely used.
You can use the tracker at http://openbittorrent.com . It doesn't list the files anywhere and doesn't provide links so the torrent is still only available to those with whom you share it (and within the swarm via DHT).
I just spent 1.5 hours downloading a ROM and I'm in a time-sensitive situation here so I find that really sad when it could have been done in seconds if someone had created a torrent instead of relying on 6-8 crappy upload sites that cap speeds, make users wait or look at ads, etc.
I would love to hear thoughts and opinions on this.

Please see http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=21691582&postcount=1888 for an example.

No. Far too many ISPs worldwide throttle bittorrent (mine makes it just about impossible to send or receive any data with the bittorrent protocol)

I totally support the idea, totally! I hate the download queue and then typing captcha words - it's annoying and I hate it!
Please, at least try making torrent files!

Pickx said:
No. Far too many ISPs worldwide throttle bittorrent (mine makes it just about impossible to send or receive any data with the bittorrent protocol)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
BitTorrent has several mechanisms to circumvent ISP throttling, including protocol "encryption" (which is actually obfuscation, not encryption) and µTP, and most ISPs have stopped throttling it by now.
The files we're trading are relatively small so even if the connection is throttled it's still likely going to come down faster than it would on depositfiles et al -- much BitTorrent ISP throttling is upstream only, also, which makes it even less relevant.
On top of all of this, nothing stops you from ALSO uploading to multiupload or whatever file sharing site you want. If someone is in your situation, they can still download from depositfiles or ******* or whatever and are not any worse off.
I just would be happy to see torrents become a staple here. They work much better for most of us.

No very bad idea!
Lot of Dev's have a account at dev hosting site which is fast/free. Knowing torrents you know that yes they can be fast but all depends on seeds & leechers. So no seeds or leechers exceed, your worse off. In this scenario, how they are doing it is great. Always there always fast. Just no resume, but that's it. For those who complain about captchas and queue times, sign up don't have any of that. I have one cause for how much money you save is worth it by far. It's $10/month. Also lot of people just download from there phones (like me) so you would even have to get extra app on your phone, & good ones still even cost.
Sent to the Third Dimension from the 3rd Dimensional 3VO using BlueTapaTalk

torrents only work as long as they are seeded. many files we use on xda must be moved, edited, or worked with, and you cant work on a file that is being seeded, so many users download then stop it so they can move and work with the files, and no longer seed, so if the host shuts off his computer, there will be little to no seeders, also if the host is the only one seeding, and is a high demand large file, it will be maxed out for the first hour or more till others get 100% and collects a few other seeders.
if there is little to no seeding, or a slow connection on the host side, the forums would FILL with complaints.
It would cause more issues than solve.
USE www.multiupload.com to host your files on multiple sites at one time. then they wont disappear when one site goes down.
personally - my utorrent only will have 2 download/uploads MAX ever at any time including seeding.
thats how i can download at 2.7 MB/s (full bandwidth) when other people are complaining of slow seeding on a torrent. I want to watch a 1.5 gig movie? I have it in 15 minutes. because i dont have 50 million things seeding and downloading at a time.

TRusselo said:
torrents only work as long as they are seeded. many files we use on xda must be moved, edited, or worked with, and you cant work on a file that is being seeded, so many users download then stop it so they can move and work with the files, and no longer seed, so if the host shuts off his computer, there will be little to no seeders, also if the host is the only one seeding, and is a high demand large file, it will be maxed out for the first hour or more till others get 100% and collects a few other seeders.
if there is little to no seeding, or a slow connection on the host side, the forums would FILL with complaints.
It would cause more issues than solve.
USE www.multiupload.com to host your files on multiple sites at one time. then they wont disappear when one site goes down.
personally - my utorrent only will have 2 download/uploads MAX ever at any time including seeding.
thats how i can download at 2.7 MB/s (full bandwidth) when other people are complaining of slow seeding on a torrent. I want to watch a 1.5 gig movie? I have it in 15 minutes. because i dont have 50 million things seeding and downloading at a time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed. Torrents are good for some things and bad for others. Most people either do not seed after finishing a download, or seed very little. All this would amount to would be the dev/host of the file uploading significantly more, and using significantly more of their own bandwidth.

rational Canadians...

I'd support this 100% if it wasn't for the fact that my home ISP throttles BitTorrent like mad, and it seems outright banned at my university.

Auridran said:
Agreed. Torrents are good for some things and bad for others. Most people either do not seed after finishing a download, or seed very little. All this would amount to would be the dev/host of the file uploading significantly more, and using significantly more of their own bandwidth.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I disagree. I use torrents extensively and seed everything for months at a time. I know many others who do the same. If the uploader wants only to upload once, it is trivial to set an upload limit to 1.00 share ratio, meaning the uploader would only upload once. Once it's out in the swarm it can proliferate wildly even if the dev or original seeder drops off ASAP.

TRusselo said:
personally - my utorrent only will have 2 download/uploads MAX ever at any time including seeding.
thats how i can download at 2.7 MB/s (full bandwidth) when other people are complaining of slow seeding on a torrent. I want to watch a 1.5 gig movie? I have it in 15 minutes. because i dont have 50 million things seeding and downloading at a time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This really has little to do with the number of torrents you have active/queued in your client and more to do with the speed limits and rules that you set in your client specifically. Most torrents do NOT upload data 24/7 and especially in a case like this where the ROM changes quickly the torrents will have a relatively short shelf life for active leechers.
Again, I do not think torrents should be the ONLY distribution mechanism, but I think they should be considered a first class distribution method and encouraged at least alongside upload sites if they can't replace them entirely.

I agree, if torrents are used, it will be more difficult for devs, means double the work for them. Keep it simple. Why make more work?.

Valir said:
I agree, if torrents are used, it will be more difficult for devs, means double the work for them. Keep it simple. Why make more work?.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why is it more difficult for devs? I don't get it. A person who can build an Android ROM can surely figure out a torrent client.
I've established many reasons why we should "make more work" by using torrents. One I haven't mentioned in this thread yet is that torrents automatically split files into chunks and checksums each chunk before checksumming the entire download. This provides automatic verification -- obviously very important for the kind of files being uploaded to XDA. If there is some corruption, the corrupted pieces only are discarded and redownloaded, potentially saving tons of bandwidth and time for individuals with shoddy connections that occasionally corrupt downloads. This is much more difficult to do with HTTP.

Valir said:
I agree, if torrents are used, it will be more difficult for devs, means double the work for them. Keep it simple. Why make more work?.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm thinking it's all mainly because people don't want to type in a captcha! Lot of some people just can't take extra minute & support the hard work of these developers. Majority have careers, families. There putting there extra time to help and make stuff for others, with the majority not asking for anything in return except hit thanks, and a OPTION to donate. If you download a butt load of stuff from these creators/developers, to apps, to movies how hard is it to just donate/ get a subscription to a sharing site. To say thank you. These sites are used to help with that, (the un appreciation of users) and the developers appreciation to us users to keep it on a Thanks / Donation Basis.
What is it with the world now days? someone don't have a life, and whines. From TV shows (controversial, language), to the Internet to here. it's getting bad now. May think what this have to do with this? This is where it starts. everyone always trying to change the system for themself. Been same way for YEARS, & For a reason.
Sent to the Third Dimension from the 3rd Dimensional 3VO using BlueTapaTalk

cookiecaper said:
Why is it more difficult for devs? I don't get it. A person who can build an Android ROM can surely figure out a torrent client.
I've established many reasons why we should "make more work" by using torrents. One I haven't mentioned in this thread yet is that torrents automatically split files into chunks and checksums each chunk before checksumming the entire download. This provides automatic verification -- obviously very important for the kind of files being uploaded to XDA. If there is some corruption, the corrupted pieces only are discarded and redownloaded, potentially saving tons of bandwidth and time for individuals with shoddy connections that occasionally corrupt downloads. This is much more difficult to do with HTTP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why do they have to take more time out of the hours/days as it is, cause it will save you maybe 5 minutes.
You really have not made a point yet honestly! It 'takes longer' in a share site, how? Type a captcha in, maybe a 'slower speed' which you won't really notice, may cause minuites at most. it's going to average out, also it WILL DOWNLOAD why? Cause it don't need seeds.
These People are putting in HOURS ON HOURS ON DAYS FOR THIS STUFF. NOT EVEN CHARGING FOR THEIR HARD WORK, AGAIN THESE SITES ASSURE THEM FROM CHARGING CAUSE THE GET A LITTLE BIT FOR ALL THE DOWNLOADS. Your waiting 5 minutes? What's the issue? Seriously that's sad & Very un appreciative , Sorry just calling how I see it!
Sent to the Third Dimension from the 3rd Dimensional 3VO using BlueTapaTalk

With 2 of the sites used by MultiUpload taken down I think it's only a matter of time before the rest go.
XDA probably can't host the files, but what about a tracker?

Well first. No roms are uploaded to xda.
Second this has been brought up many times and each time it ends the same way. Most developers use their own hosting and don't trust torrents. In the end it is up to the developer how he wants to put up their roms. To be honest alot don't even use torrents.

TRusselo said:
torrents only work as long as they are seeded. many files we use on xda must be moved, edited, or worked with, and you cant work on a file that is being seeded, so many users download then stop it so they can move and work with the files, and no longer seed, so if the host shuts off his computer, there will be little to no seeders, also if the host is the only one seeding, and is a high demand large file, it will be maxed out for the first hour or more till others get 100% and collects a few other seeders.
if there is little to no seeding, or a slow connection on the host side, the forums would FILL with complaints.
It would cause more issues than solve.
USE www.multiupload.com to host your files on multiple sites at one time. then they wont disappear when one site goes down.
personally - my utorrent only will have 2 download/uploads MAX ever at any time including seeding.
thats how i can download at 2.7 MB/s (full bandwidth) when other people are complaining of slow seeding on a torrent. I want to watch a 1.5 gig movie? I have it in 15 minutes. because i dont have 50 million things seeding and downloading at a time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unless of course all site go down...now that would be a likely course of action right at this moment. FileSonic and Uploaded.to is gone.

TRusselo said:
torrents only work as long as they are seeded. many files we use on xda must be moved, edited, or worked with, and you cant work on a file that is being seeded, so many users download then stop it so they can move and work with the files, and no longer seed, so if the host shuts off his computer, there will be little to no seeders, also if the host is the only one seeding, and is a high demand large file, it will be maxed out for the first hour or more till others get 100% and collects a few other seeders.
if there is little to no seeding, or a slow connection on the host side, the forums would FILL with complaints.
It would cause more issues than solve.
USE www.multiupload.com to host your files on multiple sites at one time. then they wont disappear when one site goes down.
personally - my utorrent only will have 2 download/uploads MAX ever at any time including seeding.
thats how i can download at 2.7 MB/s (full bandwidth) when other people are complaining of slow seeding on a torrent. I want to watch a 1.5 gig movie? I have it in 15 minutes. because i dont have 50 million things seeding and downloading at a time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Let's say, slow seeding and downloading at 1.7 MB/s. Thanks damn fu**ing fast for some countries (i.e. Brasil, wich I download at 1.0 MB/s at night (most seeders active)). I pay a lot (everything in here is so expensive compared to Europe/North America, eletronics cost 2 to 3 times more than in US). And I make part from the minory who can pay for this. 1.0 MB/s is damn fast, as the brazilian average is 100 to 200 KB/s.
What I mean is, look at the other side. One thing you are complaining without base.
@topic: I +1'ed this ideia. Is better and we avoid the file losing on the closing sites. We can still use Dropbox/Box.net/Minus/etc. and file sharing sites (Mediafire/Filesonic/dead Megaupload) to share minor files (i.e hotfixes, apps, themes, etc.)

I have an offer for those who need to share files

Hello everyone,
There is a known issue that most cloud share sites like dropbox and box.net loose sharing due to bandwidth allocation issues.. with that said, I have a offer for you if you need to share development files here.
I am a technology solutions provider for the whole region where I live, (in the united states) and I offer you my personal site http://hazard1nc.com it has limited bandwidth for now, but the more people sign up for accounts using my link provided in the first post on my site, you will notice that it says it will give me more features, theses features include bandwidth and more storage, its my dream ultimately to self host but due to new baby being born and taking care of 6 people hinder such dreams for now.
So if you need storage and bandwidth, I rarely use my site as I'm busy running my business and being a family man, if I can help out with this, I'd be happy to do so! So thanks for reading and I hope that this can help you.
Sent from my SGH-I927

Are you offering housing space for development?

I am offering a place to share, I don't have much to offer in terms of anyway to have a CVS repo or anything, but I am offering a place to put your final test projects for members both here and there to test on. If it was self hosted (money issues) I'd offer what more I could.
Sent from my SGH-I927

Hell if you can make the site work for development purposes and give me feedback on plugins and such that I should add, I'd be happy to listen.
Sent from my SGH-I927

hazard1nc said:
I am offering a place to share, I don't have much to offer in terms of anyway to have a CVS repo or anything, but I am offering a place to put your final test projects for members both here and there to test on. If it was self hosted (money issues) I'd offer what more I could.
Sent from my SGH-I927
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If it's a money making site then I'm afraid that isn't allowed here on XDA.
Sent from my SGH-I897 using Tapatalk 2

Its not about making money, I am doing it out of the kindness of my heart and funding it myself. I just said that I don't have the funds currently.
I won't turn away donations, the site itself was just a way to share my tech interests with my local community freely offering tips and tricks for their computer needs as I am the only technology consultant around for 100 miles.
In reality, I just don't have time, I was going to post my local services on a page but if that makes it bad for helping people here then I won't
Sent from my SGH-I927

hazard1nc said:
Its not about making money, I am doing it out of the kindness of my heart and funding it myself. I just said that I don't have the funds currently.
I won't turn away donations, the site itself was just a way to share my tech interests with my local community freely offering tips and tricks for their computer needs as I am the only technology consultant around for 100 miles.
In reality, I just don't have time, I was going to post my local services on a page but if that makes it bad for helping people here then I won't
Sent from my SGH-I927
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Would you happen to be able to give Team Aurora (ItsMeBdon, Shawn, me) a part of your site where we can upload? We're nearing our Dropbox limit and don't really have any other options :|
Thanks!

I kinda jumped before looking, id be happy to assist but my host caps uploads at 8mb if you can keep it in that range I'd be happy to, I'm looking for another host and might have found one, keep in touch with me and I will do my best. I gotta make sure they don't cap my uploads to the server but I'd be happy to once I get the right host
I927UCLG9 Stock ICS 4.0.4
keyboard back light fix
super user 3.1.3 ARM Signed
CWMR Touch 6.0.0.1

Aquethys said:
Would you happen to be able to give Team Aurora (ItsMeBdon, Shawn, me) a part of your site where we can upload? We're nearing our Dropbox limit and don't really have any other options :|
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As far as that goes, there are many hosts out there, I'll compile a list if you want, I am a tech consultant and solutions provider so its in my nature to do this just gimme a few or let me figure out my upload limitations I will get this all sorted and once done we will be in business
I927UCLG9 Stock ICS 4.0.4
keyboard back light fix
super user 3.1.3 ARM Signed
CWMR Touch 6.0.0.1

Okay guys I'm sorry it took me so long, I found a new host but can't take my domain with just yet to it.. not going into details why, but if you want me to host your projects, I will be happy to do so.
I am also surprised that none of you share bigger files like roms and such on bittorrent.. would seem more ideal to share this way and its more safe as it uses hashes to piece the app back together.. anyways that's not the point.
I have a list of numerous different share sites and cloud technologies on this page here.
Most note worthy of the cloud servers would have to be ADrive.com giving away 50gb storage for free for banners, and as long as you set your hosts files just right, you don't even see a single banner or ad, I haven't yet anyways.
I just hope that this helps everyone who working on these projects and I will do my best to keep these site lists current for you and add more as we go along.
I am just sorry it took me so long to get setup, my wife about to give birth any day now, my 4th and its been mad hectic with work and steess, but the site is down right now on the new host and will be for a couple weeks.
Thank you all for being patient and I will get this going for you, I'll put up polls and such so you can help me make the site better for your needs in this way..
Anyways, busy times for me ahead,will try to pop in when I can yo test for those who need a tester, but gonna be hectic more so for a few months, will keep updated on the sites progress and will need some help testing that when able, sign up for that when its more close to the end, maybe a couple weeks more, at the latest.
Current System:
CWMR Touch 6.0.0.1 (Stable)
i927ruclg9 ICS 4.0.4 stock
CWM keyboard backlight fix
Superuser 3.2 RC3 arm signed
Hazard1nc's Homepage
Free Hosting Solution! - starter hosting solutions for neophyte web devs.
Powrhost.com - unlimited hosting solutions!​

Honestly, I'm very glad that people don't host their roms via bittorrent, as it's a nightmare for anyone who's looking to snag something for an older phone. I often find myself in possession of old android hardware, and I repurpose them for VoIP phones or other misc. With older hardware, it's often unbearably slow on the official rom, and the best solution is to track down something custom.
I just spent like 4 hours tracking down a rom for the Huawei Ascend M860, over half of the links were dead, and an entire site where a large portion of the development took place had folded because of the age of the device. With torrents, it's easy for something less popular like an older device to lose what few seeds it had, while a reliable mirror site will at least be up for reasonable amount of time.