Webstart, SF.net, and distribution

Newbie & Debugging Questions
#1

Someone submitted a new game to JGF tonight (which looks very tasty, hope to have it up soon) and pointed out a serious difficulty facing open-source java games: how do you get webstart to play nice with SF.net’s preference for “choose your mirror” downloads as opposed to static locations?

My vague memory of SF’s downloads is that you’re OK to link directly to downloads on mirror sites.

However, the collection of mirror sites seems to change alarmingly regularly, so perhaps this doesn’t work in general.

Presumably it’s quite easy to knock-up a Perl/Php/whatever-sf-allows-you script that would remap “/download” to just redirect to whatever the first mirror was? But…does SF even allow you to use any CGI-esque things like that?

If there’s no simple current workaround, then we seriously need Sun to have a go at SF.net’s management and ask them to reform their system: it’s a huge disadvantage if open-source games are unable to use webstart (I’m working on the basis here that the vast majority of no-money open-source projects end up using SF because of the broad array of free services they get. Whilst one could argue that “they should just move to java.net” that’s rather like playing Canute).

#2

unc.dl.sourceforge.net seems pretty “static”…though one would probably want something where that’s guaranteed…

#3

You can run php off sourceforge sites quite happily. You can also stick up a webpage in your own sourceforge space.

This should mean you can simply have a single copy of the webstart running off your sourceforge website.

Kev

#4

[quote]You can run php off sourceforge sites quite happily. You can also stick up a webpage in your own sourceforge space.

This should mean you can simply have a single copy of the webstart running off your sourceforge website.

Kev
[/quote]
Jsut to be clear, the problem is not with having a static location for the jnlp, but for the actual binary, since you need it to be in SF’s download system rather than directly on your webpage.

#5

Ah, sorry, did quite get you there. Why did you want it in the SF’s download system (apart from getting to use the Mirrors)?

Kev

#6

Not me want it :), but SF projects do.

The main advantage is that this is the primary means of bringing attention to your project - your download stats are only tracked from the dl system, and that is converted into the primary component of your “activity stats”, which then in turn are used to generate your SF rank.

Higher SF ranks push your project to the top of the SF search results, amongst other things, and generally lead to an increase in hits from SF surfers.

You also only get to see your daily/weekly/monthly hits graphs based on downloads from the system (although page-views are counted too, it’s the downloads that seem to really matter).

#7

Ah, but surely if thats the case I could just write a script that keeps downloading my game, that’d soon push me to the top :wink:

Kev

#8

[quote]Ah, but surely if thats the case I could just write a script that keeps downloading my game, that’d soon push me to the top :wink:

Kev
[/quote]
Ha! SF’s been around long enough that I’m sure that’s happened a thousand times by now! :wink:

No, I’m pretty sure they use IP address as the primary distinguisher.

Whatever, I’ve never seen data that is consistent with people gaming it in this way[ * ]; e.g. the Top-10 projects are obviously ones that you’d expect to be there (e.g. the bayesian spam filter leapt up there for a long while), and tend to contain a mixture of fads and ultra-useful stuff.

[ * ] - although, I have found other ways you can game it, and they work :wink: