The Ultimate Resource List for the Game Hackers

This is a resource article for the Free software game developers.

Hosting space, information on running your own project, where to promote your project and more are listed on this page. It is basically a collection of resources that would otherwise be unnoticed by developers looking for places to host their projects. No doubt, Free software developers can often get subversion access, bug tracking tools, and a place to host their website with no practically no strings attached. All your projects just to have to be Free software projects (A good reason why the rest of the software world don't use these resources, even freeware cannot use it). There are also a few information resources that I located across the vast internet over my years of travel. A lot of them are mostly for the general Free software world.

This list will get new items add to to as time go on so check back for new listing. I hope the list will get more game specific as it evolve over time.

Hosting places:

There are lot of places that are willing to host your project. You should be familiar with some of them.

1. sourceforge.net - It seem to be the defacto standard of the Free software world. Sourceforge.net is recently acquired by CollabNet, a company famous for initializing the Subversion project. Sourceforge.net used to be Free softwares but some programmers are able to fork it into a Free software project called GForge.
2. gna.org - A hosting place started in 2004. However only GPL compatible projects may apply here.
3. rubyforge.org - Rubyforge is the defacto place for the ruby community to host their Free software projects. Only ruby projects apply here. It used GForge. Rubyforge also host gems, which is a specialty features of their. This allow users of Rubygem package management system to easily download and install ruby programs and libraries packaged into what is known as gems.
4. seul.org - Stand for Simple End User Linux. It is a linux adovacy group that host several Free software projects. Notable softwares such as worldforge and pygame are hosted there. Rubygame also used to be hosted there.
5. savannah.gnu.org - GNU projects are hosted there. There are also savannah.nongnu.org for projects not part of the GNU project.

Place to promote your games:

Probably most of this places aren't exactly focused on Free softwares but however, they're great for exposure.

1. happypenguin.org: This place is often dominated by Free software project. You should promote only games that can run on linux here. Web games and other like it do not count
2. freshmeat.net: It is also a great place to promote your project. You can probably receive a lot of traffic just by having a listing there. They maintain a list of unix and cross platform softwares. So make sure your softwares is that type!
3. greatgamesexperiment.com: It's a social networking website for gamers and game developers. It is dominated by indie proprietary softwares. I got a profile there but I didn't really promote anything there, so I am not sure about traffic. It is probably a good idea to have a game that can run on window as they are probably mostly window users.
4. raa.ruby-lang.org: RAA is a great place to list your ruby application.
5. freegamer.blogspot.com: This blog probably been mentioned on this site a few time. Nonetheless, it is still a good source of traffic if you can convince the author to list you. His blog is more popular than mine. Also he have a strong focus on free gaming.

Also, it is a good idea to announce your project on certain mailing list. For example, if you written a rubygame application, you might promote it on the Ruby mailing list plus the rubygame mailing list.

Running your own project:

1. producingoss.com: Written by an author who is a veteran in Free softwares, it contains great information on how to run your own Free software project. It is also Free contents for a bonus.
2. damnsmalllinux.org/income-guide: This is John's guide to earning money with Free softwares. No I don't know anything about this John guy.

Services for Free softwares:

1. ohloh.net: It can do analysis of your project's subversion repository.
2. cia.vc: CIA.vc is a RSS feed for the latest commit in your project. You can also get an IRC bot that spit out the most recent commits for your channel. Their backend is totally Free softwares. If you ever feel the urge(I hope you don't) to fork it, you can do it.
3. freenode.net: Practically a lot of Free software hackers are on there, so register your channel there. Plus it is geek paradise.
4. softwarefreedom.org: A law charity that dedicated their services to Free software projects all over the world. If you needsomeone to help enforce your Free software's copyright license then this is a place to do it. Also, they might be useful in helping you protect against people who want to destory your project. They're the guy that draft the new GPLv3. I hope you don't need their services though (Who want to have to deal with a patent troll?).

Conclusion:

This is it, folks. That is total 16 items for the game hackers to look over and start using it. We'll start adding more and more resources so check it when you have the time. If you have a resource link you want to add, please post your comments below.

Until next time, happy hacking!

~kiba

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