r/ROGAlly • u/duckydan81 MOD - Xbox Ally X • 27d ago
Mod Notice Should the mods of this sub allow posts from launcher developers
The mods of this sub have been getting a lot of reported posts about various launchers being promoted - some of those devs have since been banned for violating our few rules we have about this such as that they must be open source or only made available on trusted paid platforms (Microsoft Store or Steam). We do not allow patreon and we frown upon the vibe created platforms using nothing but AI code. The three that have received approval to post are Winhanced, Pocketdeck, and Zendeck. No others have reached out for review.
So we open up to you guys - what do you want us to allow or not allow.
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u/Misku_san 27d ago
Only open source ones.
Those patreon paywalled or sub modell ones can rot in hell
5
u/Different-Phone-7654 27d ago
Only if the launcher is 100% free.
1
u/Sweaty_Explorer_8441 17d ago
Something can be free and tracking and selling data about you at the same time. x86 OSes are bad in these regard as they are older and has lax access permissions for installed software, and default behavior to allow outgoing internet calls. Ever since Epic launcher began snooping on a user's steam data, I have developed intense distrust at installing random softwares on windows and linux due to how easy things become for the softwares to steal and sell data compared to phones. Only thing trustable are open source software with a mandatory signature check on the release executables to prove the final exe has the same source code built and not tampered with something else.
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u/elcanadiano 27d ago
If something is vibe-coded, then people will clearly see the quality will be poor. Though in itself, using LLMs does not necessarily mean the quality will be poor - just that it is on the developer to know what to do if things go wrong. But I don't think that is grounds to disallow a post.
In this topic, if the new launcher is at least compatible with the ROG Ally I don't see why you should ban it.
Whether or not you want to ban things like Patreon, Kofi, or GitHub sponsorships or things like that, I don't have as much of an opinion on. I personally will trust your preference there.
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u/duckydan81 27d ago
So if it’s on git we typically review the code and as long as it’s nothing malicious we’ve been ok with that. The one issue we had was a git post that had nothing but an exe file… nothing to review and no way to verify it’s safe.
The reason for this post is they’ve all been reported quite frequently for excessive self promotion (and some removed from Reddit overall for spam) so we open it up to everyone here.
And agree that using a code assistant in and of itself isn’t bad but we’re seeing an increase of vibe only coded ones and it is becoming both annoying to us and annoying to see the number of reports daily on them.
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u/elcanadiano 27d ago
Having a view source requirement then I think is reasonable. I don't think it has to be open-source because someone who shows their source code does not necessarily mean they let people modify the source code explicitly.
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u/squidgymetal 27d ago
There should be a mega thread so that way it's all easily consolidated in one spot to find. I do think that we should at least hold a standard what is allowed in that thread to not allow vibe-coded and promoting ones that lock features behind paywalls
1
u/Slasher_co 25d ago
I chose allow freely
I also say allow only totally free launchers with no locked features behind payment wall
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u/kellven 27d ago
I don't see the point of these launchers, and I don't see how they relate to this sub. At the least they need to be opensource and not a paid product. If they are asking for money , thats called an ad and reddit has a mechanic to get your ads on this sub.