The deeper dungeons of Abentia

If you speak both Dutch and English fluent enough to warrant a decent communication, could you assist on helping a poor soul over at the BYOND Help forum?
I'd need you translate my questions to Dutch and his replies to English.

Help would be much appreciated.

Currently, I'm only aware of two semi-decent commercial portable media players that work as mobile internet device, Apple's iPod Touch and the Archos 5 Internet Tablet, yet nothing open sourced like Pandora.

I dislike the fact that the commercial products are rather highly branded (with their own stores and restrictions) and lack support for functionality I'd like to use.

The product should contain:

• Touch Screen
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• WiFi
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• Built-in speaker and microphone
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• Power adapter/charger
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• GPS (as add-on, or pre-installed)
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• USB-port
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• Video out/in
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• Freely edible OS
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• Support software for run most common file-formates (e.g. VLC)
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• Webbrowser with Flash support (pref. FF)

I do not need a portable (gaming) console like Pandora, though I'd certainly enjoy being able to play (best with the iPod's shake feature) some games.

I'd greatly appreciate any hints or directions.
Thank you in advance!

The recent discussion on cooperation between programmers and artists combined with the actual lack of showcase artwork around BYOND got me to wonder if there would be some trustworthy aspiring artists who would like to be founded with software to help them create amazing art.
Considering the new isometric support for BYOND, a utility like World Creator 2.5 would seem rather promising.
The cost of £39.99 might deter one person alone, but what if four programmers combined monetary resources and funded an artist to create such beautiful graphics ?

Do you think an idea like this could work out?
Would you be an artist to look out for such an opportunity, or would you be a programmer in dire need of art work?

I'd be glad to hear your opinion!

Falacy suggested the idea of an open-server.

Now, since I find the idea interesting, I want to gather information on how the community sees the possibilities of such a project.

Basically, the idea is to provide a shared server that can be freely used by certain competent game makers. As most developers on BYOND lack resources (including monetary), there are games that might see more activity (and thus an increased fan-base) if they would be hosted on a more frequent base.
It might be a far fetch, but it could be one additional step to feature original games, instead of spreading the player-base out on various low quality games.

I doubt (and don't think) that BYOND would (should) take the venture, because of the financial risk and the immense workload involved (imagine the spam by 'programmers' wanting to get a free slot), but a private person/group should have less trouble, if the concept is well planned.

My suggestion would be the following:

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• Start out by compiling a list of 'reasonable programmers' that be granted a slot in such an open-server
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• Assemble a team to operate the server (money and access wise)
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• Contact one of the BYOND hosting companies and negotiate on a somewhat decent server
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• Collect donations in advance and come up with a detailed service description (esp. what would be strictly forbidden)
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• Talk to Tom and query if such a service could have a little payback through referrals
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Feedback and voting would be most welcome.
Thank you in advance!

P.S.: Please keep things civil.

Basing the creation of someone's net dream on (most often bad) source code has "gone from being seen as necessary (...), to a necessary evil(...)."^Stephen001, but why is it seen as such by that many people?
The problem seems simple at first glance.
They fail to create a project from scratch, as they lack knowledge of the language used to achieve this.
The reason for this absence is less obvious and less trivial though.
Short attention span (due to young age) and a low frustration endurance come to mind, but can this topic be really dashed so easily?
BYOND is created for and advertised as simplifying the process of creating certain types of games, so this is the measure that we should apply.
BYOND grants fast visual success compared to languages like C, but the main guide doesn't make much use of this.

Now, how can this be changed?

One main benefit would be a "click and play"-"drag and drop" like interface for BYOND, as seen in a large variety of game creation tools.
But as the attempt would be resource intense, it is logical that the BYOND team can not aim for this direction.

Better tutorials and guiding material would be another way to go.
Not only would new innovative media (such as interactive video) look better, but the quality, sloop of progress and topic could need adjustment (not to talk about completeness even).
A tutorial based on common "tasks" for animé games (like "jutsu") and resulting in a skeleton game is likely attracting more attention than a lot of developer articles.
And again, this is a very resource intense task. Too intense for the BYOND team to tackle on, in fact.

If nothing can be done, is it a lost battle fought by a few determined people?

I would not think so, as both could be done by a group of developers on BYOND.
Outsourcing tasks to a community is a new and successful business strategy that should work here, if people could force themselves to cooperate and work under one official supervisor.