Software was not meant to be someone’s ‘property’ that can be bought or sold. Everyone has a right to free download, modify and share, that’s the point of GNU and Linux.

Flatpak started working on payments earlier this year, so that is happening. But have we forgotten about Steam? It’s mainly used for games yes, but your can sell software on it too. I’ve even bought some software on it.

This man is in desperate need of both tar and feathers

Wtf? No. Fuck all the way off.

I would say that’s more of a feature than a bug.

I think I would have more of a problem with the centralisation implied by this proposal than I would with paying for apps; a centralised “store” gives too much power to one organisation - but if you could choose to download one I don’t think that’s too much of a problem. But then we already have Steam for that.

Flathub

People were developing proprietary paywalled software for Windows for years before Windows Store, or whatever it is called, was introduced.

“store” - n. - a quantity or supply of something kept for use as needed

A store doesn’t have to mean that something must be for sale. There are numerous Linux app stores that all function exactly as they are designed.

Elementary OS has a pay-what-you-can app store https://appcenter.elementary.io/

Is there anything stopping something like connecting your credit card to GNOME Software Manager and then putting a big fat “donate” button next to the “install” button? I imagine there are legal considerations.

Ow my head

The real “problem” is how you make it work without a monopoly system like Google’s or Apple’s or Steam or Microsoft. They have to varying extents made monopolies where app makers want to list in their store, and accept they take 30% of the revenue because they are the sole gatekeeper to a large number of users. That model doesn’t work in Linux because you can’t create a monopoly to force someone to use your store.

Microsoft keeps trying in Windows via sheer scale but UWA’s are not a monopoly so people currently largely bypass it. Microsoft even now lets App makers keep every penny of money generated “in-app” (except for games) as it’s desperate to try and grow. Canonical has tried it with Linux and has also failed because ultimately it isn’t a monopoly and it’s method of Debs as the article said didn’t really work. Steam works cross platform because of sheer size and it’s managed to make a convenient cross platform library which gradually locks users in to an extent, and also forces publishers to list it’s game there. It’s very difficult to get to that kind of scale to be compelling.

For an “App store” to work in Linux under the currently “accepted” business model, you’d need to find some way of making it a monopoly or compelling somehow so that users will buy in and the 30% price tag to App makers becomes impossible to ignore due to the scale. I can’t see that happening. Google did it with Android by forking Linux and making it an entirely walled garden it controlled; the free route into that garden is there but is very marginal and you have to bypass security measures to get to it.

The only way I can see it working in a limited fashion in Linux is if someone makes an “at cost” model where the share of revenue taken by the app store is purely to maintain the store (including the payment system, any “drm” that might be needed etc). That sounds like the Flathub route. But I can’t see it growing rapidly or being compelling for App makers to take a risk on - it’ll probably take a long time to gradually grow and prove itself as a reliable way of monetising apps.

Whether or not we need monetised Apps in linux is a whole other question. For me personally, aside from Games, all the software I use on Windows and Linux is free OR a subscription service (such as Office paid for by work, or my Email, Password manager and Backup software which I pay for). On my phone, the only software I’ve ever bought has been low level - like a music player or a theme app; and that has been an engineered demand because Google has a monopoly, which largely keeps out the opensource community allowing app makers to step in. I bypass that now with F-droid. I accept I’m part of the exception in Android, but most users have that expectation in Linux and Windows.

I don’t see a substantial “app store” type eco-system growing in those environments. If someone is willing to give it away for free as FOSS, then it leaves little room for App makers for low level software. The only route to make money is then the “premium” or value added models, and a lot of that is going subscription model - software as a service. App stores are largely the result of closed eco-systems; in an open eco-system like Linux and even Windows it just doesn’t make much sense.

I think I would like to see Amazon, Google, Netflix etc to pay for the free and open source projects they use to make money and sell in their AWS and database offerings.

I -personally- don’t miss a store for end users. Marketshare for Linux on the destop is slim anyways. That’s not where you earn a considerable amount of your money.

And i like things like the value-for-value model. So maybe instead include donation links in the package managers and into the databases of the gnome-software etc. (I think it’s called packagekit.)

Well there were/are attempts to make flatpak with flathub an universal app store on linux. If I remember correctly, there were some ideas mooted on adding paid apps in to flathub.

Steam.