Novell Ponders "Open-Source Apps Store"

Barence writes "Novell plans to bring the wealth of open-source software to everyday users through an 'open-source apps store.' 'I would compare what's happening on netbooks with what's happening to the smartphone,' Holger Dyroff, vice president of business development at Novell told PC Pro. 'There's a core experience, but then the ability to customise that experience. On the user end, all they'll see is an open-source applications store with one-click downloads of new software. Unlike the other stores though, they won't have to pay for any of those applications, which will be very attractive.'"

Comments

So, in other words

[killmenow]

Kind of like a repository?

Re:So, in other words

[Hyppy]

yum install aptitude.

Yeah, that's basically all I can see this being. Perhaps it will have a nice web portal with reviews, in-depth descriptions, and decent screenshots?

Re:So, in other words

[Tubal-Cain]

Friendlier. Like Debian/Ubuntu's gnome-app-install.

Re:So, in other words

[nurb432]

or pkg_add -r for us BSD folks :)

But, all joking aside, you cant discount making it easy for the common guy with a simple GUI, non technical descriptions, screen shots, etc etc.

PCBSD's PBI pages are a good example of how things could work

Re:So, in other words

[dov_0]

You'd think that someone would work their synaptic brain patterns and come up with that!

Screenshots have been available in synaptic on ubuntu for a couple of releases now

Apt

[Hatta]

How does this differ from any of the GUI front ends available for Debian's apt?

Re:Apt

[revlayle]

not all open source apps are on a Linux platform

Re:Apt

[kj_kabaje]

making FOSS more consumer friendly is not a bad thing. giving people freedom of choice the can understand versus paying for limited choice seems to be pretty good. who cares if it's just a web-based on downloadable interface for apt?

Re:Apt

[IamTheRealMike]

Well, there are a bunch of features mobile app stores have that repositories do not. For instance, the ability to post comments, or to rate programs.

The biggest difference though is in philosophy. Even if you assume a completely authoritarian app store like the iPhones, the apps you download from it are basically what the developers created. You are getting it "as the creator intended". And if you are comparing against Android rather than the iPhone, then the app store is very open, you can upload almost whatever you want within some basic limitations, like, you can't upload an app that violates some other services terms-of-service. Also, an app store is always fresh, because the latency from developers finishing QA on their binary and it being available to download is seconds, at least for Android.

In contrast, Linux distro repositories have a different philosophy:

• They reserve the right not only to reject your software for any reason, but also to modify it via patches as well. The user is not informed that any patching has taken place. Sometimes this patching improves the software, but sometimes it totally breaks it. There are many examples of this (eg openssl).

  This silent tampering is extensive and distributors are loathe to give it up. When Mozilla decided they didn't want the Firefox brand tarnished by extensive Debian patches, Debian decided they'd rather rename the product "Iceweasel" than give up this control.

• Distros are not fresh. Typically the software that was around at the time of release is frozen and updates from upstream are not made available, unless they are security updates. Even then some distros prefer to "backport" security fixes, rather than simply follow upstream versioning. This results in a steady stream of useless bug reports to upstream for problems that were long since fixed. Once again, the developers are not in control of their own software.

If Novell are actually interested in the app store approach, they're going to have to convince the suse developers to give up that level of control and make automated import of upstream binaries the norm. No more "packagers" for applications - that role will have to be obsoleted. And then they'll have to convince upstream developers to actually submit those binaries.

I am doubtful that this will happen. Some years ago I promoted a more normal approach to app distribution on Linux (not an app store, but true web-based distribution). I was flatly told by several distribution employees that they weren't interested in losing control of the total software experience like that, and there would be no change in policy whilst they were around. So I gave up. These days I focus on Android - it's actually got a sane design and software distribution mechanism. Many of the things I wanted to see in Linux are in Android. Novell should be looking at how they can get in on that ..... unless they still think Linux is a viable mass-market desktop?

Re:Apt

[Tubal-Cain]

Wow. That hadn't occured to me. Novel makes an app store for Windwows (and Mac), exposing the users to one of the best features of Linux and BSD (with more apps available than Google Updater). Get all these users hooked on the convenience of having a single auto-update program instead of several, and then let them know that all of these apps they have adapted to are availiable on another, operating system that doesn't cost any money. They won't need to pay for Windows ME 3.0, when it comes out.

Re:Apt

[Nursie]

What is seen as control to you is seen by debian users like me as a guarantee that the system is going to work.

There is nothing at all stopping you from putting software on from other sources. You can add apt sources, you can dump binaries on, you can buidl from source, do what the hell you like.

But the official distro repositories exist to provide distro-approved, working, stable software. Feel free to start your own repo if that's not good enough.

Debian has more available packages than any other system in existance, if I want something else I go elsewhere and change my expectations of stability accordingly. I'd say the system works absolutely perfectly.

And you actually *want* to have to go hunting all over the web for badly written, unstable and incompatible software?

No thanks.

Re:Apt

[jcupitt65]

I think you're missing the key point of a repository: it's a (large) set of software packages that are tested to work together. If you let devs update their packages willy-nilly, you're going to get horrible breakage very quickly.

Apple's app-store works because there are almost never (as far as I know) dependencies between apps. Updating an app might break the user's savefiles I guess, but it won't stop another app working. To make an analogy: an app store which devs can update can only ever contain leaves, you can't put any twigs/branches/trunk in there.

I suppose you can imagine an app store built on top of apt. An extra repository which is guaranteed to only contain packages upon which nothing else depends, and which has much looser restrictions on updates.

Re:Apt

[drizek]

It has an apple-ey sounding name...

It usually goes like this:

1. Group A invents something
2. Nobody buys it.
3. Apple does the same thing, but worse, and more expensive.
4. Everyone wants it.
5. Groups B-K try and copy Apple, making something better, uglier and cheaper.
6. Everyone still wants the Apple thing they can't afford.
7. Massive credit card debt and economic crisis.

It would be nice if...

[Anonymous Coward]

They added a feature to donate money to open source projects. Or even allowed projects to sell their own open-source software in the store. Or sell for cost add-ons to the open source software. Yes, open source software could very well be downloaded elsewhere for free, but people might well pay for the convenience of getting it one place.

Replying to self

[killmenow]

Or an extension to the standard Synaptic-type front end to repositories where you could just click and run an app. What could you call something where you could just click and run any application you might want, I wonder... Hmmmm...I just can't seem to think of anything to name a click and run type of interface to open source repositories.

Re:Replying to self

[Gerald]

Sourceforge lacks the polish of a true app store. Techies are comfortable with it, but it would be confusing to a mass audience.

"Comfortable" is a relative term. "Able to wade through all of the dead projects and locate the useful bits" would be more accurate. Same with Freshmeat.

Re:Great Idea, just follow through Solidly.

[jshackles]

I think they are mostly trying to capture the iphone / itunes / android / windows mobile / palm-pre marketplace mentality. Nobody is interested when it's called a "repository" but if you call it an "app store" people will download....

Terrible idea.

[LWATCDR]

As many people will say it is a just a repository.
They may add reviews and ratings which will be a good thing but they shouldn't limit it to free as in beer software.
There is nothing that says you can not sell FOSS if they feel that they must keep it open source. I would open it up to closed source software as well so you can create a real market for Linux software.
If you have both open and closed source developers you will have MORE software choices. You may have both GIMP and Photoshop Elements. GnuCash and Quicken, and SQLedger and QuickBooks.

I know the many Linux users find the idea of paying for anything to be evil but if you want more Linux users you need to find a way to get more Linux software.
One thing I really like about an app store is that it really seems to drive down the price of software. Look on the iPhone App store and you will find a lot of $1.99 to $5 software. Some of it is pretty good. There is also a lot of free as in beer software. It does offer a way for programmers to make money and offers the end user a large selection of software.
And that is a great way to get more Netbook users happy with Linux and more developers developing for Linux. It could even help FOSS. A lot of professional developers do FOSS on the side. If they can make a living using Linux they will be motivated to do more FOSS projects as well.

Port apt-get to Windows and OS X

[javacowboy]

I just filed a patent for the idea of porting apt-get to Windows and OS X. Now I'll be rich! RICH! :D

BTW, I'm only kidding.

All kidding aside, I think this would be a good idea. This would remove the hassle of finding, installing, and maintaining open source software for Windows and Mac users. As a Mac user that has a lot of open source software installed (Firefox, OpenOffice, GIMP, Adium, etc), I find that MacPorts is lacking in functionality. I spend too much time maintaining these software installations that could otherwise easily be done with a few clicks. This is something that I miss from my OpenSolaris box, which is my second computer.

Novell... its alive

[pete.com]

Oh sorry that was just a twitch from the electric shock..... its dead!.