There is still no Linux app store
There is still no Linux app store
Lies Neither of these are “App Stores” in the way average people know them. You can neither buy or sell products in these so-called ‘stores’… …yet. The wording on those two screenshots above is both hilarious and sad. It’s very reminiscent of People’s Front of Judea or Slim Shady. Anyway, here follo...
To be clear, I’m not complaining that we don’t have these aforementioned applications on the Linux desktop. That’s not the point. The point is “we” still don’t have a robust way for developers to monetise their application development work.
Most desktop Linux users run Ubuntu. Followed by others you’ve likely heard of like Arch, Fedora, Manjaro, SUSE and friends. Most users of these desktop Linux distributions have no baked-in way to buy software.
Similarly developers have no built-in route to market their wares to Linux desktop users. Having a capability to easily charge users to access software is a compelling argument to develop and market applications.
For sure, I can (and do) throw money at a patreon, paypal, ko-fi or buy a developer some coffee, beer or something from their Amazon wishlist. But I can’t just click “Buy” and “Install” on an app in a store on my Linux laptop.
Maybe one day all the ducks will be in a row, and I’ll be able to buy applications published for Linux, directly on my desktop. Until then, I’ll just keep looking longingly at those macOS app developers, and hoping.
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.
46Bill Gates would like to know your location
1Bill gates would like to know everyones location
That’s what the whole windows telemetry enshitification nonsense is about
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If you want Windows, you know where to find it.
34Ubuntu Snap comes close to what OP described, and so do
npm,aptetc. They need to realize that the terminal is not an enemy. Text output makes it easier to resolve issues than "install failed" you get in many commercial app stores.6
This man is in desperate need of both tar and feathers
21You mean tar and gzip?
4
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.
16- 15
People were developing proprietary paywalled software for Windows for years before Windows Store, or whatever it is called, was introduced.
13Elementary OS has a pay-what-you-can app store https://appcenter.elementary.io/
11It's called "The package manager". :^)
10I 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.
9I 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.)
8"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.
7The term "store" grates on me a bit, until recently we just called them repositories/repos, I think that's a better name.
6It’s really just semantics. And the article just seems like a nonsensical argument, to me.
3
You can build in subscriptions or support licenses to your open source apps. Look at cryptomator and bitwarden for example. I know others do it. (And the free version is about as good as paid. But you can pay for a few near features and to support the devs)
And the beauty is that the package management takes no cut and puts no rules on payment methods.
6This is the right answer.
3
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.
5If you want Windows, you know where to find it.
4Steam.
4You know, that probably is the closest thing Linux has. The only thing is it's not preinstalled and I wonder how many of the actual programs are Linux compatible.
But otherwise, yeah it's more an app store than the package manaer
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Well, elementary OS had that implemented, and Flathub was trying to make that a thing, but I'm not sure what happened there
3The solution is not centralization, the solution is a protocol. The team at Flattr tried to do something that worked for content, but it was centralized. The team at Ganxy tried to expand the definition of monetize, but it was centralized. If we had a protocol where teams could publish metadata that enabled users to use any data-driven app to generate some form of compensation for the contributors, then we could build all sorts of workflows into package managers that made it easier.
2ITT a lot of people who don't read anything but the title
2The AUR does exactly this, nothing else needed.
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