

Ubuntu launches appstore - rizumu
http://developer.ubuntu.com/2011/09/announcing-the-ubuntu-app-developer-site/

======
rkalla
I've been a linux desktop user on and off since Redhat 5.0 and usually take a
year break between attempts to give it time to catch up.

Recently I installed Fedora 15 because I love the new Gnome3 desktop and was
disappointed to have all little sorts of niggling stupid things on my 4-year
old ThinkPad T60... like recovering from sleep and now sound doesn't work or
the iwl3945 being buggy.

I tried out ArchLinux and love the distribution, but found that building my
own Gnome3 desktop with all the little applets and gadgets Fedora build in
(like advanced touchpad controls, etc.) to be a pain in the ass of hunting
down _exactly_ the right modules I needed.

I almost gave up, but decided to try out Ubuntu 11.04 after swearing it off
when I spent a year with 8->9 and decided Unity looked horrible.

Boy... I was surprised.

It is more polished than anything else out there I tried. Runs well,
everything worked out of the box and the first thing I noticed right out of
the gate is the Add/Remove software has gone from being a simple UI over
Synaptic to being what looks like an app store already.

As soon as I saw that it dawned on me how brilliant canonical was being with
taking Linux desktop a step forward by giving a direct sales channel to people
wanting to work and sell on Linux.

11.10 and 12.04 behind it are going to be excellent user experiences and with
the addition of the app store I think Canonical is making all the right
decisions to take Linux on the desktop to the next level.

You factor in tablets and tablet-friendly apps in the next few years and this
is a really smart/aggressive move on their part.

Big congrats to that company and team for always pushing beyond the scope of
what "Linux is known for" and shoving their way in to realms dominated by
other consumer OSs.

It is nice to see the ambitious and gusto.

~~~
diminish
yes i am using using ubuntu for 5 years now, and have around 30 users
following me to use it; and I find it a good step forward for canonical to
focus on desktop. Last week I tried, kde4.6, gnome3, xfce and gubuntu and i
was impressed by all of them. I am currently using gnome3 and sometimes unity
3D version.

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smilliken
Title should be changed to "Announcing the Ubuntu App Developer site".

Besides editorializing titles usually being frowned upon, this title is
incorrect.

~~~
rizumu
Yes, it should be changed, I realized that after the fact.

~~~
xtracto
After the fact that you read the article? or after the fact that you submitted
it to YC?

~~~
rizumu
After I submitted I realized I should have kept the title the same. We were
discussing it in the office in terms of an appstore, so the title made sense
at that moment.

------
rizumu
In the past I thought Ubuntu's intention was to level the playing field,
allowing beginners from any economic background access to the best free
software. I can imagine in three years time that paid Ubuntu applications in
certain fields, 3D, graphic design, etc. becoming priced above what users in
developing countries can afford, even still these applications could become
industry standards. This seems an unfair advantage to the first world
countries who can afford to spend +10$ for an app.

~~~
wladimir
The minimum price you can charge for your app, if you want to charge for it,
is $2.99 ( <http://developer.ubuntu.com/publish/> ). I wonder why.

~~~
nuclear_eclipse
My guess would be related to their merchant account agreement. They probably
wouldn't make any money on lower transactions due to fees.

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ashishgandhi
Yeah, and unlike the title suggests, they don't call it App Store. App Store
may or may not end up being generic, but by avoiding any debate over it you
save yourself unnecessary burden on yourself esp. when you are in the business
of free software. (Although it then begs the question, do we change our
behavior in fear of richer players?)

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seclorum
Awesome. I hope I, as a developer, can make some money with this new service.
Lets see ..

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todsul
Is it just me, or does the Ubuntu app store need:

    
    
      nav li { list-style-type: none; }
    

... using Chrome 14 on OS X

------
patrickc
I wonder if this means more DRM is on its way to Ubuntu.

~~~
rmc
I highly doubt that. You can't have an open source software with DRM.

~~~
exDM69
Why not? It's the encryption keys that are important, not the encryption
method itself.

~~~
rmc
Because in DRM is security through obscurity. The data/programme/file is
encrypted to hide from the user, but must also decrypt it from the user, and
the user has full technically and legal rights to that code.

If you have a DRMed music file, and (say) an open source music player can play
it, then the file is encrypted and the encyrption key is kept with/in the
file. You can just look at the source code of the music player and see it
extracts the key from the file (or from your master key file), and see how it
decrypts the file. You can then decrypt the file yourself. ergo drm breaking.

DRM can also force restrictions like "Only allow person with account id X from
opening this programme", that could be implemented in the code as a function
that says "doesUserHavePermission()". If the code is open source, then you
just change that function to always return true, and to always allow everyone
to use it. (Since it's an open source programme, you can then distribute your
code with your 'fix' applied)

~~~
wladimir
_You can just look at the source code of the music player and see it extracts
the key from the file_

To be fair, we can also do that without source code. It only (yet again)
proves DRM is pointless against technical people that are determined to break
it.

Non-technical people or people that do want to play "by the rules" won't do
that. Also, the vendor could do things such as embed the name of the buyer
inside the downloaded executable/data, to discourage sharing...

~~~
rmc
_To be fair, we can also do that without source code_

You can, but it's not the same.

With an open source programme:

* it's much easier to find & disable the DRM checks

* I can (legally) distribute a version with DRM disabled

* I can legally distribute a (probably small) patch that disabled the DRM, it's much easier for someone else to verify that my patch disabled the DRM, and doesn't have a trojan than if I give a binary diff.

* With open source programmes, I could submit my patched version (that disables the DRM) to a very freedom loving distro (like debian), and campaign for it's acceptance into the package index (making all Debian users not have DRM, etc.)

These things are _technically_ possible with propriaty software, but you don't
have the advantages above.

------
drivebyacct2
Isn't it just a portal to allow devs easier ways to upload their software than
having to run an apt repository or maintain a PPA? I mean, sure they're
enabling paid applications, but those have already been around for 6 months
now.

