Re: Confirmed/CAUTION: N900 Ovi Apps require Corporation + $1M USD Corporate General Liability Insurace
 

I didn't mean the iPhone app store required liability insurance. I meant that just because you make an application on the iPhone doesn't mean it will sell.

Thus just because you make an application for the n900 and buy liability insurance just so you can put it on the Ovi Store doesn't mean the application will sell.

Thus the cost of insurance is a deadly factor.

Re: Confirmed/CAUTION: N900 Ovi Apps require Corporation + $1M USD Corporate General Liability Insurace
 

Precisely.

At this point my little adventure into app development+distribution has turned into a high-risk $1000+ gamble. I wouldn't go into a casino and drop $1000 on red, so why I'm going through with this I don't even know.

I'm not sure I'd recommend this to anyone. Ever.

Re: Confirmed/CAUTION: N900 Ovi Apps require Corporation + $1M USD Corporate General Liability Insurace
 

Now that I've thought of that... That could be Nokia's intention, in which case their Ovi strategy makes (some) sense.

In other words, instead of cloning Apple's App Store concept, where every available app is aggregated into one place, Nokia could be intentionally trying to foster something different:

Something more resembling a traditional software marketplace, where everything is not required to pass through a single front, but is more decentralised.

Re: Confirmed/CAUTION: N900 Ovi Apps require Corporation + $1M USD Corporate General Liability Insurace
 

To submit, no, but what about when you pass submission and start selling?

Are you sure you don't need it then?

I've been led to believe you need public liability insurance (UK terminology perhaps), at least, if you are selling anything to the general public as a business. And you are certainly a business if you make an app and sell it to the public at price-per-copy.

Maybe the iPhone app store doesn't ask, but are you breaking the law if you don't have the insurance and get as far as sell your app?

Re: Confirmed/CAUTION: N900 Ovi Apps require Corporation + $1M USD Corporate General Liability Insurace
 

The problem is there's no in-between. There's Ovi, Extras for the quality (e.g. not unstable) free applications, and any other repository any person wants to setup. But what about people who want to sell their applications and don't want to jump through the expensive Ovi hoops. They could create their own repository but then the problem is marketing.

If Nokia let people know ahead of time then a system could have been worked on. But now it's a scramble with the n900 being launched and people who may want to develop commercial apps finding out they have to pay Nokia and an insurance company just to get their application into a store.

Re: Confirmed/CAUTION: N900 Ovi Apps require Corporation + $1M USD Corporate General Liability Insurace
 

You don't need it (at least not as a US-based seller), UK policies for the app store may be different. I registered my freelance business and provide my tax ID (or SSN in the case of a sole proprietorship). You have to agree to contracts for selling paid apps, but there isn't anything in the contract about maintaining any level of gen liability coverage (though I do have a standard policy for my freelance business, to shield against potential lawsuits from clients, but it's not applicable or required by the app store). Apple just acts as fiduciary custodial agent in this respect for app distribution - collecting payment, issuing refunds, etc.

But because the bar to entry is so low for iPhone, anyone can join the program (pay the development enrollment cost) and submit their apps for approval. You can sign up as an individual developer or as a company.

OVI should really drop the premium membership requirement for N900 app distribution.

Re: Confirmed/CAUTION: N900 Ovi Apps require Corporation + $1M USD Corporate General Liability Insurace
 

The surprise barriers to entry really conflict with the rhetoric of openness that the n900's marketing espouses.

Re: Confirmed/CAUTION: N900 Ovi Apps require Corporation + $1M USD Corporate General Liability Insurace
 

I agree with Laughing Man's last post. It all smacks of a desparate last minute scramble on all fronts - marketing, shipped firmware, app store, support, even sales channels are a mess, with no store having a clue when they'll get deliveries and dates changing often.

Maybe that's all part of "a little bit dangerous..." to recall a phrase which should become it's motto ;-)

Re: Confirmed/CAUTION: N900 Ovi Apps require Corporation + $1M USD Corporate General Liability Insurace
 

I think contracts usually say something about you indemnifying the middle-man against claims, sometimes stating a limit to the indemnity, sometimes specifying it as unlimited. (Rather than tell you what insurance you must have). Does Apples' contract say that?

Which would put the insurance issue in your own hands. You might still require it, by law for public liability (I'm not sure), and your own problem regarding claims for copyright liability (which seems to be what the Ovi Store text is about), but it would not be the middle-man's problem to tell you what arrangements to make.

Re: Confirmed/CAUTION: N900 Ovi Apps require Corporation + $1M USD Corporate General Liability Insurace
 

It's open to open source. The barriers only affect developers that want to put barriers round the software. Free software environments do tend to be quite hostile to proprietary developers that want to use the software they've been freely given by others, but not act the same way.

Maemo isn't a completely free system, but it's not a normal proprietary platform either, and it's completely unfair to suggest that it's not open because you can't keep easily something closed.