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

When Nokia starts to deny apps from Ovi Store because they're competing with Nokia's own apps, I'll say they're repeating Apple mistakes. Could you please specify what mistakes Nokia is repeating?

IMO Nokia's approach cuts all the tiny applications from store - hopefully it filters out some bad quality also. Apple is doing this by reviewing the applications, and doing some questionable filtering there. Don't get me wrong, Nokia needs to provide also a store for these tiny utility/eye candy applications, or then someone else is going to do that.

P.S. Seriously, this forum needs some karma/voting system. People are bloating these topics without even thinking what they're saying.

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

A co-op company was about where I was thinking.

Can't the community set up a co-op company, and ask sponsors to put up the initial set-up fees including insurance? It would only need one insurance for the team.

Then developers buy in to the co-op (at a small annual fee). The co-op takes responsibility for making sure that apps are properly tested and as safe as possible (the community already does that bit) and publishes to Ovi. The monies received from Ovi get sent back to the developer.

Is that a non-starter?

While I'm all for 'open source' meaning anyone can publish from anywhere, the reality is the Ovi store is where people look. Take a look at any of the reviews appearing now: they are only looking at Ovi... not even maemo-extras before they start *****ing abou the lack of apps. People need presence there.

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

It is easier to set up a third party application store. At the end of a day, it is just a website + payment processing infrastructure. If Ovi Store management is bent on not accepting any applications, then so be it. Won't be the first failed app store from Nokia.

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

For Nokia's sake this should be just the first step. I don't see why they wouldn't want the money from the small applications that Apple is collecting all the time. Maybe when the next generation Maemo devices come available... If I've understood correctly, Apple app store payment methods include AT&T phone bill. IMO this is vital to make buying the cheap stuff as easy as possible. Nokia has not been able to make this kind of a deal in the U.S.

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

Yes, it might be easier. But for Bears of very little brain, Ovi is what they will find. Many people will never make it out beyond that, so they won't find the apps and the devs won't reach them.

Added to which, it's not 'just a website'. The whole point of the problem is that they make sure that apps are underpinned with insurance etc. If you wanted to set up a website to sell other people's apps, you'd need either watertight disclaimers or your own insurance. Indeed, we had a long discussion about how to word the warnings and disclaimers on the extras-developers page - and that was for free software!

What Nokia is doing is not recognising that devs from here will be offering apps that have been fully tested as far as possible. Fred Bloggs writes an app: he offers it to Apple and they test it thoroughly to make sure there are no problems. Then they deduct half his price for this privilege. He offers it to Nokia and they [i]don't[i] test it: they make sure that he's got insurance in case it all goes tits up.

Apps from here will have all been tested. In fact, there's no reason why we couldn't train and accredit a bank of "app testers" to try to limit the risk. (Effectively we already have them - ourselves). That's the bit Ovi is missing. We have to show them - creating a co-op would be one way of doing that.

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

That’s right. If OVI store wants to work this way put your programs on maemo.org.
It’s really a shame to only have 54 applications on the release date. Plus you can some paypal for donations on your app. Let’s keep the open source spirit and start work for the repository.

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

fyi I have been forwarding and summarizing the main points of this and the previous thread to the relevant people in the Maemo, Forum Nokia and Ovi teams.

Maemo apps submitted to the Ovi store will go through a testing process! Legal requirements and testing requirements are totally different things, one doesn't exclude the other.

About Nokia recognising or not the work done by developers from here, I hope your measures are not done looking only at Ovi. Nokia is making a very significant investment and bet with maemo.org, including Downloads & the Extras repositories.


Apps from here will have all been tested. In fact, there's no reason why we couldn't train and accredit a bank of "app testers" to try to limit the risk. (Effectively we already have them - ourselves). That's the bit Ovi is missing. We have to show them - creating a co-op would be one way of doing that.[/QUOTE]

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

Thank You!

Hopefully, the decision making process won't take months, because then it would be too late.
This has to be resolved now, else many small scale developers will look elsewhere or start their own repositories, and Ovi will remain stillborn. Maemo 5/N900 is the chance for Ovi to establish itself, and this chance diminishes every day.

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

Oh, Bears do have mouths and ears, and I would not underestimate the importance of the word of mouth. Whoever wants new apps for their devices, will find them outside of Ovi. Having an app store gateway preinstalled on the device is surely important, but don't overrate it.

Of course. What a lot of business people are missing here though, is that the absolute majority of customers will prefer a choice of 1000 uninsured apps to the choice of 10 insured apps. And, again, the word of mouth (facilitated by ability to comment on each app) does wonders here.

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

I haven't read the already long thread, but I do recall a dinner with Jussi here in London during the OneDotZero event where he asked us (community, me, Sebastian, Gary and Simon) what did we think about commercial applications on the Ovi Store.

I guess he wouldn't ask for our feedback if their intent is to only let big corporation publish on the Ovi Store.