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

Co-op route might have some difficulties if it's applied internationally. Distributing income to developers from various countries with different currencies, getting insurance if it needs to cover consumer right liabilities in several different legal systems etc.

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

For openness there is the maemo extras repository. Depending on what you view as open, I'd take open source into account there. And yes, even if I would like to see private persons to be able to make a dime from their apps, I really hope to see loads of open and free applications for the device.

So maybe you need to define what "open" means to you and look if that is the same openness which is meant by the maemo people.

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

And nobody ever said that.

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

I just canceled one unwritten post. Let me take the idea up again: Maemo should not be about paid mini apps in some more or less obscure app store - Maemo should be about free and open software. And I really do hope that this phone gets enough drive to attract open source developers to this platform.

Paid apps for me are the second rate citizens in this eco system. Not that I'm envious of people making a few dollars with their applications, but I was "raised" in a completely different mindset.

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

Ummm. As said before: There are the maemo.org repositories for your applications. OVI is not needed to publish your applications for this device and never has been for pusblishing applications for devices which came before the N900.

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

Now, even Bears of little brain can find the honey-smelling Ovi icons littered all over the N900 desktop and the N900 application menu. Too bad ALL those links lead to 'coming soon' screens, and the place that has QA tested, free in all senses of the word, 50+ applications BEFORE the device was launched is hidden under a 'Select' moniker and disabled by default.

I don't think it's the Bears of little brain that are the main problem here.

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

Isn't there a huge Maemo Select button right next to that Ovi button by default?

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

Can we get a friendly pointer to some documentation that would describe the testing/approval process for Maemo devices ?

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

I would do so many things differently from Nokia Corp. these days, but I guess they did something right in the past...

For example, why don't they simply waive the bloody hurdle fees and other unnecessary hoops initially in order to attract developers and help them stay afloat while the userbase of the new platform is still relatively small??

Later on I'd consider establishing some sort of "progressive taxation" regime as in the Nordic countries, although I suspect the well enumerated Nokia management isn't to happy about that concept in general.

Sure... what we all need is yet another revenue sucker in the supply chain, and this would obviously necessitate having a limited number or even exclusive "service providers" in each geography. And all these additional steps will need to feed the required swarms of hungry lawyers and pencilpushers/managers managing the numerous (?) micropayment streams...

Too many companies and departments want their paws in this pie. It should be really, really simple for the app developer and the customer.

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

That single icon is almost hiding Extras better than a snake is hiding it's legs. There is absolutely NO mention of maemo.org or the Extras repository on Select (but plenty of Ovi and Store marquees). The closest you get is a tab saying 'from Maemo community'. Then, when/if you unsuspectingly click an application's download button, suddenly you get the elusive Extras repo enabled in the background.

Even Bears with quite a bit of brain will not know what just happened there. They click download calculator, and suddenly BAM, 50+ free apps appear out of the thin air in your application manager. Still too close to 'easter egg' status, especially compared to the Ovi's (underutilized) omnipresence.

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

Yes, this would be the most reasonable thing to do. IMO the commercial software development starts seriously when more Maemo devices gets published.

Well, not saying this is the ideal way of doing things, but it has proved its success as a payment method. Credit cards are not cheap, so what's the difference with their commission compared to this? I agree that this kind of deals leads to exclusive service provider sivuations.

Bottom line, I'm not suggesting anything in the previous post, just guessing Nokia's motivation and next moves.

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

The topic is commercial software.

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

The topic is non-free, closed-source, dead-end proprietary software. The point is that it's hardly a loss to the (free, open, community, etc.) Maemo if app developers are pushed in the direction of submitting to Maemo, rather than casually carrying on with proprietary business-as-usual.

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

i thought extras is gonna be enabled by default in production devices?

source

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

Even though there is a big push for Ovi, don't forget that you CAN distribute commercial software through the non-free section of Extras or private repositories. Nokia worked hard to avoid this, and for a good reason, but if the Ovi team can't get their act to together RSN, that's exactly what's going to happen.

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

The point is that people like code177 want to be able to write and sell dead-end proprietary software, and that it's a bad business decision by Nokia to shut out these kind of developers.

I agree that it would be better if everyone starts submitting to the Maemo repository, but many developers want to make money with the software they write. So it's a legitimate claim.

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

That's good news, indeed. Can anyone with a production device confirm ?

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

Hmm maybe if the solution is a 3rd party store where developers put their apps collectively then someone can create an app store interface and put it into extras? That way if people who don't know about maemo.org but have extras will see a program called "app store"

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

If the Ovi Store fails due to the lack of insight in policies like this, then in my opinion, it deserves to fail.

It is strange how such policies reflect a sense of grandeur that IMO is not something Ovi can claim a right for, yet.

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

I think the (probably obsolete) dicho for this is "Too big for their britches." (pants)

Mention was made of distributing through the non-free repo. How would that actually work for commercial software?

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

In the real world developers will just go sell their "dead end" software for Android and Apple devices instead and people will buy those devices to access those applications.

OSS is complimentary to not hostile to commercial software. There's nothing contradictory or inappropriate about publishing an entirely OSS application for a fee.

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

You mean my post? What I was thinking is that there would be an application (basically just a fancy web browser that is the web store) that people can download and install from maemo extras. Then it is a program that can be launched to download commercial applications. The application itself would just be a fancy front-end for consumers since they may not know of maemo.org

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

Sure. But the first person buying it can then push it into the extras repository. :)

I'm not saying that I don't want to have a market for developers who want to sell their software, but I hope that some developers see that opening their software might be the better route, as I seriously don't believe that there are many developers making some sort of income from the apple app store at the moment - and same goes for the android store.

I think Apple really buggered up expectations of developers with their app store.

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

People pay real money for lots of OSS products for various reasons. I could, for example, take GIMP and make a simply QT UI for it so it runs on the N900, publish the source code but also put a nice productised version up on the Ovi store. Is it unreasonable of me to ask people to pay for that? Am I to be lambasted by the OSS community? Some perhaps who don't understand the relationship between OSS and commercial software.

"Opening their software" is irrelevant to this discussion. People can do publish fully open sourced applications which still sell for a fee.

Right now "free" is pretty much the only way developers can get their work onto an N900 in a convenient way. That puts it way way behind the other platforms when it comes to attracting talent and innovation. Instead of being able to pay someone to make applications for me according to my requirements I have to make-do with whatever people happen to donate for nothing.

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

Well they couldn't push it into extras since it is a community reviewed approval process. But you are right, there's nothing stopping them from putting it on the internet for anyone to grab.

Piracy rates are high on every platform (even the iPhone). Having a closed app store system doesn't help you much, sure there may not be another way to get apps without jailbreaking, but look at the amount of information out there on jailbreaking and how many people were hit with that SSH vulnerability since most people just follow guides on how to jailbreak their phone without thinking about what the process is doing.

Though my concern more with the Ovi store isn't DRM at the moment (like I said it'll always be cracked. Try to use an IMEI #? People can change the IMEI #, etc..). But that it should be a setup system for handling transactions between the seller of the program and the buyer (regardless of what happens to the program after it's passed onto the buyer). And right now it's failing pretty badly at that if you can't afford to pay to go through their hoops.

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

@Sharper: The rise of bounty systems, even within OSS communities, is another example of that point.

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

I just said that that won't keep anyone from putting the software into Maemo Extra, after he paid you for it - that is "the problem" (no, it really isn't) with Open Source software: The business model is not "selling software", but "putting services around software".

I don't see any lambasting there, just a business model where there really isn't one.

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

The "reasons" for paying for OSS software are numerous and the point is not that people will always publish the source code for their N900 applications - the point is that source code availability is irrelevant to this discussion.

Some are expressing the viewpoint that they don't care about someone's "dead end" proprietary software. Well this problem affects fully open source software too. Whether people are paying for support, a service or whatever else is again not relevant. People do pay for OSS applications and the limited ability to make software for the N900 and get paid for it by people who want to pay for it will hurt the platform. People will just go to other competing platforms and those applications and users will be there instead of here.

Nokia needs to figure out what the heck it's doing. As I wrote in another thread Nokia has all the appearances of an organisation in civil war. Different people are obviously trying to push it in different directions and what we end up is a compromise that satisfies nobody.

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

That's not a problem with open source software, that's a problem with a business model of trying to sell an application when anything digital can be infinitely replicated. You can do the same thing with Windows, OSX, etc..

Do I think the business model should change? Yes, but I rather give people the choice to try the old (and in my opinion failing) business model rather than not let them try at all. After all that's what the spirit of open source is about. Choice.

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

You might get some stick from those who do't understand the GPL. The GPL allows exactly that, but it almost never happens ...

You must publish the source for the 'productised' version to those who bought it and it must be licensed under the GPL - you can't stop them buying it then publishing it on extras for free.

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

Or contract work - it's quite possible to pay someone to write an app (or, with free software, modify an app) to suit your specific requirements. I can well imaging a bounty setup working well for things like making Maemo UI specific ports of existing apps.

It's hardly irrelevant. No-one here is arguing that people shouldn't be able to sell things for a fee in principle (and I think it's unlikely any free software people would - it's completely not the point); the argument is that Ovi is all about proprietary software, and there's no need to be sad that a system for distributing and promoting proprietary software doesn't work too well on a free OS.

If people want to ague for a (Nokia supported?) system for paying for FOSS apps, either as donations or as bounties then I'm all for it.

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

I guess it depends on how you define "rare". For example there are multiple distributions of Linux that you can pay money for - this is typically for a nice boxed version and support but you're paying for it anyway.

Another example is Code Weavers that sells productised versions of WINE http://www.codeweavers.com/

Commercial activity generally springs up around narrow requirements. Broad requirements will usually be met by the community for free but the more narrow the thing you want is the more likely it is you'll have to part with cash to get it.

"Make this work on an N900" is an example of a narrow requirement.

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

It would be entirely ridiculous for Nokia to create a competing payment/distribution system for OSS and leave OVI broken.

If you don't like proprietary software don't write any and don't buy any but what we're talking about here is what customers want, what developers want and what the platform needs not what your specific preferences for what all software should be like. If you're willing to compromise all those things and the future of the platform itself to satisfy non-relevant idealogical principles then that's sad but not entirely uncommon in the OSS arena.

If code177 makes an application I like I want to be able to pay him for it. It's as simple as that and he shouldn't have to incorporate or buy liability insurance in order to complete that transaction. If he can't sell and I can't buy it odds are I'll have to go elsewhere to buy the application he creates and that people like him creates.

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

sorry, but you're completely wrong.

this whole discussion is about a way for developers to sell 1€ and 5€ apps without having to set up their own repositories and payment infrastructures.
That's what OVI is for, a nice and convenient way to sell apps, whether they are proprietary or not.

in the other thread quim said that Ovi will also contain OSS.

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

Yes, there is also often some bundled software in there also. That is a different issue, bundling GPLd software with others. It's totally fine, the GPL components are still subject to the GPL and people are free to do with what they will. IIRC, Centos takes RedHat enterprise distro, strips out the non-free stuff and uses that as their distro (OK, they do a bit of extra work and tweaking but that's the core)

Again, different license. Codeworks and Cedega forked Wine before WineHQ moved to a GPL license - the license it was on previously allowed the two companies to do what they want, including sell it as a closed source product.


Your example was GIMP with a polished UI. AFAIK, GIMP is licensed under the GPL so your resulting version will be subject to the GPL.
Both of your examples involve software under non-GPL licenses.

As ewan said, this can be done by someone or a group for a contract or bounty. If you hire them in the right way, the copyright on the resulting modifications could be yours but the whole product would still be subject to the GPL (if you started or included GPL source, that is!)

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

I don't think you understand the point I'm making.

Some here appear to be glad that Ovi doesn't make it easy to sell software for the N900 under the mistaken belief it will keep commercial development out and instead foster OSS applications which are free.

My point is OSS and Commercial are not competing concepts at all so the likely result is simply a lack of applications and consequently a lack of users.

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

OSS and Commercial software are not competing concepts per se. Business plans built around the two, however, *can* be competing.

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

Anything "could" compete on that basis - C++ and python could be competing, C and Java, Agile Development versus long life cycle etc etc etc

To pick one of the above though the N900 doesn't currently have Java. It would be foolish to think "Great! I like C and that means we'll get lots of C applications instead of Java ones!". Certainly all the applications you'll get will be in C (if that's all you support) but it doesn't mean you'll get all the applications you would have gotten if you supported C and Java.

Of course the N900 can run Java and probably will.

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

Nope. Extras is now to be enabled by default with the first maintenance release of Maemo 5. No date has been given, but as an update enabling portrait mode in the web browser has been promised by Christmas...

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

this post is nearly a month older than the one i linked to :)

edit:
although, quim doesn't say anything about the timeframe in that one. i'm confused now :)