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Comment by wetpaws | Hacker News Reader

Why the hell do you need store when you have pacman/AUR

Because traditional packages are running out of steam. IMO people want a stable (not changing) underlying OS with a dynamic set of frequently updating applications on top. Arch nails the second part but completely fails on the first. Debian nails the first but fails on the second. Something new is needed.

FreeBSD is actually excellent at this with a traditional package system. Stable OS but rolling packages. That's why I use it.

The OP answers that question pretty throughly. Because pacman is niche and distro-specific and largely distro-controlled, and has no ability to incentivize developers who need to get paid for their work. This leads to Linux desktop having far fewer applications available to them compared to windows and mac.

If payment is your main incentive to work on software you should stay out of the FOSS space. Go write your iPhone/Android app or sell your stuff on Steam. Another little insignificant app store won't convince Adobe or AutoDesk to port their stuff to Linux.

I disagree with this stance. There's plenty of room for commercial FOSS. Disclaimer -- I have commercial FOSS on the market.

However, I don't really understand why something like Flathub is needed in order to sell it. That's not been a major issue in my experience.

Is the main point to provide a payment processing service?

What? That seems crazy to me. You would literally turn away people that want to add value to the FOSS foundational ecosystem, which in turn brings in contributors and donations to keep things going?

Also this seems to be a confusion about what FOSS is. FOSS "freedom" isn't about "free as in beer", it's about "free as in speech." The GPL even welcomes commercial software, provided they include the source. I'd be thrilled to see a category of "paid FOSS" in the store, and I'd buy quite a bit of it if prices are reasonable and the software is useful.

How do I sell my software on pacman?

I’m not sure people will ever want to sell apps on a 3rd party store. Especially a Linux one. The entire industry has moved away from buying things directly on a single marketplace and moved to tying a payment or subscription to an account which works across OSs and store platforms.

I’d be happy to pay for Linux software but there is no way I’d want to be tied to a particular distro/repo/storefront.

That's fair but some companies do want to sell their software and it's not particularly easy on Linux platforms.

There's basically Steam or DIY.

Windows has existed for most of lifetime without a store or even central package management but it was still the biggest platform for commercial software. And recently the App and Play stores seem to cause more trouble to many companies than it's worth.

If they used the royalties to hire people to audit the packages I might even consider paying for free software, but I'm afraid it will turn into walled gardens where small developers have no say and the big ones just deal with the problems because it's the only option.

I hope it turns out to be better with KDE and Gnome that come from a FOSS background but money makes people greedy.

User adoption, I guess

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