[LINK] Linux App Store

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

Linux Vendors Teaming Up For An App Store

By Katherine Noyes, PCWorld, Jan 28, 2011 8:36 am 
<www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/218010/linux_vendors_teaming_up_fo
r_an_app_store.html> 


There seems to be no end to the momentum propelling Linux into the 
mainstream these days, and this week, news came out that's surely among 
the most exciting developments yet.

Specifically, many of the biggest Linux distributions are teaming up to
create a "Application Store" format that would span their distributions,
making it easier for users to find & install applications in a consistent
way, regardless of the particular distribution they use.

"More and more people in the Linux world realize that a nice application 
installer (Application Store) is needed to make the Linux platform more 
attractive for normal users and third party developers," wrote KDE 
contributor and openDesktop.org maintainer Frank Karlitschek in a blog 
post on Monday.

http://blog.karlitschek.de/2011/01/2-amazing-meetings-to-change-world.html

Most distributions' package managers expose far too much complexity to 
end users, Karlitschek explained: "The normal user doesn´t care about 
dependencies, libraries and other internals. But the user cares about 
things like screenshots, description texts, ratings, tags, comments, 
recommendation from friends and other features which current package 
managers don´t provide."

The idea, then, is "to build a better tool for finding and installing 
applications which sits on top of the current package management," he 
wrote.

‘We Have a Basic Client'

Toward that end, developers from Red Hat, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, 
openSUSE, Mandriva and Mageia met recently at the SUSE office in 
Nürnberg, Germany, and discussed ways to build a common application 
installer API and infrastructure. 

They've now agreed on an architecture and "will work in the next few 
months to bring this to all major distributions," Karlitschek wrote.

In the meantime, representatives from openSUSE and KDE have built a proof-
of-concept implementation of an Application Store for openSUSE and KDE.

"We have a basic App Store client together with a server running," 
Karlitschek explained. "All the basic features are in place and it just 
needs a bit more polishing."

The initiative is part of the Bretzn project, a KDE initiative proposed 
last fall that aims to make it easier to get free software applications 
out to users. 

http://www.kdenews.org/2010/11/02/frank-karlitschek-introduces-bretzn

Part of the plan is to port the Ubuntu Software Center to PackageKit, as 
OStatic notes.

http://www.packagekit.org/pk-intro.html
http://ostatic.com/blog/one-package-manager-for-them-all

Open Collaboration Services, meanwhile, will be used to integrate with 
online social services and allow user ratings and comments, according to 
PackageKit maintainer Richard Hughes.

http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/open-collaboration-services
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/packagekit/2011-January/006146.html


Further details about the project--sometimes referred to as AppStream--
are available on its Freedesktop wiki page and in a YouTube video of a 
related conference presentation.

http://distributions.freedesktop.org/wiki/AppStream


‘Linux Emporium' on the Way?

It's important to note that the current initiative doesn't refer to a 
single, centralized "store" that will include applications for any and 
all Linux distributions, as other reports have pointed out. 

Rather, it's a unified way of helping users find, evaluate and install 
the applications that are available for their Linux distribution.

Nevertheless, it's hard not to imagine the project's next step, which 
could well be a single set of applications available in a central place 
to users of all Linux distributions. 

One day, in addition to the App Store and the Android Market, it's just 
possible we'll have a centralized "Linux Emporium" too, and that could go 
a long way toward eliminating once and for all the "fragmentation 
problem" so often raised by the operating system's critics.

In the meantime, though, this will surely unify and improve Linux users' 
experience when it comes to finding and installing software, and that 
alone is a big deal. Follow Katherine Noyes on Twitter: @Noyesk.

--

Cheers,
Stephen