"Everything else would be commercial software which wouldn't fit into the above and would need to be a separate download and wouldn't be in a separate repo. The package manager is not going to be responsible for collecting credit card numbers and purchases and software licenses, right?"
My idea is just to separate core Haiku from Haiku apps (Haikuware, etc...) for convenience. Pay apps would probably be best handled either through a Paypal store, or by the publishers on their own, though there is certainly something to be said about the allure of organized profitability and quantity of apps available... quality is another issue altogether, and I feel is FAR more important.
Applications that are included in Haiku will be in the same place as the OS itself. The repository isn't just the place to get software the first time, but also the mechanism by which installed applications find their updates and dependencies.
It would be ideal that commercial apps would be listed in Haiku-Apps and you could buy them directly using Paypal or Google Wallet or some other indirect method that prevents Haiku from needing to store any financial information or to take on the security concerns... The publisher would pay Haiku for the privilege of hosting said app, and Haiku would provide the exposure, bandwidth, platform, and update mechanism.
Freeware applications would be listed and hosted for free (maybe with certain, reasonable, limits?).
From an application developer standpoint package management would be as follows:
1. Create app (duh) 2. Drag files required for app into package window3. Decide if a real install is required, or to run form package, or either...
3b. If needed, select relative paths for each file/folder 4. Set dependencies ( or use auto-dependency solver?? ;-) ) 5. Add logo, description, version info, etc... 6. Select "Commercial" or "Free" or "Demo" or "Beta" etc... 7. Generate package 8. Test Package 9. Finalize & Upload for review & approval 9a. or Finalize & Upload to "open" repositoryNot much different than SoftwareValet is what I'm thinking... the exact manner by which it is achieved isn't really important to me, but I very much like the idea of having an area of "approved" applications. That way I know they work at least reasonably well, don't cause harm, and follow some other very basic guidelines.
--The loon
