John Scipione wrote:
Actually, I think there is a good sane reason to have a single repo, for everything. First off, the haiku/beos user community is fairly fractured, and has suffered a great deal from the disparate repos in the software ecosystem now. Part of the reason financial investment is difficult, is that for lack of a better term, shit is scattered about the internet, making it difficult for users and developers alike to connect, commercial,shareware,freeware etc. I think taking a long hard look at the apple/google/microsoft app stores is a commendable and efficient idea.In my mind there will be just one repo for Haiku and all current "optional packages". Examples include: - StyledEdit, DeskCalc, Tracker, Deskbar, etc. (all in one big system package perhaps) - WebPositive - openssl - libpng - Pe - Colors! - Caya - Document Viewer - SDL - ruby - many many more (all of Haikuware) 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? John Scipione
There are also several side benefits for both free ware, system updates,commercial software.
first on this list is funding, in the forms of advertising for commercial application vendors, media content ,movies music etc. Also you can host, and centralize software distribution. Haiku inc, can also make a small commission from enabling developers and users to connect as a store front. Many small software studios have enough work just managing making the applications, having to handle the sales and support of them can be a burden they would likely want to be rid of at least the sales portion. For this service you can charge a small fee, and put the money towards development of Haiku.
second on the list of benefits, is less fracturing of the user community and forward momentum. having a centralized repo does not have to mean less freedom, in many ways it will grant more. Less work for application developers being the top of the list. Less work for users being the next one down.
the package manager itself does not have to store credit card numbers, there are plenty of services like paypal for such things. but a centeralized Haiku inc run repo could prove to be very advantageous. It also does not negate the availability of external commercial applications. However when I see companys like Adobe embracing the app store for google,microcosft,apple, it tells me that they like the central capability. It lowers the marketing budgets and allows them to reduce the overhead of sales staff, all positives on the bottom line.
for haiku to be a competitive operating system, I think the model that is currently developing in the commercial world of software delivery, is looking viable. the repo can even offer downloadable media content delivery, if it so desired, in both drm and drm free verions " I am not suggesting that haiku would do this and I am not attempting to start a flame war with that comment" but those options do exist. these commissions could be significant and haiku makes a great htpc OS.
in summation, options do exist, however Haiku as a operating system isn't prime time ready just yet, but laying the foundation for it to flourish, fund development and ease both the developer and user pain, seems worth consideration.
Sean
