Brainstorm

Open source software distributed via store.ovi.com

Posted on 2009-11-21 20:04 UTC by Quim Gil. Status: Under consideration, Categories: Marketing, maemo.org, Other.

The Ovi Store has no problems in the publication and distribution of open source software per se. But in order to be approved as Ovi publisher you need to meet certain legal requirements usually not met by individual free software developers or even more complex projects handled by volunteers. In practice this means that open source applications don't have a simple way to reach end users via Ovi.

This might be a missed opportunity for open source software to get the acknowledge of average Nokia customers and to compete side by side with non-free / commercial alternatives.

Discussion: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=385610

Solutions for this brainstorm

Solution #1: maemo.org Downloads is all what OSS developers need

Posted on 2009-11-21 20:09 UTC by Quim Gil.

maemo.org Downloads is a good channel for publication, promotion and distribution of good quality open source software. The publishing process is open source and community friendly, and provides a community Quality Assurance process useful for developers. Complemented with the Extras-testing and Extras-devel repositories, a free software developer don't need anything else.

Solution #2: One or more free software organizations could act as proxies

Posted on 2009-11-21 20:16 UTC by Quim Gil.

There are consolidated free software organizations that (probably) meet the requirements to become a publisher in the Ovi Store. Imagine that the Free Software Foundation (Europe?) could act as proxy considering that this action would serve the purpose of increasing the awareness of free software to potential new users. Other examples could be the GNOME Foundation to promote GTK+ based applications, the KDE Foundation to promote Qt based applications, etc.

Solution #3: One or more existing community driven companies could act as proxies

Posted on 2009-11-21 20:26 UTC by Quim Gil.

There are several companies familiar with the Maemo platform. Several of them are made mostly of community developers and have a very good understanding about open source development and the opportunities it could have in the context of Ovi. For them applying to become an Ovi publisher is probably easy. An arrangement could be found so they act as proxies and get some kind of compensation (material, emotional, spiritual...) in exchange.

Solution #4: Create a company made of Maemo community developers

Posted on 2009-11-21 20:33 UTC by Quim Gil.

Creating a company is not that complicated, specially if getting income is not a priority or perhaps not even a possibility. A group of community developers could join efforts to create a minimal company and share the expenses (that could be recovered with community donations). This option would leave the door open to more complex settings e.g. organizing donation models for open source software via Ovi.

Solution #5: Make maemo.org a foundation/company and let it be a proxy

Posted on 2009-11-21 22:17 UTC by Carsten Munk.

One way to deal with the issue is to work towards having maemo.org being a non-profit foundation or company governed by proper procedures in order to make it a suitable proxy for individual developers to push applications to Ovi Store. Applications would be vetted through community process.

Solution #6: Fix Ovi to allow for easier publication of OSS apps

Posted on 2009-11-22 20:00 UTC by Javier S. Pedro.

I'm sure Ovi could allow for easy publication of (at least) free OSS apps. Putting it simply, Maemo Select does it, and it is hosted under a *.nokia.com domain. Why not do the same for ovi.com ?

Solution #7: Maemo Stars get promoted to Ovi

Posted on 2009-11-23 11:48 UTC by Tim Samoff.

In an attempt to keep a sort of Q/C protocol as a central "feature" of Ovi.com, why not have any Maemo.org Download "Star" be automagically promoted to Ovi.com? This wouldn't grant Ovi.com access to actual devs, just apps. And, it would allow maemo.org to act as the Q/C proxy for acceptance into Ovi.com. In this way, every new fos Maemo app would be required to begin at maemo.org. But, devs would be developing (and improving their apps) with the hope of being promoted to Ovi.com.

Solution #8: maemo org open source Ovi store paid

Posted on 2009-11-23 12:31 UTC by dr m.

maemo.org downloads would be the distributer of open source software.

Ovi store would be the central distribution of commercial software (free or paid). Nokia should facilitate OVI store requirements.

Ovi store could have a link to maemo.org repository, that would count to extras download numbers, this will increase the distribution of open source software.

Solution #9: Managed by Nokia itself and: PURCHASABLE!!!

Posted on 2009-12-09 08:46 UTC by Eduard Pertíñez.

I guess the main reason why ther is no open source project in ovi store (appart of that it doesn't exist yet) is that no comercial company want to compete with free (as in beer) software.

Ok, why don't nokia make it payable? You woudn't buy a "license" here, simply the service of downloading it from ovi store.

If the user is clever or informed enough they will find their way to maemo.org and will find extras repository. But there is a HUGE AMOUNT OF PEOPLE out there that would pay few cents before making a job themselves to find the free version.

All the SMS screensavers, call sounds, etc industry is bassed in this principle. And it moves hundreds of milions.

The money got from those projects on OVI Store should be used then for funding MAEMO.org, funding the people that work on those products and creating a "quality asurance" layer of programers that gave the projects the quality Nokia expects from its store.

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