Should GNOME/KDE provide an In-app purchase model support?

Should GNOME/KDE provide an In-app purchase model support?

Maybe it leads more developers to make apps for Linux desktops

This is really a very interesting question.

Do you mean it like paying something for getting a certain feature? No. Gnome should stay free from a source code and financial standpoint, by all means.

What is be debatable from my point of view is an more easy way to reward developers for improving existing apps like for implementing certain features or for fixing bugs. But in general this is currently possible because of open source. Everyone can contribute already.

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I think the intention here is this would be for third-party apps (i.e. Buying apps in Software or features in those apps) rather than GNOME itself per se

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So I think we definitely have a responsibility to help app writers connect with users - whatever that relationship is - it needs to be encouraged. One of the problems with our current distro centric model is that users get their apps through the distro and there is no relationship at all with person who is writing the apps. We need to change that and provide more awareness.

We need to 1) get Distros to provide a way for their users to connect with the people who write their desktop software for not only maintainer’s benefit but for the distro benefit - the greater the app ecosystem the more attraction. 2) it is a privilege to work on open source/free software for us - most folks need to have some financial incentive to make writing apps viable - so we should be creating a market for apps. Meaning people should be willing to pay money.

How does that happen? I think it is a multi-stage process that requires talking with everyone in the ecosystem so that we can orient ourselves towards that. Users will hate it because they are used to the current model of software distribution - but ultimately if they want to have more apps that they can use then they need to realize that they need to spend money and not just for commercial games. :slight_smile:

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spend money and not just for commercial games.

Generally I agree.

help app writers connect with users

Are there still GTK/Gnome app writers? The only GTK/Gnome dev which has been visible for me in the last 10 years on the GTK maling list and on this forum is Mr. Bassi. Well in the last years I noticed a few other, Mr. Döring, Mr. Clasen, Mr. Muller. But 95 % of the questions seems to be answered by Mr Bassi. For the GTK/Gnome development progress: I have to admit that for me the visible changes were the transition from GTK2 to GTK3, and now to GTK4. GTK2 to GTK3 was hard for me, took me years to get confortable with the desktop behaviour with the moving mouse pointer to left top corner to change app. And many people I know left Gnome when GTK3 appeared. Have there been new GTK apps in the last 10 years, or have they been improved? Well unfortunately I completely missed that. I am using the mail program evolution for decades, sometimes gedit, evince, eog. Well Firefox, with a new mayor release each few weeks. Have I seen improvements of the tools? Not really, but I am happy that they all work still, which can be hard enough for the devs.

Well I feel that I missed a lot in the last 10 years. When I was a child I buyd computer magazins to learn about new apps (good old AMIGA and ATARI time), but that is long ago. Well there is a Gnome blog, which I visit rarely. But I am not really interested in what the writer eat as lunch today.

But yes, I would be willing to give some financial support to devs, maybe 50 Euro each year should be OK for me.

This seems a silly question, since we’re all here (given your binding work I assume you are waiting gtk apps at least)

That’s GNOME (shell), not gtk, in fact in GNOME3+ gtk isn’t involved in that at all

INSTALL UPDATES NOW :slight_smile:

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Indeed I have the feeling that we are not all here! Forum threads have generally 30 to 50 views only, I would really assume that there are more GTK coders alive still. And from the Gnome blog, which I may visit a few times each year, I know that there exists other people, often from south america if I remember correctly, which may be connected to GTK or Gnome in some form, but which I never saw on the mailing list or in this forum? I really don’t know, and I have not the time and motivation to do real research. May it be a language issue? For the Nim programming language I recently learned that there is indeed a Chinese Nim community with nearly no overlap with Nim of the free world. They created their own Forum with Chinese language and are nearly invisible for the rest of the world, and in Nim IRC I saw suggestions to do similar for russian and spanish people.

I still have no idea about your last comment:

INSTALL UPDATES NOW

Is “UPDATES NOW” a special tool which reports about available GTK updates? Google can’t find it. Or is that only a recommendation for installing software updates? Well I am using Gentoo Linux and update my system every few weeks. For GTK/Gnome updates what I see is generally a new version number only. Well sometimes a new background image, and for the terminal and gedit we have hamburger menus now. Unfortunately Gentoo is a bit slow with updates, I have send a request to Gentoo people for GTK4 support recently.

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I guess such model could be helpful also for FLOSS developers who want to get in-app donations, more than in-app purchase.

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FLOSS developers who want to get in-app donations,
Business developers who want to get in-app purchases too,
just another choice for developers to get more power to contribute open-source-based app.

Apple and Microsoft’s eco-system provides an economics model for the apps, it seems that become more important now.

Just for info, allowing people to pay for apps (and potentially in app payments) is something we’re currently looking at in the Foundation. It is likely that this will be through flathub. It’s fairly complicated to sort out how to do this (from a legal and policy point of view, rather than code), so it may take a little while to come to fruition.

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