Filtering By License Should Be Possible in App Markets 57
tonymercmobily writes "With the latest news from Microsoft, which will allow open source apps in their store, we will see more and more an abundance of per-pay applications mixed with license-free ones. What if you can't tell between free and non-free anymore? Even now, a quick search on the Android market is just not telling enough. But what do you do then when Ubuntu has the same problem?"
For Android there's always the F-Droid market that exclusively lists Free Software (it's small, but I've found it pretty useful).
Wait (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know about you... (Score:5, Insightful)
...but here's what I do:
I use the software that does what I need most effectively. My needs are rarely served by refusing to use a piece of software just because it's not open source. I often find that the open source software is a better value (for my needs, GIMP is a better choice than Photoshop, and it's starting to look like it's also a better choice than Lightroom), but not always.
The simple fact is, most people just don't care what license their software is. You can complain as much as you want that other people are just uneducated, but it doesn't matter.
To address one point directly from the article:
No. We're not approaching that. We're STILL at that. Free, to the vast run of humanity, means "you don't have to pay for it." It means "This doesn't cost anything." To a relatively small number, it may also mean "I have set this product free, and you may do whatever you want with it," but that's not the majority view.
Google knows that. That's why the free label on Android means "no charge." So does Canonical. They've come closer than anyone else to marketing linux in a way that appealed to ordinary consumers. Those ordinary consumers don't really care whether an app or application is open source. They care whether they'll have to pay for it or not. That's not a failing on their part. That's good business sense. It's rarely a worthwhile business technique to annoy your consumers with ideology: it's a much better technique to offer them stuff they don't have to pay for, if they'll just buy this one expensive thing from you.
Oh dear (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, I'm a software developer and graphic designer. I know all about GPL and Creative Commons and I released plenty of my stuff under open and proprietary licenses as well.
However, when I buy or download an app (in "consumer mode"), I simply don't care about its license. What matters if it works as advertised, if it contains malware and if it's fun (for games). That's it. I couldn't care less if, say, "Smart Tools" is GPL v3 or Apache or proprietary. It does the job. 99.999% people think the same.
If you want to have only open source software on your tablet or phone, pat yourself on the back, you're so special.
A Good Start... (Score:3, Insightful)
I do think this is valuable information, but it doesn't go far enough. You should be able to filter apps by permissions as well, on platforms which support per-operation permissions for applications.
You know what would be even better, though? If the per-operation permissions were settable on a per-application basis, and then spoofed/failed if the app can't work without it. There are plenty of apps that I want to use, but require extraneous permissions for things I don't care about, and/or don't want the app to access. If someone could build a platform which put the permission usage into the user's hands (even as an Android variant, for example), that would be awesome.
Re:Should FSF decide to change its name (Score:4, Insightful)
Really, the best term for that is 'Open Source', but that's for those who are focussed on a devlopment methodology, and not a cult. For those who are absolutely hung up on RMS's concepts of 'liberty' as opposed to development methodology, call it something like 'Liberated Software' or 'Software Liberty'. There is no reason to stick to the term 'Free Software' like a leech, particularly when it's such a misleading term. And yeah, that implies that the FSF should change its name. Drop terms like 'Free Software' or 'Software Freedom' and call it 'Liberated Software' or 'Software Liberty' if one likes. And rename the FSF as LSF or Liberated Software Foundation, or something along those lines.
Or alternatively, why not make use of the GNU brand, and call it GNU Software Foundation, or GSF? At least, it ties it w/ GNU, and doesn't confuse it w/ other such projects such as Debian, KDE and so on.