Some opinions related to the latest community update.

PhoenixLandPirat

It is insane that there's almost 20,000 ubports devices in the world.
and thats with only 3 core devices, and phones sold by bq and meizu.

It'd be nice to see how many more devices get flashed when we get new 2017 devices on 16.04 with Halium.

vadrian89

@ChloeWolfieGirl True, also the fact that UBports and Purism intersecting also gives me high hopes for Ubuntu Touch.

PhoenixLandPirat

@vadrian89 yeah, I'm more excited to see the support from matrix official, since they've worked a bit on an Ubuntu version of a Matrix client , before they get anything on the pureOS phone, and said that with pureOS, they'll try to keep supporting UBuntu Phone, and hopefully if everyone who commits to Purism, commits to Ubuntu Pone as much as Matrix, we'll be getting some really nice native apps!

I also cant wait to see Ubuntu on the oneplus 3 and 5.

vadrian89

@ChloeWolfieGirl said in Some opinions related to the latest community update.:

Matrix client

I've seen Marius's demo on the update, but I don't know much info about it, can you fill me in or give me a link?
I'm sure as hell it isn't this

PhoenixLandPirat

@vadrian89 said in Some opinions related to the latest community update.:

I'm sure as hell it isn't this

A service for those that are engaging in risky sexual behaviour and sex workers in Norfolk.

Yeah its not that :

This is the matrix website https://matrix.org/

Heres what Matrix wrote and have done on Ubuntu Phone, https://matrix.org/blog/2017/09/28/experiments-with-matrix-on-the-purism-librem5-starring-ubports-and-nheko/

And they mentioned it on there weekly video talk here: https://youtu.be/9Iw2IaR_jpQ?t=4m10s

Marius has been doing some demos and work on the uMatriks client, hopefully that gets really good, its quite a bit behind in development compared to the telegram app, but its definitly one of my favourite projects!

vadrian89

@ChloeWolfieGirl said in Some opinions related to the latest community update.:

Heres what Matrix wrote and have done on Ubuntu Phone, https://matrix.org/blog/2017/09/28/experiments-with-matrix-on-the-purism-librem5-starring-ubports-and-nheko/

Thanks for this, was also interested on how to build Qt 5.9.x for Ubuntu Touch since the version in it is pretty low.(though I haven't looked into the matter)

flohack

@demokrit said in Some opinions related to the latest community update.:

naps will work (probably) and the Ubuntu (Canonical) Snap Store will shurely be open to 1.monetisation and 2. proprietary stuff so the OpenStore can stay just as it is for 100% Open and Free (as in Speech as well as in Beer) software. I have to say that i can understand both parties, the devs that say they want some money out of their time as well as users that like to pay no money for it. But i think claiming that these are the two perspectives at hand is wrong since the bigger problem in my view is, that there are very many people out there that can not pay any money for an app they use only a very few times and some may not even have the money to pay something for their regularly used apps. Making it pay-what-you-want would generate some income, especially in a community like ours while not excluding the poor people from the party. But as i said, i can also understand that devs want some revenue out of there work, however (i am not saying that the following is good but that it is the current situation IMHO) they may for now be wrong at UBports/OpenStore because 1. the userbase is just too little (a few thousand people perhaps?) 2. very many community members (1st contact team, testers, docu team, ...) are not paid either even if they deserve it 3. Those who would join for the money would be probably be disappointed in how many people actually buy the app if it's not free/pay-what-you-want and would then go out on the internet telling everyone what a shitty platform this is and how they would advise everyone to avoid it...
That's all i wanted to say about this, i hope you don't take it as a rant or something similar but as productive criticism of your arguments. As i said i fully support your

Let me add a few considerations:

If you want a store that collects money and gives it to the users, we need a legal form that is allowed to do so. Our upcoming foundation is not a legal form that can do business like this.
Money flow means tax flow. A part of this money needs to be declared. Plus we would need to take a fraction of the money for unning costs, tax advisory, costs of the legal entity etc.
Giving money to people on an international basis is hard, we need to transfer them the money with Paypal etc. Again more costs. Plus international bank transfers, even in small amounts, can be again a tax law concern. Lots of administrative headache.
How can we make sure that the App is only installed on one device if the author wants to charge device-based? Exactly, we need to track the devices uniquely, create signing keys and enforce a local store security like Android or iOS. lots of confinement coming up, lots of extra lockdown on the device itself.
Warranty: As soon as we go into paid services, people could demand their money back if our OS or an App goes crazy etc. We need a full insurance for crazy lawsuits, especially from the US.

So do you really think this is the right way to go? Or just put a donation link in the store, and let the developer suggest a usual donation for his app wouldn´t be enough?

BR

sverzegnassi

I missed this topic, but I see @Flohack has already provided solid arguments.

elementaryOS is backed by "elementary LLC" which likely enables them to handle money on a solid legal base. I gave a quick look at "Houston", the app store back end used by elementary, and it seems they only support a single service, called Stripe. I haven't tested personally, but what I see is that developers might likely have to create a Stripe account in order to receive donations.

This might add a further consideration: choosing a single service implies excluding others.

We could offer e.g. PayPal support, but I'm mostly sure our developers might (legitimately) ask to support Patreon, Liberapay, Bitcoins, etc. Not to mention potential existing service bans in specific countries. It might end up in a huge amount of work, for an app store service that merely counts 400 apps and has not fully shaped yet.

What we did in OpenStore, but we still need to expose it to the client app, is to let developers to specify a link of their choice for donations. This already enabled developers to received donations through the OpenStore web UI - e.g. Dekko.

I'm in charge to get this done in the client app. Despite my expectations, adding a single button to an existing hiearchy of informations is not so trivial; as a consequence, it might take a while before we could roll this out in a new update, since we have to redefine how we provide other metadata.

I'm currently redesigning the "Package Details" page in the OpenStore client, and the idea is to ensure that our "Donate" button would always be placed above the fold, in order to ensure that potential donors would not miss the opportunity to support the work of developers and contributors.

Here's how the "Donate" button might look in future OpenStore releases

Feedback welcomed!

doniks

@sverzegnassi said in Some opinions related to the latest community update.:

Here's how the "Donate" button might look in future OpenStore releases

Feedback welcomed!

I like the positioning!

But the icon confused me a little. My first association when seeing the heart icon was the "Heart rating" from the uappexplorer website. I'm not sure what the further plans of uappexplorer and/or heartrating are, but maybe picking an icon that has a stronger monetary association would be clearer anyway (dollar sign? pound sign?) and avoid the icon conflict with the heart rating.

libremax

@doniks

Currency symbols are not neutral. Some may not like $, others € or £ or any currency symbol.

Moreover, this could suggest that it is only possible to give in a certain currency.

So I believe "Donate + heart icon", if not ideal, is less problematic.

vadrian89

@sverzegnassi

Looks good, regarding the button, it could also be a gift box icon? Anyway, whichever is to be picked there will always have pros and cons against it.

I think it might need more coloring, it feels a bit monotone.

@Flohack

How can we make sure that the App is only installed on one device if the author wants to charge device-based?

I don't think it should be anything than per account, is there such a thing as per device? I haven't encountered it.

So do you really think this is the right way to go? Or just put a donation link in the store, and let the developer suggest a usual donation for his app wouldn´t be enough?

A donation button should suffice at the moment, but in the future when Ubuntu Touch will take the mobile front with a storm a store with an exact payment method should be implemented.

Maybe an API + third party stores? This could take it out of your hands and entities, such as Canonical(if they would be willing) can set up shop for their snap packages and everyone can benefit from.....I might be dreaming away on this one

sverzegnassi

Thanks for your replies!

I chose the 'heart' symbol since it was the nearest symbol in terms of kindness and appreciation. I like @vadrian89 's idea of using a gift box as icon; the bad news is that our Suru icons set does not provide the icon.

If someone wants to contribute and create for us an icon that matches the Suru specs, the contribution would be very appreciated.

As an alternative to the 'gift box' and the 'heart', we could still use the currency symbol as proposed by @doniks . QML provides an easy way to get the currency symbol according to user's locale. That way we can solve any ambiguity related to its usage.

flohack

@vadrian89 Be it per device or per account, but currently there is no way to restrict app installations. Anyone could pay for one license and distrubute it on many many devices. Thats also one reason why app purches would make no sense in OpenStore.

BR

flohack

@sverzegnassi Can you give us a preview screenshot of how it could look like then to the user? ^

sverzegnassi

@Flohack Sure, it's in one of my earlier replies. (still WIP)

Here's how the "Donate" button might look in future OpenStore releases

Screenshot

flohack

I like that! yeah sure I think the heart is a great idea!

BR

twinkybot

Hi e.g. Calibre is doing the same with the heart symbol. I belive there are many more applications out there.
But for me an essential part why I am also funding this UBports is the hope of an secure and non-spy software. And this is only possible with Free Software at least where you can read the source code. But I'd go even for re-usable code (as this needs to be read and understood to use it therefore less hidden parts, imo)
I believe Donations do work as wen can see for Matrix, UBPorts and others. Yes many are strugling but I believe this might also change if people understand the value of free software. I think that an OpenStore should be open.
And as for programms I stronlgy believe that one should be able to re-use, change the code and make a living out of it without being harrased by people who have lawyers at their hands or something happening on my computer without me knowing.
I love GNU licenses for their viral attitude