Flatpak 1.5.2 Continues Work On Authentication Support In Push To Handling Paid Apps

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Flatpak 1.5.2 Continues Work On Authentication Support In Push To Handling Paid Apps

Introduced last month was the Flatpak 1.5.1 development build that provided initial support for protected/authenticated downloads of Flatpaks as the fundamental infrastructure work towards allowing paid or donation-based applications within Flathub or other Flatpak-based "app stores" on Linux...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Flatpak-1.5.2-Released

[Britoid]

Before everyone gets in a huff and a puff without reading things, Flathub only plans on allowing open-source apps to be paid apps, and since Flathub has open source manifests, anyone can build an Flatpak manually that's on there.

[uid313]

Before everyone gets in a huff and a puff without reading things, Flathub only plans on allowing open-source apps to be paid apps, and since Flathub has open source manifests, anyone can build an Flatpak manually that's on there.

I surely hope there will be no paid, proprietary software.
Flatpak can be used without Flathub though. Flathub is just one repository that can be used by Flatpak.

[Guest]

Before everyone gets in a huff and a puff without reading things, Flathub only plans on allowing open-source apps to be paid apps, and since Flathub has open source manifests, anyone can build an Flatpak manually that's on there.

And there will always be people who'll try to get around those restrictions. Like I said, DRM and other problematic restrictions are the inevitable conclusion of paid apps, whether open source or not.

[Cape]

So long as applications remain GPL3 or compatible it's a good thing ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Britoid]

I surely hope there will be no paid, proprietary software.
Flatpak can be used without Flathub though. Flathub is just one repository that can be used by Flatpak.

Oh for sure, one of the best things about Flatpak is that it's decentrialized. But Flathub will probably remain the largest repository for a long while.

[M@yeulC]

And there will always be people who'll try to get around those restrictions. Like I said, DRM and other problematic restrictions are the inevitable conclusion of paid apps, whether open source or not.

Not necessarily. That is true if you want to *force* everyone to pay, but I have bought some open source apps as well.

As long as paying is at least (or more) convenient as not paying to get a product, I'm all for it. If there are other means to get it, that's almost a plus in my book: I haven't always been able to afford some products, so being able to spend time to get them freely was a plus; I feel this is fairer.
Like, I almost bought krita on Steam, but it would be less convenient to use than with the package manager, so I prefer to donate instead.

If you make peace with the fact that some people will not pay for your product, you can afford to have less digital restrictions in place. (it's a spectrum, though: effort to you vs to your customers vs "pirates"/freeriders need to be quantified, but I'd be surprised if aggressive DRM came on top of it).

Edit: re. The implementation, I'd go with key-based authentication, with password-based authentication for the initial exchange. Not sure if it brings more to the table than a regular cookie, though. And have the flatpak daemon manage it, that's one less credential to steal for non-sandboxed apps.

[CommunityMember]

Have an easy way to "tip" someone for useful packages may encourage more people to do so, and reward the people or groups making those packages (a few dollars here, a few dollars there, and after awhile you might be able to afford designer lattes for the team).

[ssokolow]

Not necessarily. That is true if you want to *force* everyone to pay, but I have bought some open source apps as well.

As long as paying is at least (or more) convenient as not paying to get a product, I'm all for it. If there are other means to get it, that's almost a plus in my book: I haven't always been able to afford some products, so being able to spend time to get them freely was a plus; I feel this is fairer.
Like, I almost bought krita on Steam, but it would be less convenient to use than with the package manager, so I prefer to donate instead.

It depends. I've donated to things (eg. I donated $10 to OpenTTD when I've only ever paid more than that for a paid digital download once... Stardew Valley at full price as a reward for a personal success.) but, as a matter of principle, for non-games, I try to avoid things where it's too difficult to hand a free link to a friend who may never pay and say "Here. Try this."

[ALRBP]

And there will always be people who'll try to get around those restrictions. Like I said, DRM and other problematic restrictions are the inevitable conclusion of paid apps, whether open source or not.

Games on GOG are paid (closed source) and DRM-free.
Paid apps can exist without DRMs. DRMs which are usually easily broken anyway.