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GitHub Should Start an App Store

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Re: GitHub Should Start an App Store

#251

Post by jhokanson »

Maybe somewhat off topic ... I don't sell anything on any App stores currently but I do like the idea of having some way of creating "applications" that are a bit more discoverable. Last I checked GitHub search is pretty awful for discovery (maybe I'm wrong on that?). I could imagine an interface where it would be easier to browse "apps" that do something specific.

Mathworks (MATLAB) has a decent version of this: https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/

People can provide feedback and ratings which makes it easy to see when projects are dead or when there are big issues that aren't being fix. You can also reference other projects - "This project is like that project but it is faster ..."

I don't think PyPi is all that good for this. Also, I've never really invested the effort to learn how to deploy an application to PyPi whereas something that simply points to my repo may be valuable?

Anyway, the main problem I want solved is not having people discover my code (although that would be great too), but being able to find other code more easily so I don't need to constantly reinvent the wheel.

Re: GitHub Should Start an App Store

#252

Post by thayne »

> They could finally give the desktop the app store it deserves

IMO the the package managers for most linux distros are better than either mobile app store. There is also flathub and the snap store. Macs of course have the apple app store, and homebrew is fairly prevalent as well. Even windows has AppGet and unofficial package managers like chocolatey. Maybe none of these are what the author thinks desktop "deserves", but if so, then what would be? And why would GitHub be any better at it than any of its tried and tested predecessors

Re: GitHub Should Start an App Store

#254

Post by SulfurHexaFluri »

coconut08 wrote: post #200
forbiddenvoid wrote: post #194

Or we could just stop using app stores. Honestly, I've yet to find an argument for the existence of an app store that holds water. Let people install what they want. Provide reasonable paths to update and upgrade and cut out the middle layer. The layer of control that Google and Apple exert over people is anti-competitive. But the answer isn't competing app stores. I don't need someone to tell me what I can or can't…

all you need to do is look at the windows ecosystem vs the linux one to realize how important a software hub is. windows is a place where people download random one off pieces of software that may or may not be safe, will likely never be updated, and will sit and rot on your computer until the end of time, and are entirely unvetted whereas linux maintains all of your software for you, keeps it frequently up to date,…

As long as sandboxing between apps remains, it doesn't matter if you download random crapware. They may do bad things while you are using the app but the damage is limited to what you type in to the app itself rather than on windows where programs have access to everything.

Re: GitHub Should Start an App Store

#255

Post by curryst »

ROARosen wrote: post #57
villasv wrote: post #32

> They already host source code of millions of apps. Release integration should be trivial to implement. Release integration is trivial for anyone. It's the easiest and most irrelevant part of the app stores. > Unlike Google they actually listen to their users. They were awesome during youtube-dl debacle. And controversial on others, like shutting down Popcorn Time's repository. As any other, they'll listen if there'…

The funny thing about these "reasons" the article writes, is that it does not give any reason why GitHub would want to create such an app store. Most the reasons stated are basically what we will supposedly benefit. There is literally no reason from GitHub's point of view why they would be interested in creating such a product to begin with. Of course, there might be reasons form Microsoft to create an alternative to…

GitHub is no longer just a source code management company. They've started their horizontal integration, and are firmly in the more general "Developer Tools" category. This would be another addition to their horizontal integration, and increasing the amount of the development pipeline they're involved in.

The specific advantage is that it makes switching providers really hard. You develop in Atom, store the code in GitHub, use GitHub Actions for CI/CD (if that's viable, I'm not super familiar with the product), use GitHub to manage the released artifacts, and publish them to GitHub's app store.

That makes it really appealing to buy because you don't have to talk to 7 different vendors and duct tape their solutions together with Python scripts. You talk to 1 vendor, who gives you all the pieces, and the pieces are already able to communicate natively.

It makes it really appealing to sell because once you buy in, it's really hard to get back out. Imagine trying to replace all of those components, and the developer time you lose as people get used to the new systems and how they all work together. Bonus points if you can only publish to the GitHub app store from GitHub installations. GitLab can do a lot of those things, but they don't have an app store.

As others pointed out though, it would compete with Microsoft's existing app store. I would not be terribly surprised to see some kind of integration between GitHub and MS's app store, or Azure and their app store though.

Re: GitHub Should Start an App Store

#256

Post by SulfurHexaFluri »

thayne wrote: post #252

> They could finally give the desktop the app store it deserves IMO the the package managers for most linux distros are better than either mobile app store. There is also flathub and the snap store. Macs of course have the apple app store, and homebrew is fairly prevalent as well. Even windows has AppGet and unofficial package managers like chocolatey. Maybe none of these are what the author thinks desktop "deserves"…

Most desktop app stores suck because they have nothing in them because developers stay far away if given the choice. No developer would willingly give away 30% of their profits and face being randomly removed if they can just provide the app directly to users.

Re: GitHub Should Start an App Store

#257

Post by SulfurHexaFluri »

jitendrac wrote: post #94
quaintdev wrote: post #67

Author here, I am afraid my blog is hosted on a Raspberry PI and it might go down because of HN traffic. If that happens, the mirror of the post is at https://telegra.ph/GitHub-Should-Start-An-App-Store-01-31 Did not expected this to blow up. Thanks for the critical feedback. You guys are tough crowd :)

Do you Host it at Home with static IP or DynDNS?? and which internet service provider do you use? Edit:Found its BSNL

Hosting with a dynamic IP is not particularly hard. I had a raspberry pi ping my IP back to the dns server minutely and it worked well.

Re: GitHub Should Start an App Store

#258

Post by SulfurHexaFluri »

fluidcruft wrote: post #29
0df8dkdf wrote: post #3

Hmmm the main issue is not an App Store. It is rather how Android is packaged. There is F-Droid type of store out there, it is just that it is not in the play store. As for iOS there really no proper way to install except jailbreaking any way. The bottom we don't need another App Store, rather a FOSS distribution of OS for Android (e.g: https://www.replicant.us/about.php ) that kind like the Debian distro for desktop…

F-Droid doesn't enroll as device administrator on your phone. I think Microsoft could easily pull that off if they wanted to which would let them push updates and manage applications the way Google does. My workplace already basically runs BYOD devices through some Microsoft Azure management thing.

There is an extra thing you can do to make fdroid admin but it requires root. It does allow auto updates though.

Re: GitHub Should Start an App Store

#259

Post by SulfurHexaFluri »

dukeyukey wrote: post #237
davesque wrote: post #232

I think this is a really really bad idea. No more app stores. As a developer, app stores have always seem totally stupid to me. I remember when computers were actually things that you felt like you owned completely. Now, your computer is owned by people that run app stores. Github still seems like it's a company that understands its role as an intermediary. It hasn't yet tried to take over the world like everyone els…

Snap and apt are basically app stores, albeit ones where everything is free. They're just repositories of trusted programs that are easy install and easy to keep updated.

Snap is another locked down platform where the Canonical repo is hardcoded in to the tool. Flatpak is a much better platform where you can specify your own repo source like flathub or any other source you want.

Re: GitHub Should Start an App Store

#260

Post by higerordermap »

> Backed by Microsoft. Microsoft has been playing good by the developers for years now. I trust them more than Apple and Google

Maybe currently they are more developer friendly. But it changed under current CEO. That means bus factor is 1. What one CEO does, other may undo. Doesn't sound wise to rely on MS.

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