Ask HN: An Open Standard for App Distribution: Beating Apple and Google Duopoly? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: An Open Standard for App Distribution: Beating Apple and Google Duopoly?

#11

Post by kaaaate » Mon, Feb 26, 2024, 6:08 AM UTC

I developed a custom (open-source, under AGPLv3) solution at my first job for a centralized software distribution system.

The entire thing was written in C# with ASP.NET Core for the server, and (sorry) WinForms for the Admin Panel and the launcher. And it integrated quite nicely with the authentication for the web application that was being developed. At one point I was thinking of LDAP support, but I left that job before I could implement it. It has a fully functional license key system (no DRM, gotta implement that yourself), branching, and an announcement system.

As far as I know, it's still running and fully functional after leaving a year ago, with the actual ASP.NET Core server having about a year of uptime.

I have been considering making some QoL changes and creating my own open-source launcher, but I haven't had the time or the mental capacity to do that.

https://github.com/ktwrd/OpenSoftwareLauncher

Re: Ask HN: An Open Standard for App Distribution: Beating Apple and Google Duopoly?

#12

Post by hbcondo714 » Mon, Feb 26, 2024, 6:51 AM UTC

I think Store.app, an app store just for installable web apps, can be a place like that:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37782513

Re: Ask HN: An Open Standard for App Distribution: Beating Apple and Google Duopoly?

#13

Post by thrwwycbr » Mon, Feb 26, 2024, 10:04 PM UTC

julienreszka wrote: post #10

thrwwycbr wrote: post #6

F-droid.org is live and kicking. Reproducible build pipelines of open source apps et al. Decentralized repos, subscription feeds, key signing, etc.

It doesn’t solve all aspects I’m interested in. F droid only solves discoverability and only on android. It doesn’t solve monetization nor does it solve platform integration, it doesn’t work with iOS, it’s not platform agnostic.

Nothing you will ever build will work on iOS, because the minute you make money with it, Apple will kick you out.

Remember headphone jacks? Why do you think they got removed? Because all banking apps were using them, including paypal, square, hsbc and others - due to Apple not leaving any other option to build a credit card reader except by using an audio stream. And then even that got removed :)

Re: Ask HN: An Open Standard for App Distribution: Beating Apple and Google Duopoly?

#14

Post by debadyutirc » Wed, Feb 28, 2024, 4:41 AM UTC

Umm it's more complex than that. Open standard would still need money to survive. And Big Tech will flex their philanthropic muscle and influence open standards.

There is a lot of empirical evidence of this. Look at Matter protocol in home automation, GS1 in retail. Starts as a good idea but as soon as there is adoption, there will be several market motions to mess everything up.

The only way for an open standard to grow is a large extremely committed community that is largely made of people who don't have to worry about survival.