In an ideal world, OS maintainers, instead of running a software store with a client-end on consumer devices, would run just a repository, with version control,

In an ideal world, OS maintainers, instead of running a software store with a client-end on consumer devices, would run just a repository, with version control, metadata and downloadable packages for apps submitted to and supported on their platform, but allowed any third party to link to their repositories for fetching information or downloads. This would allow external review hosting, discovery, competing marketplaces, or even users directly fetching the application without navigating marketplaces if they knew what they wanted. Of course, there's nothing in this approach financially for the maintaining company, so this was not going to happen.