5 ms·

The problem is the operating system developers, instead of defining a standard component that could pull update lists from anywhere, just decided, "we shall mak

The problem is the operating system developers, instead of defining a standard component that could pull update lists from anywhere, just decided, "we shall make one store, and we shall be the gatekeepers" Imagine if windows (or MacOS) had a control panel where you could paste "Update subscription URLs", and uses crypto to verify licenses (optionally), and implemented binary diffs and what not, and provided a standard operating system component for navigating, purchasing, and installing/updating software? They were SO CLOSE with add/remove Programs, and it never went all the way. IIRC there is the Install-Package Powershell commandlet that might almost be that? But, I think it's still locked to Microsoft's store.

zepto 6y ago
> Imagine if windows (or MacOS) had a control panel where you could paste "Update subscription URLs", and uses crypto to verify licenses (optionally), and implemented binary diffs and what not, and provided a standard operating system component for navigating, purchasing, and installing/updating software? I imagine that being completely unusable for a lot of people, and a total disaster of social engineering and malware exploitation.
- jasonjayr 6y ago
  Don't get hung up on the "copy and paste an url" technique. It could easily be a digitally signed "RepoData.pkgsrc" file that is opened by some aspect of the built-in windows installer mechanism. It could include branding and all sorts of other ways to verify it's identity. The real win is empowering developers to reliably communicate these updates to users, and make it simple to update, w/o inundating the user's system tray with 5 different bespoke updaters that act out in different ways.
  - zepto 6y ago
    This has nothing to do with copy and paste. It’s trivial to suggest a mechanism for consolidating update notifications. That’s a solved problem. On its own, it does nothing to solve the trust problem.
grishka 6y ago
Take it a step further maybe. Why have the user set up updating at all? Suppose they've downloaded an app form the developer's website and installed it. When the app first runs, it calls a special API in the OS to register its "update feed" URL that provides the update info in a predefined format. The rest is then managed by the OS itself. It refetches these URLs as needed, shows notifications, installs updates, and, most importantly, provides the user with a central place somewhere in the settings to control all this. I don't know much about the money/license part UX because I've never paid for software myself. But developers probably won't want to delegate licensing to the OS because this would make it all too easy to crack — it would only take one very simple patch to disable license checks altogether system-wide. edit: Sparkle already uses a standardized feed format (https://sparkle-project.org/documentation/publishing/ https://sparkle-project.org/documentation/publishing/). So basically the only thing that's left is to move the update checking and installation logic to the OS as opposed to every app containing a copy of it.
- dpkonofa 6y ago
  This is a much better idea than the parent. It would be great if MacOS included a default package manager and apps registered themselves like this. My only concern would be malware taking advantage of this and somehow figuring out how to persistently register itself. I'm sure there's a fix but I haven't quickly come to a solution in the 10 seconds that I've thought about it.
  - grishka 6y ago
    > I'm sure there's a fix Make that API call pop up a dialog or something to ask the user for consent.
    - dpkonofa 6y ago
      I don't think that's good enough, unfortunately. People just dismiss the dialogues or malware distributors just learn to provide instructions to bypass any consent dialogues. The benefit of the App Store is that it's impossible to install malware through it. Unless you can provide the better experience while still delivering on that point, it's not much better. As I mentioned above, it's better for techie people but not for the average user and certainly not good enough for my mother to use.
simonh 6y ago
There's not been nothing stopping anyone developing exactly this on MacOS or Windows for 30 years. In fact you could go and develop it right now. If both platforms can support third party stores like Steam, if it's so easy to do then this should be entirely doable. I suspect the reason something like this hasn't been done is that it's actually a heck of a lot harder than you think.
- jasonjayr 6y ago
  TBH, I think it's less "hard", and more "network effects". And given Microsoft's Monopoly nonsense in the 90's they probably did not have the stomach to wipe all the bespoke installer generator products off the map in one stroke.
- ric2b 6y ago
  Package managers have existed on Linux since... I don't know but I've never used a Linux distro without one. The difficulty isn't technical, it's social, if you build a third party store you have something like Homebrew or Cocoa. It works, but it's never going to be used by the majority of users.
dpkonofa 6y ago
This would work great for technical people and be an absolute nightmare for my mother.

zepto 6y ago

> Imagine if windows (or MacOS) had a control panel where you could paste "Update subscription URLs", and uses crypto to verify licenses (optionally), and implemented binary diffs and what not, and provided a standard operating system component for navigating, purchasing, and installing/updating software? I imagine that being completely unusable for a lot of people, and a total disaster of social engineering and malware exploitation.

jasonjayr 6y ago
Don't get hung up on the "copy and paste an url" technique. It could easily be a digitally signed "RepoData.pkgsrc" file that is opened by some aspect of the built-in windows installer mechanism. It could include branding and all sorts of other ways to verify it's identity. The real win is empowering developers to reliably communicate these updates to users, and make it simple to update, w/o inundating the user's system tray with 5 different bespoke updaters that act out in different ways.
- zepto 6y ago
  This has nothing to do with copy and paste. It’s trivial to suggest a mechanism for consolidating update notifications. That’s a solved problem. On its own, it does nothing to solve the trust problem.

grishka 6y ago

Take it a step further maybe. Why have the user set up updating at all? Suppose they've downloaded an app form the developer's website and installed it. When the app first runs, it calls a special API in the OS to register its "update feed" URL that provides the update info in a predefined format. The rest is then managed by the OS itself. It refetches these URLs as needed, shows notifications, installs updates, and, most importantly, provides the user with a central place somewhere in the settings to control all this. I don't know much about the money/license part UX because I've never paid for software myself. But developers probably won't want to delegate licensing to the OS because this would make it all too easy to crack — it would only take one very simple patch to disable license checks altogether system-wide. edit: Sparkle already uses a standardized feed format (https://sparkle-project.org/documentation/publishing/ https://sparkle-project.org/documentation/publishing/). So basically the only thing that's left is to move the update checking and installation logic to the OS as opposed to every app containing a copy of it.

dpkonofa 6y ago
This is a much better idea than the parent. It would be great if MacOS included a default package manager and apps registered themselves like this. My only concern would be malware taking advantage of this and somehow figuring out how to persistently register itself. I'm sure there's a fix but I haven't quickly come to a solution in the 10 seconds that I've thought about it.
- grishka 6y ago
  > I'm sure there's a fix Make that API call pop up a dialog or something to ask the user for consent.
  - dpkonofa 6y ago
    I don't think that's good enough, unfortunately. People just dismiss the dialogues or malware distributors just learn to provide instructions to bypass any consent dialogues. The benefit of the App Store is that it's impossible to install malware through it. Unless you can provide the better experience while still delivering on that point, it's not much better. As I mentioned above, it's better for techie people but not for the average user and certainly not good enough for my mother to use.

simonh 6y ago

There's not been nothing stopping anyone developing exactly this on MacOS or Windows for 30 years. In fact you could go and develop it right now. If both platforms can support third party stores like Steam, if it's so easy to do then this should be entirely doable. I suspect the reason something like this hasn't been done is that it's actually a heck of a lot harder than you think.

jasonjayr 6y ago
TBH, I think it's less "hard", and more "network effects". And given Microsoft's Monopoly nonsense in the 90's they probably did not have the stomach to wipe all the bespoke installer generator products off the map in one stroke.
ric2b 6y ago
Package managers have existed on Linux since... I don't know but I've never used a Linux distro without one. The difficulty isn't technical, it's social, if you build a third party store you have something like Homebrew or Cocoa. It works, but it's never going to be used by the majority of users.

dpkonofa 6y ago

This would work great for technical people and be an absolute nightmare for my mother.