7 ms·

A lot of people these days are bashing Apple and Google for creating walled gardens with their app stores, but this is really the primary reason such walled gar

by api 14y ago

A lot of people these days are bashing Apple and Google for creating walled gardens with their app stores, but this is really the primary reason such walled gardens have taken off. They offer a mostly crapware-free experience. If Linux on the desktop were to get popular, I'd hate to imagine what might happen to the open source Fedora and Debian/Ubuntu repositories.

lmm 14y ago
Linux would probably do better because few people have any reason to stray outside their distribution's repositories. And these repositories are just as rigorous in their way as the Apple or Google walled gardens; Debian packages have to be signed by the GPG key of a debian maintainer who takes personal responsibility for that package, and whose identify has been verified by having their key signed by another debian member (with a chain that presumably goes all the way back to the original founders). I'm not aware of any cases of a debian maintainer being "struck off", but I'm sure there'll be procedures in place. You would get plenty of shady sites encouraging you to add another line to /etc/apt/sources.list for cool free screensavers, but it would be a lot more practical than it is in windows to tell people to ignore them and never install anything that doesn't come with the system.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  True, this seems like the most balanced solution. Install everything from repos but allow third party repos and stores. That way you are not tied to one gatekeeper but it is in your interest to get your app into at least one good repo that has a reputation to uphold.
klrr 14y ago
I'm not sure about Fedora but Debian has a very strict policy for the packages in their repos. http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/
- jlgreco 14y ago
  As I understand it, Fedora's packaging policy is more or less the same as Debian's. Free software only (stricter than Ubuntu), though there are some practical differences. They don't like packaging emulators that are primarily useful for non-Free ROMs. It is also my understanding, different than Debian, they don't like packaging software that no longer has a maintaining developer. Also no external kernel modules, no prebuilt libraries, etc. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines#Legal http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines#Legal
loucal 14y ago
I'm not sure that's a legit fear... Linux on the desktop in 2013 is fairly 'popular' and if it were that simple to infiltrate popular repos with spyware it would have been done years ago. There are a ton of good people who work to keep those repos clean. Lets not trivialize their contribution by acting like anyone and their mother can make changes to the repo for a popular distro. Sure, a black[/grey] hat can make their own repository, but who in their right mind will use it?
- munin 14y ago
  infiltrating a repo is probably not the hard part, the hard part is getting a linux app that people would want to install. AFAIK, 0 QC or checking is done on the contents of a repo. additionally, there have been enough times in the past where someone has just straight up rooted the servers that the repo lives on ...
  - BCM43 14y ago
    AFAIK, 0 QC or checking is done on the contents of a repo. additionally, there have been enough times in the past where someone has just straight up rooted the servers that the repo lives on Are you talking about debian/fedora repos? Because if so, that is simply false. Both have heavy QC, and the packages are all signed by the developers keys, and the OS checks those keys.
- flyinRyan 14y ago
  >Linux on the desktop in 2013 is fairly 'popular' and if it were that simple to infiltrate popular repos with spyware it would have been done years ago. What on earth are you talking about? Linux on the desktop is just above line noise. If hackers don't bother targeting Mac's ~10% desktop share, why would they bother targeting Linux' ~1%?
jiggy2011 14y ago
Open source repos should be ok, assuming that their admins don't start allowing this crap in. They haven't done so far, with the one exception of the Ubuntu amazon thing. A risk might be drive-by malware that adds stuff to /etc/apt/sources.list though, however to do this you would need drive-by malware that can bust into the root account, or to get the user to enter the admin password.
npsimons 14y ago
If Linux on the desktop were to get popular, I'd hate to imagine what might happen to the open source Fedora and Debian/Ubuntu repositories. Nothing. In case you haven't been paying attention, Debian repositories were "app stores" before there were app stores. The software goes through extensive vetting and rigorous testing; no, I'm not saying every line of code is inspected, but to claim that a Debian maintainer would just blithely let crapware in is ignorant. As for the walled gardens of Google and Apple, people are objecting to precisely that: the locked in, tinker-hostile way that the platform (not the app store) is managed. It's great that Google and Apple have finally seen the light and started curating software and making it easy to install, like it's been in Debian for nearly two decades. What's not great is telling people what they are and are not allowed to do with their property by anti-competitively denying the right the to install third party apps.
- cgh 14y ago
  You can install whatever 3rd party software you want on a Mac, side by side with software from the App Store. Note that this article is about PCs, not mobile. You seem to be conflating the two.
  - loxs 14y ago
    I don't see a really big difference between a PC and a phone. Don't see why one should be a walled garden and the other not.
  - npsimons 14y ago
    Name Google's PC. The article may be about PCs, but the thread definitely devolved to talking about Android and iOS, and it's already been conceded that iOS doesn't allow third party apps. If I didn't know better, I might think you were trying to steer criticism away from Apple . . .
    - desas 14y ago
      You mean the chromebook?
- 14y ago
danielweber 14y ago
App stores are just are likely to turn to crap. I've had lots of friends complain that they bought an app, and then an "upgrade" shoved advertisements in. It's not third-party ads, it's first-party ads, which is slightly better. Like OP, I have a lot of sympathy for software developers trying to sell in a world full of people who don't think they should pay any dollars for software. They are still gonna pay, just in terms of their privacy and computer security.
- MBCook 14y ago
  I've had that happen, but the ads only show up in that one app. They can't install ads across my whole iPhone like most adware does.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    May be the case on iOS but with Android I've had apps that stick extra shortcuts on my homescreen and spam notifications every few hours. This makes battery life and usability a lot worse throughout the phone until you can find and kill the offending app.
    - Stratoscope 14y ago
      If that happens again, use one or more of these apps to find the offender: Ad Network Detector Addons Detector AirPush Detector
      - eddieplan9 14y ago
        This is similar to saying "what stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun". Alternatively, you could regulate, i.e., locking down the platform and sandboxing all third-party apps.
        jiggy2011 14y ago
        A better alternative would be for google not to publish this shit on their store but still allow useful background notifications and allow third party manual installation.
notahacker 14y ago
If desktop Linux was widely requested by the general public, PC vendors and download sites would heavily promote custom Linux builds complete with pre-installed crapware, dubious defaults and quite possibly broken upgrade paths and most consumers would never know the difference. They'd probably have their own whored-out repositories too.
- joe_the_user 14y ago
  But Linux will never be in heavy demand as a brand. No great number of people will ever want to have Linux for the hell of it. The only way Linux could experience an upsurge in popularity would be through a mass increase in consumers' awareness of crapware and similar phenomena. And that could thus only be a small upsurge.
  - csense 14y ago
    > The only way Linux could experience an upsurge in popularity would be through a mass increase in consumers' awareness This is definitely not true. The following scenario seems to be quite possible: Due to the various problems of Windows 8, developers massively revolt and most applications are either written to older API's, or use cross-platform environments like C#, Python or Java. This essentially changes the Windows API from a moving target to a stationary target; as a result, Wine catches up -- it reaches near-100% app compatibility, perhaps with the aid of a donation from a philanthropist, Google, or some other player. OEM's recognize the cost savings possible from avoiding the Microsoft tax, and with good software compatibility now possible, they start selling discount models with Linux instead. Microsoft stops issuing new licenses for Windows less than 8 to try to pressure developers to port their stuff to Windows 8 by forcing customers to upgrade. But the move is too little, too late: The customers revolt, and since the alternative is already out of the bottle, people jump ship en masse due to lower prices and Windows 8's shortcomings. Is this a particularly likely scenario? No. But it seems plausible, and it's not due to crapware, or consumer awareness about anything other than price tags.
- drivebyacct2 14y ago
  Do you use desktop linux?
halo 14y ago
There's a big difference between the iOS app store and the Android app store. One is mandatory, the other is a convenient default.
huhtenberg 14y ago
> They offer a mostly crapware-free experience. You must've forgotten Path fiasco, with its quiet uploading of user's full address book to company's servers, which turned out to be - SUR-PRI-SE - a "standard industry practice". Wall garden sanctuary my ass. Same rotten ethics, except far less visible.
- flyinRyan 14y ago
  As a result, you're now asked if you want the app you installed to be able to access your address book. Do you somehow feel that exe's on windows are more transparent?
JoeAltmaier 14y ago
They've 'taken off' because they are the only game in town. A real test would be to provide such a 'curated' store alongside an open economy. Then that claim would mean something.

by api 14y ago

lmm 14y ago

Linux would probably do better because few people have any reason to stray outside their distribution's repositories. And these repositories are just as rigorous in their way as the Apple or Google walled gardens; Debian packages have to be signed by the GPG key of a debian maintainer who takes personal responsibility for that package, and whose identify has been verified by having their key signed by another debian member (with a chain that presumably goes all the way back to the original founders). I'm not aware of any cases of a debian maintainer being "struck off", but I'm sure there'll be procedures in place. You would get plenty of shady sites encouraging you to add another line to /etc/apt/sources.list for cool free screensavers, but it would be a lot more practical than it is in windows to tell people to ignore them and never install anything that doesn't come with the system.

jiggy2011 14y ago
True, this seems like the most balanced solution. Install everything from repos but allow third party repos and stores. That way you are not tied to one gatekeeper but it is in your interest to get your app into at least one good repo that has a reputation to uphold.

klrr 14y ago

I'm not sure about Fedora but Debian has a very strict policy for the packages in their repos. http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/

jlgreco 14y ago
As I understand it, Fedora's packaging policy is more or less the same as Debian's. Free software only (stricter than Ubuntu), though there are some practical differences. They don't like packaging emulators that are primarily useful for non-Free ROMs. It is also my understanding, different than Debian, they don't like packaging software that no longer has a maintaining developer. Also no external kernel modules, no prebuilt libraries, etc. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines#Legal http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines#Legal

loucal 14y ago

I'm not sure that's a legit fear... Linux on the desktop in 2013 is fairly 'popular' and if it were that simple to infiltrate popular repos with spyware it would have been done years ago. There are a ton of good people who work to keep those repos clean. Lets not trivialize their contribution by acting like anyone and their mother can make changes to the repo for a popular distro. Sure, a black[/grey] hat can make their own repository, but who in their right mind will use it?

munin 14y ago
infiltrating a repo is probably not the hard part, the hard part is getting a linux app that people would want to install. AFAIK, 0 QC or checking is done on the contents of a repo. additionally, there have been enough times in the past where someone has just straight up rooted the servers that the repo lives on ...
- BCM43 14y ago
  AFAIK, 0 QC or checking is done on the contents of a repo. additionally, there have been enough times in the past where someone has just straight up rooted the servers that the repo lives on Are you talking about debian/fedora repos? Because if so, that is simply false. Both have heavy QC, and the packages are all signed by the developers keys, and the OS checks those keys.
flyinRyan 14y ago
>Linux on the desktop in 2013 is fairly 'popular' and if it were that simple to infiltrate popular repos with spyware it would have been done years ago. What on earth are you talking about? Linux on the desktop is just above line noise. If hackers don't bother targeting Mac's ~10% desktop share, why would they bother targeting Linux' ~1%?

jiggy2011 14y ago

Open source repos should be ok, assuming that their admins don't start allowing this crap in. They haven't done so far, with the one exception of the Ubuntu amazon thing. A risk might be drive-by malware that adds stuff to /etc/apt/sources.list though, however to do this you would need drive-by malware that can bust into the root account, or to get the user to enter the admin password.

npsimons 14y ago

If Linux on the desktop were to get popular, I'd hate to imagine what might happen to the open source Fedora and Debian/Ubuntu repositories. Nothing. In case you haven't been paying attention, Debian repositories were "app stores" before there were app stores. The software goes through extensive vetting and rigorous testing; no, I'm not saying every line of code is inspected, but to claim that a Debian maintainer would just blithely let crapware in is ignorant. As for the walled gardens of Google and Apple, people are objecting to precisely that: the locked in, tinker-hostile way that the platform (not the app store) is managed. It's great that Google and Apple have finally seen the light and started curating software and making it easy to install, like it's been in Debian for nearly two decades. What's not great is telling people what they are and are not allowed to do with their property by anti-competitively denying the right the to install third party apps.

cgh 14y ago
You can install whatever 3rd party software you want on a Mac, side by side with software from the App Store. Note that this article is about PCs, not mobile. You seem to be conflating the two.
- loxs 14y ago
  I don't see a really big difference between a PC and a phone. Don't see why one should be a walled garden and the other not.
- npsimons 14y ago
  Name Google's PC. The article may be about PCs, but the thread definitely devolved to talking about Android and iOS, and it's already been conceded that iOS doesn't allow third party apps. If I didn't know better, I might think you were trying to steer criticism away from Apple . . .
  - desas 14y ago
    You mean the chromebook?
14y ago

danielweber 14y ago

App stores are just are likely to turn to crap. I've had lots of friends complain that they bought an app, and then an "upgrade" shoved advertisements in. It's not third-party ads, it's first-party ads, which is slightly better. Like OP, I have a lot of sympathy for software developers trying to sell in a world full of people who don't think they should pay any dollars for software. They are still gonna pay, just in terms of their privacy and computer security.

MBCook 14y ago
I've had that happen, but the ads only show up in that one app. They can't install ads across my whole iPhone like most adware does.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  May be the case on iOS but with Android I've had apps that stick extra shortcuts on my homescreen and spam notifications every few hours. This makes battery life and usability a lot worse throughout the phone until you can find and kill the offending app.
  - Stratoscope 14y ago
    If that happens again, use one or more of these apps to find the offender: Ad Network Detector Addons Detector AirPush Detector
    - eddieplan9 14y ago
      This is similar to saying "what stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun". Alternatively, you could regulate, i.e., locking down the platform and sandboxing all third-party apps.
      - jiggy2011 14y ago
        A better alternative would be for google not to publish this shit on their store but still allow useful background notifications and allow third party manual installation.

notahacker 14y ago

If desktop Linux was widely requested by the general public, PC vendors and download sites would heavily promote custom Linux builds complete with pre-installed crapware, dubious defaults and quite possibly broken upgrade paths and most consumers would never know the difference. They'd probably have their own whored-out repositories too.

joe_the_user 14y ago
But Linux will never be in heavy demand as a brand. No great number of people will ever want to have Linux for the hell of it. The only way Linux could experience an upsurge in popularity would be through a mass increase in consumers' awareness of crapware and similar phenomena. And that could thus only be a small upsurge.
- csense 14y ago
  > The only way Linux could experience an upsurge in popularity would be through a mass increase in consumers' awareness This is definitely not true. The following scenario seems to be quite possible: Due to the various problems of Windows 8, developers massively revolt and most applications are either written to older API's, or use cross-platform environments like C#, Python or Java. This essentially changes the Windows API from a moving target to a stationary target; as a result, Wine catches up -- it reaches near-100% app compatibility, perhaps with the aid of a donation from a philanthropist, Google, or some other player. OEM's recognize the cost savings possible from avoiding the Microsoft tax, and with good software compatibility now possible, they start selling discount models with Linux instead. Microsoft stops issuing new licenses for Windows less than 8 to try to pressure developers to port their stuff to Windows 8 by forcing customers to upgrade. But the move is too little, too late: The customers revolt, and since the alternative is already out of the bottle, people jump ship en masse due to lower prices and Windows 8's shortcomings. Is this a particularly likely scenario? No. But it seems plausible, and it's not due to crapware, or consumer awareness about anything other than price tags.
drivebyacct2 14y ago
Do you use desktop linux?

halo 14y ago

There's a big difference between the iOS app store and the Android app store. One is mandatory, the other is a convenient default.

huhtenberg 14y ago

> They offer a mostly crapware-free experience. You must've forgotten Path fiasco, with its quiet uploading of user's full address book to company's servers, which turned out to be - SUR-PRI-SE - a "standard industry practice". Wall garden sanctuary my ass. Same rotten ethics, except far less visible.

flyinRyan 14y ago
As a result, you're now asked if you want the app you installed to be able to access your address book. Do you somehow feel that exe's on windows are more transparent?

JoeAltmaier 14y ago

They've 'taken off' because they are the only game in town. A real test would be to provide such a 'curated' store alongside an open economy. Then that claim would mean something.