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I just had a glimpse of a wonderful future where GitHub releases a payments system, packaging options, and suddenly becomes an ideal app store ecosystem.

by jmduke 13y ago

cjbarber 13y ago
With their recent $100mm round, they might be working on this already. Could lead to an interesting future of software selling/piracy, where those that will buy, buy, and those that are desperate not to can git clone make clean; make install
- ejdyksen 13y ago
  I've already seen a number of apps in the Mac App Store that take this exact approach. Two examples off the top of my head: Textual, an IRC client [1, 2] Blink, a SIP client [3, 4]...this is pretty difficult to compile, though... ----- [1] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/textual/id403012667 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/textual/id403012667 [2] https://github.com/Codeux/Textual https://github.com/Codeux/Textual [3] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/blink-lite/id431473881 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/blink-lite/id431473881 [4] http://icanblink.com/download.phtml http://icanblink.com/download.phtml
  - dkl 13y ago
    I wish I could pay for Blink on Windows, because it's my main SIP client. Windows definitely doesn't get the attention that Mac OS does, but the client is the best one I've found. (I really grew to hate Bria/X-Lite.)
  - Kerrick 13y ago
    Cyberduck, an FTP client, takes a similar (though easier) approach. You can buy it on the Mac App Store for $23.99 [0], get precompiled binaries for free on their website [1], or grab the source yourself [2]. [0]: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cyberduck/id409222199 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cyberduck/id409222199 [1]: http://cyberduck.ch http://cyberduck.ch [2]: https://trac.cyberduck.ch/browser https://trac.cyberduck.ch/browser
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
      - ra 13y ago
        Do you have any data / references to support this?
        deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
        neilkimmett 13y ago
        Not sure why he/she deleted their post, but for an excellent in-depth analysis of App Store pricing I thoroughly recommend Michael Jurewitz' 5 part blog post "Understanding App Store Pricing" http://jury.me/blog/2013/3/31/understanding-app-store-pricing-part-1 http://jury.me/blog/2013/3/31/understanding-app-store-pricin... http://jury.me/blog/2013/3/31/understanding-app-store-pricing-part-2 http://jury.me/blog/2013/3/31/understanding-app-store-pricin... http://jury.me/blog/2013/3/31/understanding-app-store-pricing-part-3 http://jury.me/blog/2013/3/31/understanding-app-store-pricin... http://jury.me/blog/2013/3/31/understanding-app-store-pricing-part-4 http://jury.me/blog/2013/3/31/understanding-app-store-pricin... http://jury.me/blog/2013/4/1/understanding-app-store-pricing-part-5-pricing-kaleidoscope http://jury.me/blog/2013/4/1/understanding-app-store-pricing... Theres a bit of Economics 101, and some very well explained real world data on app pricing. Essentially Michael's advice boils down to: try doubling your price. If you lose less than half your sales, you're now making more money than you were before.
  - gjtorikian 13y ago
    I never thought about it like that. I bought Textual because I wanted to support the developers. The benefit of it being open-source was that I could try it, use it, and hack it, before deciding they'd done a damn good job.
- nnq 13y ago
  This can't really work on the long run / at scale, ya know... Someday someone will make a script that does the equivalent of the above, then somebody will make an alternative app-store GUI that leverages that script to get anything that's open-source for free. And you can't really sell as SaaS <$10 "apps" - so in the end you have two options: (a) classic closed source and (b) pay for subscription / user account (ok, there are the adds/in-app-purchases financed ones and they could profit from the "paid open source model").
wise_young_man 13y ago
I blogged a bit about this, with discovery and an app store type area with 3rd party apps like my site could be of use and extend features beyond what GitHub wants to support. If you want to read about my ideas: http://derekmyers.com/posts/open-source-information-overload/ http://derekmyers.com/posts/open-source-information-overload...
butterflyhug 13y ago
Couple this with amerine's suggestion to allow release packages from private repos, and developers could also use GitHub to sell closed-source software.

I just had a glimpse of a wonderful future where GitHub releases a payments system, packaging options, and suddenly becomes an ideal app store ecosystem.

by jmduke 13y ago

I just had a glimpse of a wonderful future where GitHub releases a payments system, packaging options, and suddenly becomes an ideal app store ecosystem.

cjbarber 13y ago

With their recent $100mm round, they might be working on this already. Could lead to an interesting future of software selling/piracy, where those that will buy, buy, and those that are desperate not to can git clone make clean; make install

ejdyksen 13y ago
I've already seen a number of apps in the Mac App Store that take this exact approach. Two examples off the top of my head: Textual, an IRC client [1, 2] Blink, a SIP client [3, 4]...this is pretty difficult to compile, though... ----- [1] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/textual/id403012667 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/textual/id403012667 [2] https://github.com/Codeux/Textual https://github.com/Codeux/Textual [3] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/blink-lite/id431473881 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/blink-lite/id431473881 [4] http://icanblink.com/download.phtml http://icanblink.com/download.phtml
- dkl 13y ago
  I wish I could pay for Blink on Windows, because it's my main SIP client. Windows definitely doesn't get the attention that Mac OS does, but the client is the best one I've found. (I really grew to hate Bria/X-Lite.)
- Kerrick 13y ago
  Cyberduck, an FTP client, takes a similar (though easier) approach. You can buy it on the Mac App Store for $23.99 [0], get precompiled binaries for free on their website [1], or grab the source yourself [2]. [0]: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cyberduck/id409222199 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cyberduck/id409222199 [1]: http://cyberduck.ch http://cyberduck.ch [2]: https://trac.cyberduck.ch/browser https://trac.cyberduck.ch/browser
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
    - ra 13y ago
      Do you have any data / references to support this?
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
      - neilkimmett 13y ago
        Not sure why he/she deleted their post, but for an excellent in-depth analysis of App Store pricing I thoroughly recommend Michael Jurewitz' 5 part blog post "Understanding App Store Pricing" http://jury.me/blog/2013/3/31/understanding-app-store-pricing-part-1 http://jury.me/blog/2013/3/31/understanding-app-store-pricin... http://jury.me/blog/2013/3/31/understanding-app-store-pricing-part-2 http://jury.me/blog/2013/3/31/understanding-app-store-pricin... http://jury.me/blog/2013/3/31/understanding-app-store-pricing-part-3 http://jury.me/blog/2013/3/31/understanding-app-store-pricin... http://jury.me/blog/2013/3/31/understanding-app-store-pricing-part-4 http://jury.me/blog/2013/3/31/understanding-app-store-pricin... http://jury.me/blog/2013/4/1/understanding-app-store-pricing-part-5-pricing-kaleidoscope http://jury.me/blog/2013/4/1/understanding-app-store-pricing... Theres a bit of Economics 101, and some very well explained real world data on app pricing. Essentially Michael's advice boils down to: try doubling your price. If you lose less than half your sales, you're now making more money than you were before.
- gjtorikian 13y ago
  I never thought about it like that. I bought Textual because I wanted to support the developers. The benefit of it being open-source was that I could try it, use it, and hack it, before deciding they'd done a damn good job.
nnq 13y ago
This can't really work on the long run / at scale, ya know... Someday someone will make a script that does the equivalent of the above, then somebody will make an alternative app-store GUI that leverages that script to get anything that's open-source for free. And you can't really sell as SaaS <$10 "apps" - so in the end you have two options: (a) classic closed source and (b) pay for subscription / user account (ok, there are the adds/in-app-purchases financed ones and they could profit from the "paid open source model").

wise_young_man 13y ago

I blogged a bit about this, with discovery and an app store type area with 3rd party apps like my site could be of use and extend features beyond what GitHub wants to support. If you want to read about my ideas: http://derekmyers.com/posts/open-source-information-overload/ http://derekmyers.com/posts/open-source-information-overload...

butterflyhug 13y ago

Couple this with amerine's suggestion to allow release packages from private repos, and developers could also use GitHub to sell closed-source software.