Re: Upstream packaging (was Re: Derivatives, MongoDB and freezes)

[Andreas Tille <andreas@an3as.eu>]

[moved to debian-project where it belongs.  This mail is in response to
 https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2013/04/msg00769.html the fork
 of the thread started at
 https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2013/04/msg00756.html]

On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 10:06:27AM -0300, Ben Armstrong wrote:
> But the common
> conception of an "app store" as involving you solely as consumer and not
> as participant in the free software ecosystem encourages poor
> relationship between users and producers (or distributors) of free
> software. So long as users continue to see themselves as a tiny,
> insignificant recipient at the end of the production of the software
> with no input into the system, you've stripped them of the power to
> change the software to meet their needs. So using the "app store"
> analogy is walking the fine line and really needs to be qualified to
> avoid doing damage to the user's relationship to the community.

Well, that's a reiteration of what those companies have drawn the term
into.  My initial question (reworded) was:  Is the name "app store"
simply burned because it is occupied by companies who are just doing
what you describe above?

> > If you do not like the selling part:  Store in the sense of some
> > "storage of goods" is not necessarily about bying (at least of my
> > understanding).  Or tweak it like this:  We are selling our stuff but
> > the price tag says 0€/$.  Feel free to blame me about oversimplification
> 
> Honestly, I don't think the selling part is the most offensive part of
> the concept of an "app store". It's the one-way nature of the
> transactions carried out with them.

That's an interesting aspect I need to think about.  Currently it
conflicts with my observation at work were people payed a fortune for
shitty-crappy software (and I can *prove* from the error log that this
is really the case and non-FLOSS IT colleagues of mine agreed with me
perfectly).  But the users simply told me that they want it in the way
it is and I would be really stupid if I would blame the programmers
incompetent.  I'm not really sure that by simply avoiding the term "app
store" (and its admitted one-way connotation) we could teach those user
that some user response is somehow important for developing software.
The explicite refusal to report problems is way stronger than just
the usage of distinct terms.

Kind regards

          Andreas.

-- 
http://fam-tille.de