Re: Linux advocacy

On Thu, 3 Oct 2024 12:13:23 -0400, CrudeSausage wrote:

Yeah, but I doubt that Apple cares. They want people to go through their
store the way that Microsoft wants you to. The problem is that both of
their stores are loaded with absolute shite. If they can improve the
quality of what people will find when they're looking for software, I
doubt that anyone will mind that their favourite open-source app can
exclusively be acquired through it.

The store was the reason for dropping iPhones from the project. The app
allowed emergency responders to have an overview of what was happening in
their jurisdiction, report status changes, and do a few other operations.
It was not meant for distribution to the general public, and would only
have information for a specific site. Officer Friendly would have the
credentials to view information from Podunk PD. The total distribution
would have been in the low hundreds.

The apk could be side loaded on Android devices, probably by the site
radio tech if the officers weren't savvy enough. For Apple we had to jump
through the store hoops. After several attempts we gave up.

Okay, this was a special case but I'm sure there ware other proprietary,
limited distribution apps that ran into the same problem.

Microsoft's UWP was an attempt to channel everything through the store. I
don't know if MS ever officially declared it dead but they moved on to the
App SDK and dropped the store requirement although placing an app in the
store can be an advantage for some.