Thanks for your reply, Regarding the legal/license stuff, would it be of help to fire an email to legal@asf mailing list to get their opinion?
Installing apps from Mac App Store is a one-click thing, and I guess that fits well with the current "installer", which is a drag&drop thing. Not sure how to make sure the ASL LICENSE and NOTICE files are distributed with this silent install. Perhaps the program should display those on first startup, and also make them available through the "About" dialog? How is this handled on Linux with apt-get/yum/port? Another thing is updates. Software installed through Mac App Store is normally also updated through the app store, not through its own mechanisms. So it may be that the "Check for updates..." menu and prefs must be somehow optional (through a startup param?). I guess that once someone uploads a new version to Apple and it is approved, people will automatically get notified through the App Store - this is a preferred way over each app calling home. But someone must take the responsibility after each release to do this. Regarding language - are there plans to merge all those individual builds into one? That seems to be the trend. MacOS X is distributed as ONE install and you can switch languages every day if you like. I think the same will be true for Windows 8. And the linux distros I believe is the same. Native apps shipping with the OS also change language depending on OS language. That would be a huge simplification if there was ONE download - and it would look better in the App Store than a bunch of individual apps... And wrt Java - on OSX Lion, Java is automatically installed for you if you type "java" on the command line. So perhaps we could add an "Install" button in the "Java" prefs section which simply executes the command "java" and thus triggers the auto download and install of Java :) I have an Apple dev account for myself, but it would perhaps make sense to have one for ASF. Guess Apache is not big on consumer client software so they may not have such things already. Question is if they are willing to get one - then chosen committers could be authorized to publish on behalf of the project under the ASF name. I'm quite sure that we'll see demand for "App Store" install on Windows also, further down the road, so this could be a good lesson to learn from. -- Jan Høydahl, search solution architect Cominvent AS - www.facebook.com/Cominvent Solr Training - www.solrtraining.com On 14. mai 2012, at 21:30, Louis Suárez-Potts wrote: > Hi, > > On 2012-05-14, at 15:17 , Jan Høydahl wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> I started a discussion on Twitter today: >>> cominvent: Any reason why Apache OpenOffice cannot be put up on the Mac App >>> Store? #openoffice #OSX #appstore #apache >>> 4:48pm, May 14 from HootSuite >>> rcweir: @cominvent Interesting question. It is not something we've >>> discussed. Are there any specific technical requirements? >>> 5:01pm, May 14 from TweetDeck >>> cominvent: @rcweir I'm no legal expert, but it should be ok as long as >>> @TheASF holds all copyright and ASL is honored? http://t.co/z6rYr9ah >>> 8:46pm, May 14 from HootSuite >> >> Any of you got experience with publishing apps on Mac App Store? It would be >> worth an attempt to get AOO out there, as it would make it much easier for >> Mac users to get started. As far as I know, GPL apps are prohibited from >> distribution through Mac App Store (see >> http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/more-about-the-app-store-gpl-enforcement), >> but now that OOo is Apache Licensed this should be no problem, right? If >> not the LGPL deps cause the same issue... Also, this page >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_App_Store says that apps requiring Java >> will not be accepted. But AOO does not *require* Java to run, so that should >> also be ok, not? > > This is a good point-- I mean about the license and Java. So good points, in > the plural. I have not tried putting AOO to the Mac App Store, though I did > have success prior to its incarnation, when there was also a lot of nice free > software there. > > I should think that if it's possible, then do it? :-) When I did it before, I > clarified to the company owning the license at at the time, Sun, that the > actual software binaries were not being posted to Apple but only a link to > the download page. > > I presume that obtains now, too? > > The other thing to consider is the language, in English for the sake of this > post, describing AOO and its capabilities. I suppose one can simply reuse > what we have on the download page. > > Cheers > Louis > > PS one could perhaps state that though Java is not required one can obtain it > at URL.com. As well, I'd be rather interested to see if we can promote > extensions via the Mac App store. (as well as podcasts via iTunes, and other > fun marketing vehicles that also instruct.) >> >> -- >> Jan Høydahl, search solution architect >> Cominvent AS - www.facebook.com/Cominvent >> Solr Training - www.solrtraining.com >> >
