LiveCode is not in the Apple App Store!

[Richard Gaskin]

Roger Eller wrote:

 > On Fri, Oct 9, 2015 at 1:13 PM, Richard Gaskin wrote:
 >
 >> Roger Eller wrote:
 >>
 >>> LiveCode devs are encouraged to use the app store, even at a 30%
 >>> loss, so why not the mothership herself?
 >>
 >> 
<http://lists.runrev.com/pipermail/use-livecode/2015-October/219552.html>
 >>
 >> --
 >>  Richard Gaskin
 >>  Fourth World Systems
 >>  Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
 >>  ____________________________________________________________________
 >>  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com                http://www.FourthWorld.com
 >>
 >
 > I see that "loop forever" you tried to put me in, Richard.  That's not
 > nice.  ;-)

Not my intention. Sorry if it seemed that way.

I just saw that you'd quoted only one of several reasons I'd outlined in 
my post about why LC isn't in Apple's app store, and rather than restate 
them it seems more expedient to just provide a pointer to the full post.


 > Ok, forget Apple for a minute.  Try the same conversation, but
 > dealing with Ubuntu repositories.  There's plenty of dev software
 > in that app store.

MaxV raised that question in the forums, and then went further to 
actually build a .deb package:
<http://forums.livecode.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=20902>

As an Ubuntu user and contributer I like the idea, but as someone 
familiar with LiveCode I have a few reservations at this time:

First, LiveCode itself isn't quite up to par with the other great 
software available for Ubuntu.  Long before a new user discovers the 
bugs we've been logging (with some great work done on them, but much 
remains), they'll see that it fits in less gracefully with Ubuntu's 
Unity UI than it does even on OS X (UI papercuts have been noted here 
before for all platforms).  Once the UX is made as graceful as it can be 
I look forward to sharing LC with all my Linux friends.

Second, some aspects of application packaging in Linux are relatively 
cumbersome compared to OS X and Windows, as least as far as 
self-contained apps like LiveCode go because such things have 
historically been rare on that platform.  The .deb format and the 
apt-get that work with it are wonderful for what they were designed to 
do, but that was years ago.  Today we should expect minimal dependencies 
and a streamlined process for creating and managing Ubuntu PPAs.  Big 
strides have been made in that area (David Planella and many others 
who've contributed to Ubuntu's PPA and Software Center packaging have 
been true heroes), but there's ultimately a very big difference between 
system components and end-user apps, and the Linux world needs to 
migrate to a more self-contained model.

Not having done so yet is one of the reasons so many wonderful apps like 
OwnCloud Client, BlueGriffon, and others are popular on Ubuntu but not 
in the Software Center.  Those projects have limited resources, and 
maintaining a PPA for Ubuntu while also delivering to other platforms 
was a bit much for them.  Those projects provide their own repositories 
which can be added to apt-get for automated updates, but not using 
Ubuntu's PPAs they don't appear in the Ubuntu Software Center.

To address this and other needs, Ubuntu is migrating to Snappy packages, 
which encourage self-contained apps with minimal dependencies, the sort 
of things we LiveCoders build every day and more similar to how 
consumers conceptualize app management in OS X and Windows.

Snappy packages also lend themselves better to multi-device deployments, 
better supporting Ubuntu's convergence strategy (a second Ubuntu phone 
launched just a couple weeks ago).

Once Snappy is supported in the Ubuntu Software Center, and the LiveCode 
experience made as marvelous on Linux as we know it can be, we'll be in 
a good place to put the two together.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Systems
  Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
  ____________________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com                http://www.FourthWorld.com