The place of the Ubuntu Software Center regarding Steam, Desura and others

[Matthew Paul Thomas]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Nicolas Michel wrote on 21/08/12 22:52:
> ...
> 
> So I thought the best I would want as a user is to search for 
> everything I want to install on my desktop from the Ubuntu Software
> Center. Although I'm not aware of the future plans for the 
> application I think it would be really amazing to have a plugin 
> system on the Ubuntu Software Center to plug external content 
> database to its search engine so we could see the content
> available from Desura, Steam AND Play on Linux (and maybe others).
> These plugins should work (and keep updated their databases) even
> without these applications installed. So the user should be asked
> to install it to be able to install that game or that software.

This would be useful for software developers, too: imagine being able
to access all of Cpan from the "Developer Tools" > "Perl" subcategory,
PyPI from the "Python" subcategory, or RubyGems.org from the "Ruby"
subcategory.

> ...
> 
> Secondly to offer what guys that are coming to our platform are 
> searching for: freedom. You may think it's ironic since we are 
> talking about closed-source softwares but it is not. I'm talking
> of freedom as in freedom of choice. Regarding this topic I think
> the Ubuntu Software Center should really tag clearly what is 
> open-source, closed-source, free of charge and not.

USC already does this. We could perhaps do it more prominently
<http://launchpad.net/bugs/715683>, and we could definitely be more
specific about the open-source licenses being used.
<http://launchpad.net/bugs/435183>

> It should also really well highlight who is providing the software:
> Ubuntu, Steam, Desura, others?

We have work to do on this, though each application already links to
the publisher's Web site.

> So we'll have the choice: if I'm searching for the "video" keyword 
> and I want to use only open-source softwares provided by
> Canonical, I should be able to click on a filter to only see it.
> 
> ...

You can already filter on software provided by Canonical, but that's
not the same as filtering on open-source software.
<http://launchpad.net/bugs/630730>

Cheers
- -- 
mpt

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/

iEYEARECAAYFAlA15aYACgkQ6PUxNfU6eco38gCdFIJPvGoAKGAdTFvCs7lLwf95
hAAAnA35Jw09f+qia4JTf99ArNAJBacm
=MBeC
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----