Hah, suddenly the iPhone app store doesn't look so evil in comparison.

Jeez this is a really good way to kill commercial development for anyone who doesn't want to manage a store. I guess a temporary solution for this insanity is a central web store run by the community. Kinda like n900 wallpapers but for commercial applications and free applications.

Of course protecting yourself from piracy will be difficult but like I pointed out before, your not going stop it no matter what you do. Maybe a simple unique key per purchase.

I would not be surprised if I really like the N900, but find myself looking around for a different platform if Maemo 6's security model proves too closed in practice to do useful things. ("In practice" meaning "when I come to offer the software to other people, who want to run other things too without rebooting").

We'll see. That's a tough one to get right. It looks to me like Maemo's "open source" commitment is many different faces right now - Ovi being so closed, expensive and difficult to participate in (and requiring Apple-style approval), some Nokians and marketing talking about how open it is (i.e. not requiring Apply-style approval - it says so in the videos!), Maemo 6 not sure who it is trying to impress - commercial closed source developers or open source hackers, but commercial open source developers trying to build crossover between communities and commerce could have a harder time on it than on N900.

I hate the fact that I will probably end up getting this required insurance and continuing to jump through Nokia's hoops.

The alternative is to attempt to set up small webstore, but at that point you're looking at paypal only, or paying for a credit gateway. Additionally, without a high profile distribution channel, that would make life difficult.

On the upside I'd have an awesome sobstory.

code177,

That's why I suggested that it's not a developer effort. It needs to be something the community does together (either a community of developers in the same boat or the maemo community itself). Something like getdeb.net for Ubuntu. That way it's centralized, can be easily advertised on here (though I doubt Nokia would support it). And any of us can simply refer people to the application store.

The problem is then how would you work out payment and taxes. I've never done anything like this myself so I wouldn't know.

general liability insurance in the US for 1 million is not really that expensive maybe 300 to 1000 USD per year depending on your business and software is not really that risky compared to say delivery driving or construction. Even the guy that cleans my boat has to have general liability insurance here to work independently at the marina.

I think it will help keep out the fart apps and the pick up line apps

The problem with insurance is you have no idea if your application will do well or not. Even with the iPhone App Store has this problem. Thus that $300 to $1000 USD could be costly if your application doesn't do well.

You don't need general liability insurance to submit an app to the iPhone app store.

Exactly. And you should need it here either.

The guy that cleans out your boat probably earns a lot more, per annum, than some people intend to make per annum with their apps. Some people would like to make a little, but don't expect to run a significant income from them.

It probably won't keep out the fart apps - iPhone proves there is commercial demand for those :-)

It may keep out some interesting niche apps, where the developer doesn't feel confident they'll make $1000/yr selling it, so they don't bother porting it to N900 in the first place, or if it's already on the device, polishing it enough for public release - but where the developer isn't inclined to open source it.

But maybe that sort of thing shouldn't be on Ovi Store anyway.

If you think of Ovi as the place for "premium, quality professional apps" in the expensive shop in the mall - but not the *only* shop - rather than a massive aggregating app store like Apple's, it makes more sense. Then the $1000/yr is a sort of entrance fee to the high-status store. Don't care about the high-status? Sell it elsewhere, in Joe's discount app store around the corner :-)