Novell considers Moblin open-source app store

Application stores for mobile operating systems are all the rage these days, with Apple’s app store one of the most successful. Whilst app stores exist for most mobile platforms including Android, Palm and Nokia’s Ovi store, not much exists for the desktop market.

Novell is looking to change that by introducing an “open-source apps store” which would bring a wealth of free software to Linux users. This is set to appear in an openSUSE edition of the Moblin OS. This app store will differ in that Novell won’t be asking for a single penny in exchange for a download.

“I would compare what’s happening on netbooks with what’s happening to the smartphone,” Holger Dyroff, vice president of business development at Novell told PC Pro. “On the user end, all they’ll see is an open-source applications store with one-click downloads of new software. Unlike the other stores though, they won’t have to pay for any of those applications, which will be very attractive.”

The move could provide a real boost to Moblin, which has been well received since its v2.0 Beta launch a few weeks back. Moblin is being adopted by a number of Linux distributions and could bring much-needed Linux unity to the netbook segment.

I do wonder how successful something like this could be, it all depends on how well it is marketed, something which Linux hasn’t done too well in the past. Also, I’m not too sure how this would differ from places like SourceForge, where you can already download many open-source applications. So far no mention of a firm launch date.