How will MaidSafe apps be distributed and protected?

As this is my first post, I would like to express my great respect for what you are doing here. It’s truly amazing stuff.

I’m in the process of understanding the concept of MaidSafe and I need your help with some of the issues.

Let’s assume I intend to build an application based on the MaidSafe framework and use SafeCoins as a way to monetize it.

  1. How will my users access my app? Will my app be a stand-alone entity or will my app’s users be required to install MaidSafe first and then access my app inside the framework? Will there be something like an app store where I publish my app (i.e. something like Ethereum Mist browser)? Is my app supposed to use the MaidSafe self-authentication mechanism or have its own custom authentication?

  2. I’ve read the thread about the issues associated with rewarding the content creators and possible ways to prevent the revenue stealing through unauthorized duplication.
    Will the same issue concern the application creators? In other words, if I create a popular MaidSafe app can some third party just jump in and redistribute my app excluding me from the SafeCoin revenue stream? Or do we have a mechanism to prevent this?

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Hi there, and welcome to the forum.

  1. Standalone Apps/Programs on Windows can access the network using an API. This can be compared to using a program that needs JAVA to run. But the SAFEclient has to be online and connected to the network.
    A more easy way to use SAFEnet is the SAFE App launcher. Take a little peek here.
    People need to install your App. They’ll do this by getting the Chunks from the network. I think to the network your App is just public data. So people install it and use it.

  2. Yes, they can. They just copy your software. But look at Chrome by Google. It’s open source, others can use it as well, but over 99% of the people will use the popular version by Google. I think most people are quite honest and respectful to great App-builders. If you create a great App for sharing video, and I see others steal your idea for profit, I would still use yours. I think most people will do so. So I don’t think this will be a problem for Ethereum, Maidsafe or whatever.

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@polpolrene has answered most, so just a small addition from me… I don’t know if MaidSafe (or anyone else) is planning an App Store, but it would be a useful and popular App to make :slight_smile:

I was thinking about ways to do this only yesterday! One thing that came to me while thinking about this App Store App, is that it represents a common design pattern for quite a diverse range of services, so I think it would be interesting to look for those patterns elsewhere (existing web apps for example) and try to establish the design patterns in use, and come up with versions for SAFE Network. I’ve started to do some research on this.

I’d love to hear from @dirvine and @Viv whether they have knowledge about this, but I wouldn’t dare disturb them :wink:

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Definitely something that needs done, just no time for us to think about it just now. :wink:

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The app launcher has the potential to be an app store @happybeing although I don’t believe it has been specifically designed as such. I think @polpolrene eludes to this in his response. Once we have the core of the network licked into shape we will have more time to focus on these issues. Exciting times ahead!

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I gave this some thought for ‘We The Artists’ some time ago. The challenge is that you do not want to create a centralising elemt, staying true to the fundamental decentralised approach :). The best I could think of so far is making it really easy to set up your own store, so that many people can have their own ‘store’. Not sure that is the best we can do, and probably fresh ideas can be thrown together

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There’s no more need for an App Store to be centralising than any other kind of App. The App Store App is a means by which people can list Apps, and publish their ratings, reviews etc. The data can remain owned by the posters, with the App just providing the means for listing, posting/modifying/deleting, searching/filtering etc.

I see this a group of similar design patterns for everything from a social network to things like StackExchange.

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