Hello fellow human 
How would you go about paying for mobile apps in your Librem 5 or other linux phone? Similar to how it already is for the duopoly phones? Or would you prefer something different?
I do have some ideas, but I want to avoid making this into a leading question 
I would never run an app that is closed source but if an app is open source then it is difficult for someone to charge money for it.
So the only model that really works is where the open source app relies on an online service. So the app is open source and you can communicate with the server OK and you can see what the client is leaking to the server but without having paid the operator of the server, you canāt actually use the service.
Whether this model is satisfactory from a privacy point of view ādependsā. I mean you can assume that the server is recording and storing forever everything you send to it - and that may or may not be satisfactory. It would depend in part on your trust of the operator of the server if, for example, the operator said that they donāt record or store anything.
So I would want to get past all of that before worrying about how payment is made.
I like the Elementary OS store approach. An app store with pre-compiled packages that you can ābuyā for a set price, but the code is still open source and you can go and compile it yourself if you prefer.
I think that provides enough installation convenience/not paying friction that some people would (more than with pure donations) without removing any FOSS rights.
One could pay for the development of the (open source) app. The service provided is clear: the developer is producing an app that the person wants to use.
So after getting shot down at the Pine64 forums, you come here trying to peddle your get rich quick schemes? Take a hint. No one is interested. Port your shit to Android or iOS, take up an honest job, or learn to be a stripper or a drug dealer. Leave forced montization out of the FOSS phones.
Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts! Definitely food for thought
And how do you can be sure that the pre-compiled packages do match the published source without any additions or backdors?
Not really relevant, that applies to every piece of software ever. Paying for it or not has no bearing on that.
Do you compile every single application from sourceāand, just as important, do you review and understand every line of code in the source codeāthat you use on your computer?
If thatās a concern for you, go the regular route of compiling yourself from source and donating to the developers?
On my FreeBSD laptop I compile all (kernel and aps) from defined source and trust in the thousands of users that bad code will pop up.
Thatās actually quite cool. Iām serious about that. That said, do you use pre-packaged applications on any computing device that you own that isnāt that FreeBSD laptop?
Copyleft licenses work fantastically for paying for commissions to write unexisting apps.
E.g. I need an app for doing X, and I am willing to pay $ Y to whoever wants to bring it to existence, at the condition that it is released under (A)GPL 3 or later.
That is basically why Purismās developers are paid. If Purism did not pay them nobody would bring PureOS to life. Thanks to the fact that the code is GPL, if third parties improve it, the app will grow as a whole.
It is a āpay onceā business ā once the app is created the job ends. But it can be extended longer if who commissioned the app wants to expand the latter and implement new features over time (new job, new money) or cares to solve bugs first hand.
Non-copyleft licenses instead do not work well for this, but work fantastically for corporations or freelance paid developers who do not commission the code (they write it themselves) but are hungry for other usersā unpaid contributions. In these cases the important part of the app is often closed source anyway.
I agree, thatās a third of my income today. It has nice upsides and is reliable, but it has some downsides too 
Commissioned work is generally feature development driven, which means that rarely people come to me and pays me to fix bugs, and also nobody pays me to write more or better documentation.
And the margin is not that big enough to be able to fund bugfixing and docs from the development work alone. I can only write docs and fix bugs directly related to the newly funded feature.
So the downside is that we end with nice features but not ideal documentation and occasional bugs that only are fixed much later.
Also, smaller nice features that arenāt worth paying for usually take too long to have an opportunity to be implemented or just are not implemented at all.
That is why I am also exploring other alternatives. Right now just gathering initial feedback on ideas.
Something super interesting would be being paid to create an app and also get residual income on it from charging for its distribution, it would give room for perpetual improvements, which is the new model that I am going for in my main occupation this year.
On distribution, I really think that it is solved already, the innovative folks at Elementari already have the tech to charge for flatpaks distribution.
The unsolved issue is getting that store in front of the users, since I do not know yet how willing distros would be to include another source of apps.
If not, other means of marketing would be needed to get people to know about that store.
Or, it would be possible to place the apps in pre-existing stores and make it clear that they are paid apps and will require an in-app purchase to function normally.
I wouldnāt like that. It would look like a fee, since you are not really doing additional work. Or, if you consider the work done for packaging your app as āadditional workā, then again I would commission you to do that and pay you for it, but once the job is done you have nothing more to add, so no reason to get paid further.
My philosophy is pretty simple: you do work, you get paid, you do not do work, you do not get paid. It doesnāt sound too unfair, does it?
Fees for doing nothing are not really in the spirit of free software.
ā¦Unless people willingly decide to finance you and give you monetary support. But that is still not tied to your app, itās more about your abilities as a developer and granting you the means to continue to write code without survival concerns.
Just to see if I got it right: So you would not like a product oriented approach? Exclusively a service based one?
And consider this: Even if the product oriented one would mean perpetual improvements not necessarily coming out of your pocket?
If we go into the details every situation is unique. But my compass is simple: does the developer have to do work that justifies receiving money from a person?
If I have already packaged my app for Alice and Alice paid me already, there is no reason that I ask Bob to pay me too, since I would just give him the work that I already did for Alice, without further additions. Alice could happily share her copy with Bob, without involving me.
But then, if I fix bugs, or give technical support, or spend my time in any way doing work, I do have the right to get paid.
It is really a simple philosophy: doing work = getting paid.
Maybe Iām missing something because I live in a country thatās been built mostly on capitalism. But why would someone (even with the means to fully fund the app) pay for an app to be open-sourced? When they can pay for it to be closed source and maximize profits by keeping the code (intellectual property) hidden from any potential competitors?
Because there are situations in which you do not maximize the profit by closing the software.
Hardware production is a really good example. If you build hardware you need someone to develop software for it. You maximize the profits when you spend the minimum possible amount of money for the software so that you can maximize your investments on the hardware. And you obtain that only when you share part of the software costs with others. Free software lets you do that, since bugs are often solved by the community for free. If instead you close the code you have to spend money for fixing bugs or doing other collateral work, and you do that without gaining any prize, since your product is anyway hardware.
There are many other scenarios in which closing the source constitutes only a cost without gains.
And this is only from a practical point of view. I am ignoring on purpose the ethical point of view that says forbidding people to do whatever they want with the software they use is morally wrong.