"Price: Free" is redundant when user is navigating in the "Get Free Software" section

Thanks for your bugreport.

I subscribed mpt for input

Thanks for the report. The details you're questioning are the way they are mostly for forward compatibility.

There are two reasons for the "Price: Free". First, many users are unaware that Ubuntu has hundreds of applications available for free, so even when they find their way into the Store, it is necessary to clarify that the applications are indeed free. And second, while most applications will always be free, from 2010 there will always be some that are not. Showing the price only for those applications that *aren't* free would cause a Simon-says problem, where the way to verify that something was free would be to check that there was no "Price:" row anywhere on the page.

The left pane will be rather bare in version 1.0 of the Store, with only two (and sometimes three) items. As I mentioned in the spec, though, "In future versions the navigation pane will contain other items, such as currently-inserted CDs/DVDs, child items for free vs. paid software, and perhaps user-created collections".

mpt ,
Oh... good to hear that the left pane has something planned for future.

I noticed a better option in the latest update has the left pane labeled as "Get Free Software" , so now that the free software have a separate section
 - why again mention in the description? when they are already in the free section?

If the concern if for future , add a separate section "Get Paid Software" or ...

But , I disagree , that to plan for the future you have to do this now in every description. This part of the description could just be added later. I would say that the present behavior would cause a Simon-says problem.
- Use different colored red/green/gold to get the attention later

By "child items" I mean that there would be a parent "Get Software" item that showed free and paid software intermingled, with child items for if you just wanted to view one or the other. So in the normal "Get Software" section, it would still be necessary to show the price on individual application screens.

Matthew Paul Thomas wrote:
> there would be a parent "Get Software" item that showed free and paid software intermingled, with child items for if you just wanted to > view one or the other.

Ok , that makes sense when present in the parent item .But the specs need an update ;)
 https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SoftwareStore#Navigation%20pane now only lists> “Get Free Software” , “Installed Software” , “In Progress”.

But once the user is in the "Get free Software" Child item , this "Price: Free" need not be shown.

I'll edit this bug description accordingly. :)

Not valid, for the reasons I've given.

I'd argue that this is a valid point, especially considering that it's no longer called the Software Store. Isn't it one of the principles of FOSS that it's free as in beer as well as free as in speech? Ubuntu has started to look suspiciously like it's one of these "beta" services that attracts business with a free service, and then starts charging for it once it's attracted a following.

Anyway, why write the operating system for first-time users who don't know that free software is free? Aren't the explanations on the Ubuntu home page enough? If they aren't, why not have a popup the first time the Software Center is run? Or put something in the About page? It's stupid to have to be reminded everywhere that software is free.

No, it is emphatically not "one of the principles of FOSS that it's free as in beer as well as free as in speech". <http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/selling.html> <http://opensource.org/docs/osd> And while Ubuntu itself will always be free of charge, the Center will sell software regardless of whether it is called a Store or not. (So if you thought it should be renamed from the Ubuntu Software Store on the grounds that it wouldn't be selling software, you were mistaken.)

The reason the operating system is designed for users who don't know that most Ubuntu software is free is that they are the majority of the computer-using population. And even if they were not, it would still be important to show the price for every application, regardless of whether it is free of charge. Otherwise, as I have already explained, the way of telling whether an application was free of charge would be to scour the application page to make sure it didn't mention a price anywhere, and that would be obnoxious.