Publish to winget

[dantman]

Microsoft is working on a package manager (winget) that allows for automatically installing applications. And there are already lots of applications in it and a collection of websites that let you choose a bunch of applications you use and download a script to install them all.

All it takes to publish to winget is to make a PR with a single YAML file to https://github.com/microsoft/winget-pkgs and update the version, installer url, and hash (which winget hash [file] will get you) when you publish a new release.

I've already tried out writing the yaml file for the current release:

Id: EDCD.EDMarketConnector
Publisher: Elite Dangerous Community Developers
Name: "Elite: Dangerous Market Connector"
Version: 4.1.5
AppMoniker: edmc
Tags: "elite dangerous, mod"
Description: Elite Dangerous Market Connector ("EDMC") is a third-party application for use with Frontier Developments' ("Frontier") game "Elite Dangerous" ("the game"). Its purpose is to facilitate supplying certain game data to, and in some cases retrieving it from, a number of websites and other tools.
Homepage: https://github.com/EDCD/EDMarketConnector/wiki
License: GPL 2.0 or later
LicenseUrl: https://github.com/EDCD/EDMarketConnector/blob/main/LICENSE
InstallerType: msi
Installers:
  - Arch: x86
    Url: https://github.com/EDCD/EDMarketConnector/releases/download/Release%2F4.1.5/EDMarketConnector_win_4.1.5.msi
    Sha256: 4ae6a827583d11f0078a2d46787cf00962dd373a590e45b358164ae9725e9b74
ManifestVersion: 0.1.0

[Rixxan]

Looks interesting, though I'll need to review the licensing docs (https://opensource.microsoft.com/cla/) before we could proceed with that. Likely need to talk to some other folks in EDCD too.

[dantman]

Sure. There's lots of both for profit and open source software on winget. So the CLA licensing should only apply to keeping the installer hashes up to date.

[Rixxan]

Unfortunately, this is likely not going to be a pathway we go down. Chatting briefly with the EDCD Council on the matter (who, as the "company" would need to collectively agree and sign off on the CLA) there does not seem to be any interest.

Ultimately speaking, there doesn't appear to be enough of an upside to adding to the platform that would merit the EDCD council entering into such an agreement. There are feelings of wanting to limit any binding legal agreements (even seemingly benign ones) at all levels.

Ultimately distribution of EDMC and other EDCD tools is pretty simple already - simple distribution from GitHub and places like FlatPak that don't have binding licensure on behalf of the entire host organization.

Put simply, there doesn't seem to be enough upside to garner interest. Of course, if there are reasons to reconsider, I'm open to hearing and pitching them to the council :)