Still no direct downloads for the "standalone" desktop version(without going through app stores), for which someone here kindly raised an issue [1] based on my comment here a year ago [2]. The issue was closed by providing a Windows zip on the GitHub releases page. I don't understand why the same link couldn't be updated on the main website downloads page. There is no direct download for macOS either.
For an open source project, working solely on app stores (for all the conveniences they provide for certain users) seems weird. I would really love to try this, but the app store requirement is a big barrier.
This can be an issue if building it is a hassle.
I just built the desktop app in <5min by checking it out and running:
make prebuild; make linux-app
It's only for OS X they do not provide a compiled binary, which you can presumably build easily.
Given that, it's quite entitled to say it's "working solely on app stores".
I'm not Mattermost, but if I made a desktop project in the future I probably wouldn't bother with providing OS X binaries for each release either (I'm a bit out of the loop on what the latest is but doesn't it require Apple hardware and/or a provisioned dev cert even for "sideloaded" apps these days? Is it as straightforward to set up in CI as normal builds?)
I’m just a user for whom “building” is too much of a burden. When this was posted, I went to the website to see if I could download the standalone desktop version for Windows. Since I knew that the lack of this was something I had experienced and commented on in the past, I was able to find the issue and see how it was (poorly, IMO) handled. Someone else may have just given up. How many users (not programmers) would even bother to go to GitHub to hunt for binaries for Windows or macOS? The Windows binaries seem to be on GitHub but there is no link on the site’s marketing page. It seems very shortsighted to not provide the links on the main site.
I also don’t think it’s entitlement to give feedback on open source projects, which typically have better feedback mechanisms and acceptance from external sources than from commercial vendors. It seems obvious now that Mattermost has other priorities and doesn’t know how and when to close tickets.
We published to the App Stores to see if that would lower the barrier to adoption. We learned that that while they are convenient for most folks, some can't access them, in particular the Windows Store, due to firewalls, corp policy, etc. So far, this seems to be a bigger problem for Windows than Mac in general.
To be transparent, we want to automate all the App Store publishing. It is currently a semi-manual process. It turns out that the Microsoft Store process is easiest (mostly uploading an MSIX file, which they sign for you). Signing for the Mac App Store was brittle for us, and became more manual. Notarizing for standalone builds has additional steps on top of that. Hopefully, Xcode Cloud will eventually solve all these problems.
BTW, another easier way to build might be to fork and use the GitHub actions:
1. Fork the Focalboard repo
2. Go to the Prod-Release Action in your fork (https://github.com/YOURID/focalboard/actions/workflows/prod-...)
3. Enable it if needed (the first time)
4. Run
5. Download the generated packages
I haven't seen this widely used, but might be a great way to try out new projects initially.