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• Could it be called something more international? 'AppCenter' is US English, AppCentre would be Standard English, but would confuse Americans. -- liam-intermedia-online 2009-07-30 22:08:44

  • Yes, AppCenter was just a codename. It now has a brand name: the Ubuntu Software Center. —mpt

Suggesting other names

@techwizrd on Identi.ca was talking about the name, ruminating about other options. I semi-jokingly supplied some alternatives, and he indicated that he liked AppBazaar and AppLibrary and that I should suggest them here. Greg Grossmeier (@greg) also replied to me, saying that he, too, liked AppLibrary: (paraphrased) "It implies free. And libraries are very popular and loved by many." Either name is better than AppStore or SoftwareStore, primarily because of the confusion with Apple's Store, Android's Market, Blackberry, Palm, and WindowsMobile's whatever. Let's have Ubuntu be different. Library is probably easier to translate and more of an internationally recognizable term, plus it's separate from Bazaar, which is already a Canonical product. --Colin Dean

:I agree, we need a name that is unique but can be easily identified as a central-repository of applications and is "free-of-charge". "AppStore" or any name with "Store" in it suggests "money" or "pay" and will greatly confuse the regular users (ie users who are not like you and me who takes the extra effort to check what the heck it is). AppLibrary is a good choice, although it sounds like "libraries" (ie "libs"). Why not AppRepo or AppRepository? Or better yet, stick to the codename "AppCenter". --JC John Sese Cuneta

How about Emporium? It's simple, and pretty unique. I never saw an app using it before. The definition of the word from wikipedia is "Emporium (medieval Latin from Greek emporos = 'merchant') is a term used for a store selling a wide variety of goods, and for marketplaces or trading centres in ancient cities." --Amr Hassan

I think a better name would be "Software Center". That would clearly indicate that it deals with everything you want to do with your software. That is going to be important, since the SoftwareStore is also going to replace the update-manager, and it wouldn't be logical to have a 'store' manage your updates, a "Software Center" however, would let you handle all things related to software, which is also the goal of this application. --Elco

:I agree with the "Software Center" (or "Software Centre" ;)) name. Is clear and it's not confusing, because It implies most of the applications are free but, if It is the case, there can be paid applications too. "Store" implies that most of the software is paid and is based in that you need to get your credit card ready just to open the "Store" (this is indeed true for the Apple "App Store"). Market is also heavily connected with the idea that you need to pay for what is on it. About "Emporioum", although I like the idea as being original and exclusive (in the sense that only Ubuntu is going to have an “Emporioum”), it's strange, archaic and not intuitive, nobody is going connect the idea of “Software Emporium” with “the place where I can go to install software” so I don't think is the best option. Finally, regarding library, there are two things already named like that and none of them is related to what this application is going to do. The first, as already someone said, is used in Linux as “a collection of subroutines... that provides services to independent programs” so is confusing to name the place where you got new software like that. The second thing is the institution that holds a large collection of different books that you can borrow and this concept is also confusing since you don't “borrow” software, specially free software. Of course this type of library also can be just the collection of books (in this case will be a collection of software) included that the person owns in his/her house or office, but I think most people associate “library” with the “public library” or the library of an institution. Just my opinion --Alberto O. aka Camahueto

I also think the name really needs to be changed for all the reasons detailed above. "Store" implies paid for applications which, presumably, none of the software will be. "Software Center" seems like a good name. -- Matthew

I do agree with SoftwareCenter. Having the word store in the name isn't good because it's not really true. The word Sofware is also better than App because "App" is a word widely used by Apple and could be confused with AppStore. SoftwareCenter is a more unique name that really tells what it does. [Jean-Philippe Green]

The name will be changed to Software Center! Read about the progress here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/software-store/+bug/436648 [Jean-Philippe Green]