[QGIS-Developer] Microsoft Store distribution for QGIS

[Greg Troxel]

David Strip <qgis-user at stripfamily.net> writes:

> On 8/25/2026 3:15 PM, Tim Sutton via QGIS-Developer wrote: 
>
>  Hi Yaw
>
>  Yes this is something we discuss occassionally - I think GIMP and / or Inkscape are in the MS store too if I am not
>  mistaken? I am going to add it to the PSC meeting agenda again for next weeks call where we can discuss it further
>  and get back to you.
>
> I checked - yes, GIMP and Inkscape are in the store. QField is there too and lists the license as GPLv2 or later.  

Great, the next thing to check is if the terms are actually compatible.
Enough people are fuzzy on licensing and willing to break the rules
because they think app stores are important, that one can't conclude
it's ok.

For example, QField is in the apple app store, and that prohibits
distirbuting the app you receive.  That's outright incompatible with the
GPL, and QGIS does not have an apple exception.  I've raised this issue,
but I haven't seen any substantive comments addresssing it.  (I think
it's good there is no apple exception; the Free Software community
shouldn't have to break their own rules to accomodate Apple's choices to
be difficult about Free Software.)