I don't see what precludes niche desktop apps (software companies) from applying, in principle. Are only SaaS allowed? But no, I do not plan to apply with fman.
I’ve been meaning to try out the build system, and I suspect it’s worth paying for. I shipped a PyQt based app a few years ago and definitely lost a few weeks getting it to work.
Yeah. That's exactly the motivation why I created it. It simply cannot be that in 2018 we waste weeks - if not months - on things as fundamental as packaging, creating installers, code signing and automatic updates. It's unreal.