F-Droid and Google's Developer Registration Decree | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository
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For the past 15 years, F-Droidhas provided a safe and secure haven for Android users around the world tofind and install free and open source apps. When cont...

The future of this elegant and proven system was put in jeopardy last month, when Google unilaterally decreed that Android developers everywhere in the world are going to be required to register centrally with Google. In addition to demanding payment of a registration fee and agreement to their (non-negotiable and ever-changing) terms and conditions, Google will also require the uploading of personally identifying documents[^regid], including government ID, by the authors of the software, as well as enumerating all the unique “application identifiers” for every app that is to be distributed by the registered developer.

If it were to be put into effect, the developer registration decree will end the F-Droid project and other free/open-source app distribution sources as we know them today, and the world will be deprived of the safety and security of the catalog of thousands of apps that can be trusted and verified by any and all. F-Droid’s myriad users5 will be left adrift, with no means to install — or even update their existing installed — applications.

  • primrosepathspeedrun@anarchist.nexusEnglish
    23·
    2 days ago

    Fuck this is going to cripple my phone so bad.

    What about those 40$ meshnet devices for real use and a google phone you keep in a foil pouch until you need to bank?

    • daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      1·
      3 hours ago

      I will push with my current phone, for a few years. Luckily abd installs could do the trick for a while.

      For when this phone is failing I hope the new partnership between GrapheneOS and a phone manufacturer that’s not google is already working and producing a phone I could buy.

    • MaggiWuerze@feddit.orgEnglish
      3·
      1 day ago

      I’m sure there will be ways to get around this even without a custom ROM. Would be better if it weren’t necessary of course

      • RVGamer06@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        3·
        12 hours ago

        ADB installs are not going anywhere for now. So an alternative store could install packages with it via Shizuku(Obtainium and Droidify have this option AFAIK)

        • MaggiWuerze@feddit.orgEnglish
          2·
          9 hours ago

          Droidify has? Nice, gotta check that setting
          Working now, have to see how stable it is, seeing as it relies on the current network it seems

      • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
        2·
        19 hours ago

        I’ve gotten to the point were I won’t even buy a device unless it is either fully offline or I can swap the firmware

      • primrosepathspeedrun@anarchist.nexusEnglish
        13·
        1 day ago

        I do not like to have to fight with every device I use every time i use it. I do not like having to hack everything I own just so it kinda-at-least-half works. This is effort and time and opposition that is being imposed on me. This is theft–not even in a cool way. This is an attack.

        • Lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          4·
          1 day ago

          That fight isn’t the fault of the device. Its the fault of corporations that purposefully gimp their shit from running on anything other than “approved” operating systems and devices. Which also happen to be offered by big corporations. Like George Carlin said, “its a big club, and you ain’t in it.”

          For me, that fight is absolutely worth the trouble. I run exclusively Linux in my house and have rooted every single Android device under my ownership over the last 15 years. Even though there are some odd issues here and there, figuring it out and making it work on an “unapproved” OS or device is so much more satisfying, as its a big “FUCK YOU” to locked-down corpo bullshit.