For the past 15 years1, F-Droid has provided a safe and securehaven for Android users around the world to find and install free and opensource apps. When con...
They use Google’s developer identity process to sign every APK they build with their own developer identity, which Google is likely not going to allow or is going to quickly find an example of a “malicious” app so they can blacklist all of them; or
They stop building APKs and just trust the developer provides a non-malicious, pre-verified APK;
They find a way to mediate the process between the original developer and Google. Knowing Google, they would make it as needlessly painful for everyone involved to discourage and punish alternative app stores.
I guess it’d make sense to take that first option as far as it will go, at which point the issue becomes litigating this the first time Google has their own weird censorship issue in the Apple mold. I’d expect if they ban all of F-Droid explicitly that would at least make more ripples than going after a single torrent client app or whatever. It may play out different from a regulatory perspective, too, if the practical effect is they ban third party stores.
Side note, I’m really mad at the very deliberate choice Google made of categorizing all potential apps as either “apps meant for Google Play” or “student or hobbyist apps”. You know they know why that’s wrong, but it still makes you want to explain it to them.
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F-Droid itself builds the APKs to ensure that they’re reproducible and not signed on a development machine that could be compromised.
https://f-droid.org/en/docs/FAQ_-_General/#is-your-building-and-signing-process-secure
With these changes, either:
Oooh, gotcha. That makes sense.
I guess it’d make sense to take that first option as far as it will go, at which point the issue becomes litigating this the first time Google has their own weird censorship issue in the Apple mold. I’d expect if they ban all of F-Droid explicitly that would at least make more ripples than going after a single torrent client app or whatever. It may play out different from a regulatory perspective, too, if the practical effect is they ban third party stores.
Side note, I’m really mad at the very deliberate choice Google made of categorizing all potential apps as either “apps meant for Google Play” or “student or hobbyist apps”. You know they know why that’s wrong, but it still makes you want to explain it to them.