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Open-source apps removed from Google Play Store due to donation links

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Re: Open-source apps removed from Google Play Store due to donation links

#281

Post by bonoboTP »

orbital-decay wrote: post #196
Santosh83 wrote: post #86

A general comment: the need of the hour is to educate the billions of 'ordinary' computer users about the basics of software, privacy, security and trust. We must not fall into the narrative being parroted around off-late that considers end-users as pretty much dumb content consumers who should not be expected to ever know even the minimum about the underlying tech and therefore every decision needs to be made for th…

I've tried to educate many people on a personal level and failed miserably almost every time, being perceived and dismissed as an evangelist for some weird ideology they don't care about (and I took it very slow and tried really, really hard not to sound as one). Maybe they are right, after all? Who am I to dictate or even influence what they should care about, especially if they don't experience that clearly. People…

But it is actually an ideology... It's the same as why people don't care about climate change or other far removed things from everyday life.

For the normal, everyday non-tech user, they see that all their friends use these apps and nothing has ever happened to them. The FBI didn't come knocking, they weren't fired from their jobs or anything like that.

From their point of view, why should they care about repositories, digital signatures etc., when they just want to use Instagram, Snapchat, Whatsapp and so on for some after-work (or during-work) fun / brain-swithoff. They just post some silly pictures or watch some Youtuber videos.

All these concerns about privacy just don't reach the everyday reality and real-life concerns of people and is in effect an ideological thing, similar to rejecting proprietary software on the desktop due to moral and political beliefs.

> They have to face the consequences, that's how it works

The consequences (app creators changing their practices and policies) will be spread over everyone, not on individual users. As long as their friends and society keeps using it, most people will as well. If it slowly dies out, people will use whatever is new. Most people are not that much attached to using these apps, just use them out of boredom or to interact with others. They'd easily move on if that's how things evolve.

Re: Open-source apps removed from Google Play Store due to donation links

#282

Post by anilshanbhag »

dessant wrote: post #235

Google Play In-app Billing does not support donations [1], so open source developers should be allowed to link to their own donation pages. Google Play policies do not spell out that linking to donation platforms such as Patreon is forbidden. Disallowing developers from using in-app billing for donations, while also barring them from linking to external donation platforms, puts open source projects in a difficult pos…

In this case, can't you simply have a one time purchase instead of a donation ?

Re: Open-source apps removed from Google Play Store due to donation links

#283

Post by Fradow »

fooqux wrote: post #231
SamBam wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rooting the Pixel 2 (I haven't tried the other Pixels) is not trivial for the average user, it still involves downloading third-party software and doing stuff on the command line. I had hoped that the pure-Google devices would have just had a switch: "I am now root," but alas it wasn't to be.

I don't believe that is correct. All you need is adb and the various Android command line tools. Those are all first party. If you downloaded a third party tool to make it easier, that's fine I guess, but it's not a requirement. Some of this I can understand. Root permissions does introduce some additional security considerations. We haven't fixed this in decades of computer usage in a way that preserves security, ea…

That's correct. adb doesn't give you root privileges. For example, you cannot install system apps with adb unless you have a rooted device already.

You certainly have access to a lot of things with adb, but it can hardly be considered root on non-rooted devices.

Re: Open-source apps removed from Google Play Store due to donation links

#284

Post by jrockway »

I am not sure why it needs to be called a donation. Just let the in-app purchase unlock some cosmetics in the app like games do. You weren't going to deduct the donation from your taxes anyway.

I am curious how this ends up working out. Google takes a cut of the donations now... but the process of buying is probably easier. So maybe it will increase donation revenue, and make it easier to support free software.

(Taking a step back; it is pretty weird to have apps opening links to web pages that take your credit card number. The app store operators are right to view that with suspicion because I'm sure that for every legitimate open source project, there are a million phishing scams.)

Re: Open-source apps removed from Google Play Store due to donation links

#285

Post by CountHackulus »

zentiggr wrote: post #238
CountHackulus wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think this? It's a pretty bold statement.

(12 years of corporate IT support experience and 40 years working with tech in general) Because it's human nature to only care about details that you believe you need to know in order to manage some part of your life. If you don't see a clear and immediate value in learning something, you won't. No matter what anyone else says or does to try and convince you, you won't. Then you get burned by something you didn't kno…

Ah yeah, I see now. That's fair enough.

Re: Open-source apps removed from Google Play Store due to donation links

#286

Post by vbezhenar »

Fradow wrote: post #275
nolok wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unless the phone is rooted. That's absolutely not true at all. All that happens is that, the first time you try to install from such an application (or any other application other than your store, eg: the first time you try to install an apk after you download it from your browser), a settings windows appears telling you this application can't install more applications on your phone until you give it permissions. F…

That's absolutely true. To install apps without user prompt on Android, you need INSTALL_PACKAGE permission. Guess what? You cannot use that permission on third-party apps (meaning any app installed by the user, in opposition to apps that are pre-installed on the ROM), since it's for first-party apps only. The documentation backup this claim: https://developer.android.com/reference/android/Manifest.per... Without tha…

May be you're right but many people don't need automatic updates. I'm using iPhone and I don't update apps automatically.

Re: Open-source apps removed from Google Play Store due to donation links

#287

Post by rebane2001 »

fooqux wrote: post #231
SamBam wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rooting the Pixel 2 (I haven't tried the other Pixels) is not trivial for the average user, it still involves downloading third-party software and doing stuff on the command line. I had hoped that the pure-Google devices would have just had a switch: "I am now root," but alas it wasn't to be.

I don't believe that is correct. All you need is adb and the various Android command line tools. Those are all first party. If you downloaded a third party tool to make it easier, that's fine I guess, but it's not a requirement. Some of this I can understand. Root permissions does introduce some additional security considerations. We haven't fixed this in decades of computer usage in a way that preserves security, ea…

I think what he was referring to was the need to use "complicated" tools not built into systems to gain root

I do think it is a good thing though. For people like you and me, it's easy to do, but we also understand what root is and the dangers of it. For someone who doesn't, it's better off for them to not be able to root their device in the first place.

Of course, we could bring up the catch 22 that is learning. If I hadn't tried out rooting, the terminal, modifying the filesystem etc back when I was younger and didn't know anything, I probably wouldn't know much about that stuff now.

Re: Open-source apps removed from Google Play Store due to donation links

#288

Post by dessant »

anilshanbhag wrote: post #282
dessant wrote: post #235

Google Play In-app Billing does not support donations [1], so open source developers should be allowed to link to their own donation pages. Google Play policies do not spell out that linking to donation platforms such as Patreon is forbidden. Disallowing developers from using in-app billing for donations, while also barring them from linking to external donation platforms, puts open source projects in a difficult pos…

In this case, can't you simply have a one time purchase instead of a donation ?

There are always workarounds, but that is not the point. We must not allow these platforms to discriminate against funding open source development through donations.

Re: Open-source apps removed from Google Play Store due to donation links

#289

Post by BlueTemplar »

lm28469 wrote: post #201
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the authoritarianism. You are advocating for totalitarian control as a solution to the possibility that some individuals might misbehave. If there is one thing we should have learned from history by now, it's that that's about the worst solution to a problem ever.

We're talking about an app store, not the Final solution. And as far as I know in developed countries companies still have to follow the law.

Nazi Germany was a pretty developed country, and its companies followed the "law" pretty well ? Imagine how useful an app store would have been to identify the "indesirables" and how long / whether the app store owner would have resisted?
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