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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

#501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it be acceptable to Google if the only perk of buying an IAP was a little icon on the screen saying "contributor" or something? Do they ban all donation verbiage or just IAPs that do nothing?

it's not the verbiage it's the 30% cut that google is missing when using a donation link

Oh, I see, thanks

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

#502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes — if there were real competition between multiple app stores, some of which provided better systems of vetting than others (both for users and for developers), then the kinds of stores that had these policies would die off.

Or, they will all pre-emptively adopt stronger policies to avoid freeloading. OSS apps don't pay for bandwidth used in downloads, and Google is the one benefiting most from all the free apps on their platform. So if _they_ aren't comfortable with the situation, I can't see a breakup solving that.

Google will never care about the quality of an app store (for devs and for users) as much as a company with majority of revenue coming from folks using their app store. It's the fundamental problem with a monopoly business and breaking off the Google store from being the exclusive way to get apps on the Android platform will solve it because companies optimize profit.

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

#503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can, but I don't think you're supposed to direct your users to put their credit card info in, that all needs to be handled somewhere outside the app (with a message like please sign in on our website). Which seems very blatantly anticompetitive to me. Now that I think of it, Uber has you put your credit card in. I'm not sure why that's allowed

It's allowed because Play Store in-app billing is only required for digital goods & services fulfilled by the app, not physical goods & services fulfilled outside your device. Uber isn't selling you app functionality, they're selling you the physical service of transportation, so they're exempt. Quote from policy [1]: Developers offering products within another category of app downloaded on Google Play must use Googl…

Oh, what if the donation link added you to a list of contributors to the website. Seems like that would be "digital content that may be consumed outside of the app itself" which might be a workaround. Google might ban it anyway of course

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

#504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but why ? If the rules clearly said "no chess games", one could say "that ends the discussion of why chess games are denied", or you could further ask "but why are no chess games allowed?". Is it because Google plans on having their own Google-Chess someday and thus is preemptively preventing competition? Is there a technical or regulatory reason chess games aren't allowed? That's the question (at least for me)…

Their house, their rules.

Problem comes when they own 90% of houses

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

#505
post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are forced to use either Apple or Android or a Windows PC to acces many services that are essential to modern life. Android would probably be the cheapest option. So if you do not want to use Google services you would have to pay premium. For many people it is not an option.

I am not and I am not using neither Apple, Android (I am using the FOSS version, I guess that does not count as Android in this case) nor Windows and I am not missing anything, and I'm not frugal in this sense (most of my friends consider me a guy living in the future). And I am not paying premiums. I simply prefer web apps over native apps, it's a breeze with PWAs.

All government services where I live require Windows/Android or Apple. For some time I used Android in a VM for tax declaration etc, but the developers first banned the OS build name, so I changed the build name :P But then they found some way to figure out that I was using a VM. My hope is in PWA's, but the problem with PWA's (it's a feature really) is that it's harder to fingerprint and spy on the user. Also meaning it's harder to catch abuse like identity theft. I know there are ongoing work on Web ID standards where you can have a cheap second factor device as key. So it looks promising. But then there are the platforms, what incentive do they have, (more then empowering their users and developers), to actually enable a layer like web browsers that circumvent their monopoly status?

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

#506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Package repos don't provide analytics for developers, search for discovery, malware and abuse detection that scales to millions of apps, and loads of other features that the app stores offer. They aren't equivalent.

> Package repos don't provide analytics for developers They can. Debian does it on an opt-in basis: http://popcon.debian.org/ > search for discovery You can use text search on APT repositories, and probably other ones. > malware and abuse detection that scales to millions of apps We don't need millions of apps. A thing I like with distribution repos is curation: only trusted people can add new packages. Of course it…

Wait.

People complain about app stores being restrictive and then you suggest only trusted people being able to distribute code that I can use? That's way worse.

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

#507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because the balk is at the concept not the amount.

Busting somebody's balls because they're not abstracting away something as significant as 27% seems unreasonable. It shouldn't surprise you that somebody who dislikes giving 30% to apple would be proportionally less concerned about giving 3% to Visa.

It's hardly unreasonable; if their problem is, as they've said, "giving money to Apple", then it's not the amount, but the fact that Apple gets a cut at all.

And none of this is surprising, merely inconsistently applied logic. I fully understand what is happening here, clarifying statements will not help.

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

#508

WireGuard was reinstated after Jason has submitted a new version which does not contain a donation link. The issue has not been solved, and Google did not yet contact maintainers to clarify whether they would be allowed to have a donation link in WireGuard. Several other open source apps are still missing from Google Play, including andOTP. While WireGuard was bought back online, version 0.0.20191013 was briefly made…

Could you double check 0.0.20191013? My phone just updated, and I'm seeing the APK version that has the donation link removed, 0.0.20191016.

I haven't received any further emails from Google (yet?), so I'm still uncertain as to whether I have any sort of green light to republish a version with the link.

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

#509
post #508

WireGuard was reinstated after Jason has submitted a new version which does not contain a donation link. The issue has not been solved, and Google did not yet contact maintainers to clarify whether they would be allowed to have a donation link in WireGuard. Several other open source apps are still missing from Google Play, including andOTP. While WireGuard was bought back online, version 0.0.20191013 was briefly made…

Could you double check 0.0.20191013? My phone just updated, and I'm seeing the APK version that has the donation link removed, 0.0.20191016. I haven't received any further emails from Google (yet?), so I'm still uncertain as to whether I have any sort of green light to republish a version with the link.

Yes, 0.0.20191013 has been freshly installed on my device from Google Play right before I posted, and has a donation link. I see the version published on Google Play has been updated since to 0.0.20191016.

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

#510
post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you double check 0.0.20191013? My phone just updated, and I'm seeing the APK version that has the donation link removed, 0.0.20191016. I haven't received any further emails from Google (yet?), so I'm still uncertain as to whether I have any sort of green light to republish a version with the link.

Yes, 0.0.20191013 has been freshly installed on my device from Google Play right before I posted, and has a donation link. I see the version published on Google Play has been updated since to 0.0.20191016.

Oh, super. Thanks for confirming. I'll wait a day for some response from Google, I suppose, and then decide whether or not to re-add it. I certainly don't want to inconvenience users again.
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