A faster heart for F-Droid
f-droid.org
A faster heart for F-Droid
1–10 of 231 posts
Re: A faster heart for F-Droid
#2Context: "F-Droid build servers can't build modern Android apps due to outdated CPUs" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44884709)
Re: A faster heart for F-Droid
#3So.. what kind of hardware did they buy?
Re: A faster heart for F-Droid
#4Hmm:
“F-Droid is not hosted in just any data center where commodity hardware is managed by some unknown staff. We worked out a special arrangement so that this server is physically held by a long time contributor with a proven track record of securely hosting services. We can control it remotely, we know exactly where it is, and we know who has access.”
Re: A faster heart for F-Droid
#5Hmm: “F-Droid is not hosted in just any data center where commodity hardware is managed by some unknown staff. We worked out a special arrangement so that this server is physically held by a long time contributor with a proven track record of securely hosting services. We can control it remotely, we know exactly where it is, and we know who has access.”
"F-Droid is not hosted in a data centre with proper procedures, access controls, and people whose jobs are on the line. Instead it's in some guy's bedroom."
Not reassuring.
Re: A faster heart for F-Droid
#6So.. what kind of hardware did they buy?
Yeah kind of conspicuously absent! They said
> The previous server was 12 year old hardware
which is pretty mad. You can buy a second hand system with tons of ram and a 16-core Ryzen for like $400. 12-year old hardware is only marginally faster than a RPi 5.
Re: A faster heart for F-Droid
#7Hmm: “F-Droid is not hosted in just any data center where commodity hardware is managed by some unknown staff. We worked out a special arrangement so that this server is physically held by a long time contributor with a proven track record of securely hosting services. We can control it remotely, we know exactly where it is, and we know who has access.”
"F-Droid is not hosted in a data centre with proper procedures, access controls, and people whose jobs are on the line. Instead it's in some guy's bedroom." Not reassuring.
The 'cloud' has come full circle
Re: A faster heart for F-Droid
#8Hmm: “F-Droid is not hosted in just any data center where commodity hardware is managed by some unknown staff. We worked out a special arrangement so that this server is physically held by a long time contributor with a proven track record of securely hosting services. We can control it remotely, we know exactly where it is, and we know who has access.”
"F-Droid is not hosted in a data centre with proper procedures, access controls, and people whose jobs are on the line. Instead it's in some guy's bedroom." Not reassuring.
In some respects, having your entire reputation on the line matters just as much. And sure, someone might have a server cage in their residence, or maybe they run their own small business and it's there. But the vagueness is troubling, I agree.
A picture of the "living conditions" for the server would go a long way.
Re: A faster heart for F-Droid
#9Hmm: “F-Droid is not hosted in just any data center where commodity hardware is managed by some unknown staff. We worked out a special arrangement so that this server is physically held by a long time contributor with a proven track record of securely hosting services. We can control it remotely, we know exactly where it is, and we know who has access.”
I never questioned or thought twice about F-Droid's trustworthiness until I read that. It makes it sound like a very amateurish operation.
I had passively assumed something like this would be a Cloud VM + DB + buckets. The "hardware upgrade" they are talking about would have been a couple clicks to change the VM type, a total nothingburger. Now I can only imagine a janky setup in some random (to me) guy's closet.
In any case, I'm more curious to know exactly what kind hardware is required for F-Droid, they didn't mention any specifics about CPU, Memory, Storage etc.
Re: A faster heart for F-Droid
#10Hmm: “F-Droid is not hosted in just any data center where commodity hardware is managed by some unknown staff. We worked out a special arrangement so that this server is physically held by a long time contributor with a proven track record of securely hosting services. We can control it remotely, we know exactly where it is, and we know who has access.”
"F-Droid is not hosted in a data centre with proper procedures, access controls, and people whose jobs are on the line. Instead it's in some guy's bedroom." Not reassuring.
Eh...
The set of people who can maliciously modify it is the people who run f-droid, instead of the cloud provider and the people who run f-droid.
It'd be nice if we didn't have to trust the people who run f-droid, but given we do I see an argument that it's better for them to run the hardware so we only have to trust them and not someone else as well.