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Fossdroid.com: Free and open source Android applications

fossdroid.com

11–20 of 76 posts

Re: Fossdroid.com: Free and open source Android applications

#11
I absolutely love this! Great job. For anyone looking to figure out how to build android apps and looking for source examples this is awesome. And the interface is much more accessible than f-droid.

My only suggestions would be to make the source and tracker links more prominent and flip newest so its first or consider making separate menu points for each.

Also any link to the fossdroid src, quick google search for fossdroid didn't turn up anything for me.

Re: Fossdroid.com: Free and open source Android applications

#12
post #5

I really like the popular "popular" sections, the one thing that's missing from f-droid. What could be improved: 1. HTTPS, especially for APK downloads 2. Information about the APKs: built/signed by whom

Thanks for the suggestions :)

And if you're going to add signatures please don't make them MD5/SHA1. I don't understand why so many sites still offer those. Is it some default feature of some software stack where developers just "check" a button for signatures and it only supports MD5/SHA1? Otherwise I can't explain it.

Re: Fossdroid.com: Free and open source Android applications

#13
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not contribute to F-Droid, rather than 'reinvent the wheel?' https://f-droid.org/contribute/ Your site looks great and I don't mean to take anything away from it, but when I see something like this I think of it as merely an art project, something I might see on Dribbble. I would never download APKs from here for example, but have no problem trusting F-Droid's APKs.

Competition is contribution. The relationship between LLVM and GCC is an example for this aphorism.

Fragmentation can severely negatively impact a project as well.

LLVM exists because no amount of contribution to GCC will accomplish LLVM's goals (licensing and modular design).

Re: Fossdroid.com: Free and open source Android applications

#14
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the suggestions :)

And if you're going to add signatures please don't make them MD5/SHA1. I don't understand why so many sites still offer those. Is it some default feature of some software stack where developers just "check" a button for signatures and it only supports MD5/SHA1? Otherwise I can't explain it.

I recommend RSA (GnuPG) or Ed25519 signatures with two key pairs: A weekly/monthly signing key pair, and a long-term one that is only used to validate the short-term public key.

https://scott.arciszewski.me/blog/2015/01/package-signing-th...

Re: Fossdroid.com: Free and open source Android applications

#15
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not contribute to F-Droid, rather than 'reinvent the wheel?' https://f-droid.org/contribute/ Your site looks great and I don't mean to take anything away from it, but when I see something like this I think of it as merely an art project, something I might see on Dribbble. I would never download APKs from here for example, but have no problem trusting F-Droid's APKs.

I know, it's a side project to learn Symfony 2. I love F-Droid project so i made this web app, I've contacted the authors of F-droid before doing this. Thanks :)

Excellent, good to know that.

Re: Fossdroid.com: Free and open source Android applications

#16
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the suggestions :)

And if you're going to add signatures please don't make them MD5/SHA1. I don't understand why so many sites still offer those. Is it some default feature of some software stack where developers just "check" a button for signatures and it only supports MD5/SHA1? Otherwise I can't explain it.

In Windows world, you basically have to use SHA1 digests for digital signatures (though you use SHA2 certs to do the signing) as Windows XP doesn't support SHA2 at all, Windows Vista SP1 or SP2 prior to a patch a view years ago won't run the EXE or show an error due to a buffer overrun, and Windows Vista's Internet Explorer full patched will show the download as "reported unsafe" due to an unfixed bug in IE.

Re: Fossdroid.com: Free and open source Android applications

#18
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Competition is contribution. The relationship between LLVM and GCC is an example for this aphorism.

Fragmentation can severely negatively impact a project as well. LLVM exists because no amount of contribution to GCC will accomplish LLVM's goals (licensing and modular design).

> Fragmentation can severely negatively impact a project as well.

Natural selection. The losers die so the winners can take up more ressources. That'd be a contribution to the shared goal.

> LLVM exists because no amount of contribution to GCC will accomplish LLVM's goals (licensing and modular design).

The reason why the competition exists doesn't matter. But the competetive pressure that results from its existence does.

Re: Fossdroid.com: Free and open source Android applications

#20
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fragmentation can severely negatively impact a project as well. LLVM exists because no amount of contribution to GCC will accomplish LLVM's goals (licensing and modular design).

> Fragmentation can severely negatively impact a project as well. Natural selection. The losers die so the winners can take up more ressources. That'd be a contribution to the shared goal. > LLVM exists because no amount of contribution to GCC will accomplish LLVM's goals (licensing and modular design). The reason why the competition exists doesn't matter. But the competetive pressure that results from its existence…

In real life, it doesn't work that way.

Imagine there is an open-source project. Its development is active, many people are contributing patches, all is well.

Then, the maintainer disappears. Forks start to appear, but as there is no centralized development any more, all you can find is a dozen forked GitHub repositories, each with a few improvements - but, without getting your hands dirty, you have to choose only one.

Eventually, someone comes along and rallies together the forks and revives the project. You may think that all is well again, but suddenly the original project maintainers return and continue development in a direction incompatible with the main fork. Neither project's leaders show interest in uniting the forks back together.

What's worse, now you have a bunch of other open-source projects that depend on the original version, and a bunch which depend on the fork. In many cases (e.g. libraries) you can't use both the original and the fork simultaneously, meaning you can't use any components that depend on both forks in the same project. And now you have a huge mess on your hands.

This or similar situations have happened many times before. I can name 3 projects that have suffered this fate off the top of my head, projects that I've been personally involved with.

Fragmentation is bad. Forking should be a last resort.

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