What we talk about when we talk about sideloading

It definitely adds hurdles to running it.

Hey, I hope you have a nice day. F-droid is one of the communities which was really a key role in, what open source project should I recommend if given the power to, for people to gain maximum impact on, and f-droid was one of the tops in that charts, so much so that I really tinkered with android apps creation with rust/tauri just to create an android app for f-droid (building android apps is hard I must admit, which makes my appreciation for apps on f-droid even more lovely)

> You have the right to install whatever you want on your computer, regardless of whether that computer is on your desk or in your pocket. That's a hill I'll die on

I feel like there are some phones, I will say my honest experience, I had a xiaomi phone which required me to unlock the bootloader for me to root it/ remove the spyware that I feel it has, I never felt safe really (maybe paranoia?) but I wanted an open source operating system on it and that required me to unlock my bootloader

Which required me to create an MI Unlock / MI account which then later required me to open up a windows computer and try to do things with the windows computer

I didn't have a windows computer, I am a linux guy and I didn't want to touch windows and I tried any option available on linux (there was a java thing and some other exploit too but both failed)

Later, I tried to actually install win-boat and tried to install the mi tool in it after so many nights of work and I tried and it actually opened but it asked me for the otp to sign up but I don't know if I overwhelmed their system or not but their OTP just straight up didn't show on the phone's sim I had registered on.

That OTP not coming after 5-6 tries, I am not sure if they had detected it was win-boat or what, but idk, that effectively locks me out of ways to unlock the device and remove some spyware functionality I think it has.

I feel like this case made me feel as if although I had a device, it feels like a license when you think about it. This is true for many other consumer devices as well and thus, people accepting the fact that their devices have become similar to licenses, not hardware which they own, but rather software which they rent

> I'm dismayed to see that this sentiment is not more widespread in this of all communities.

I feel like your message is in the right heart, and its honestly okay, sad even, that some part of the community didn't respond to your message in agreement.

But Honestly, please don't lose hope because of this, You and people/foundations like f-droid,linux etc. inspire a sense of confidence for a good future while actively working on it. I was thinking of trying to host some f-droid mirror but I didn't personally because I was a little skeptical of getting any notices or anything after the f-droid team had created a blog post about something similar.

Also one thing, I would try to tell you is that you are trying your best. And that's all that matters. What doesn't matter is the past or the future or how the community responds but rather doing what you think is right with correct intentions which I think you do a perfect job in.

Doing the right thing can be difficult but maybe in a world where doing the right thing isn't rewarded as much in even mere appreciation or sharing the sentiment whereas doing the wrong thing is financially rewarded. its a complicated world we live in, but hopefully, we all can try to make it a little more beautiful for us and our future generations by trying to do things the right way no matter how hard they are, just because its the right thing.

I may speak these things but I myself regularly contradict these. So I don't feel the best guy speaking this stuff but I just want to say that f-droid really means a lot to me, a recent example is how I ditched that xiaomi phone, used my mum's old moto phone, tried to install termux from playstore but it couldn't download for some reason from play store because it was android 8 yet theoretically it should work, but I then opened up f-droid and installed it from there and I am running a termux/gitea server on it now :)

Please, have a nice day, F-droid/you deserve it, I just hope that you recognize that there are people's lives that you have touched (like my termux thing and there are countless other stories as well) and how impactful the project is.

Lets use this comment as a way to show our appreciation to f-droid in whatever ways it has touched our lives and how effectively google's recent moves are really gonna impact f-droid/ hurt us as well. How I wouldn't have been able to run git server on my phone if it wasn't for f-droid and so much more.

Sure, but you'd probably also agree it should be up to the device owner (end user) which parties are to be considered 'trusted'

I don't know, why do we need a term to distinguish brown from dark orange? The term emerged organically because the built-in app store is the most common way to install apps on mobile phones (and the only way on iOS), but on Android you can also install apps from other sources without needing Google's permission so people came up with a catchy name for that.

It's convenient because now we can say "Google is killing sideloading" as a very succinct way to describe what's happening when we're arguing against it. "Blocking users from installing apps not approved by Google" works equally well but is a bit more wordy. I personally prefer the latter because I think it's a little more precise, but trying to imply people have to phrase things that way or they're part of some conspiracy does nothing but alienate your supporters and distract from the real issue.

Maybe software updates could contain things users actually want, that provide a competitive incentive for users to choose to buy the phones from specific makers?