251–260 of 579 posts
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You're stating, essentially, that anyone who wants to publish FOSS software with a donation link should be forced to go through some convoluted procedure and register as a charitable organization. (where? in the US? in their specific region? does it matter? how much time will it take for them to figure out? is this even possible in all regions? does this require ongoing effort e.g. accounting, document submission, ge…
Not for profit status is susceptible to abuse so I'm glad the process is strict. But you're proposing that app developers should be able to self-describe as charitable in order to dodge fees? And how well do you think that would work exactly?
I don't believe that the app stores would cease to function or even suffer appreciably decreased profit by doing so. In-app purchases result in new features or items or something being unlocked.
Donations do not. They are gifts.
I disagree with the concept of fees for the Google and Apple play stores because they are monopolies within the platform entirely, but if they must exist, attempting to charge fees for donations is just bad form.
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In what sense will it be ok? Isn't a lot of the stuff in appstores spyware nowadays?
While there is generally always some small percentage of apps that don't do what they promise and slip through the review I think I can be reasonably sure that if I download something from the macOS / iOS app store it'll do what they say. I trust it enough to believe it won't start crypto mining in the background or connect to random servers and sending the content of my computer somewhere. For the average user it's…
Sure, they wont do crypto mining, but that's because it would drain your battery quickly, and people would notice and uninstall.
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Don't conflate Apple's monopoly with Google's store. Anyone can go install F-Droid or Amazon or whatever on their Android phone. The only thing stopping people is satisfaction with the status quo and/or ignorance. However, Apple totally rules their walled garden, with some added gross exploitation to boot (recent "Sherlocking" story for Luna Display).
I have to say, I'm really disappointed how few open-source projects are even on F-Droid. It feels like every time I hear about a new OSS android app, I look for it on F-Droid and find it's only on the Play Store.
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Android/Google don't make it easy though. Installing an APK requires a security setting change. Search results for "install f-droid on android" on google are very unhelpful for a general user compared to search results from DDG or Bing.
I’m fine with that being difficult. My grandmother, bless her wonderful heart, clicks on everything no matter what you tell her or do. I like being able to give her a lockeddown android device and I know that she has no reasonable way to escape the android market (which is what she wants) but I can still drill into the menus and do as i will
So this is no excuse for Google banning apps to protect their profits at their users' expense.
Google owns the app store. So, developers should abide rules imposed by Google although the rules do not seem reasonable all the time.
My suggestion is, developer can still implement in-app billing, removing "donation" wording. For the in-app item, make it as good-to-have feature like "unlocking additional app color theme".
With such, he will still abide the rule, yet able to get his monetary reward.
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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.
> not trivial for the average user That is a very good thing. I wish they also made "install from unknown sources" a bit harder. Don't get me wrong, I love openness. But there must be a barrier of entry.
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In which country are developers above the law ?
In every country the ruling party does not understand technology. It's very difficult to regulate something you don't understand. The back door encryption thing is a fun example of this.
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All Google phones and Android One devices have unlockable bootloaders.
Unlocking bootloader is not the same as rooting.
True, but having an unlocked bootloader makes rooting trivial.
Those wanting to root devices with locked bootloaders have to depend on exploiting security flaws in their OS to do so. This means intentionally ignoring security updates and potentially maintaining a vulnerable device just to be able to retain root. These exploits tend to be device specific as well and often carry a risk of at least soft-bricking.
Those with an unlockable bootloader can just unlock and flash in something like Magisk in a pretty much universal fashion.
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While there is generally always some small percentage of apps that don't do what they promise and slip through the review I think I can be reasonably sure that if I download something from the macOS / iOS app store it'll do what they say. I trust it enough to believe it won't start crypto mining in the background or connect to random servers and sending the content of my computer somewhere. For the average user it's…
Uh, what are you talking about? Phoning home with your data (mainly phonebook and location data) is exactly what a lot of apps are doing. Sure, they wont do crypto mining, but that's because it would drain your battery quickly, and people would notice and uninstall.
Isn't the whole point of sandboxing and the permission systems exactly preventing phonebook and location data misuse? Especially location tracking prevention was a pretty big part of the iOS 13 announcements.