This is a dangerous thing to do!
This severely limits the freedom of the internet. At this point, we'd need a new "OS" like dhh did with Omarchy!
Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android
511–520 of 1001 posts
Re: Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android
#512Every day we stray farther from the premise that we should be allowed to install / modify software on the computers we own. Will once again re-up the concept of a “right to root access”, to prevent big corps from pulling this bs over and over again: https://medhir.com/blog/right-to-root-access
Sure. You will have the right to root, unless on a device with a locked bootloader. /s
Lets just call it what it is and what we all want. "The right to modify". It doesn't give you the right to copy, so it will never break any law protecting intellectual property.
Re: Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android
#513The funny thing is Stallman started his fight like half a century ago and on regular days Hacker News shits on him eating something off of his foot and not being polished and diplomatic, and loves practical aspects of Corporate Open Source and gratis goodies and doesn't particularly care about Free Software. On this day suddenly folks come out of the woodwork advocating for half baked measures to achieve what Stallma…
It's possible to believe both that Stallman is over the top and that stuff like this Google action is bad, and even to be right on both. It's even easier to believe that Stallman has had some good ideas but is still a deeply flawed human being, and has also incidentally not been the most effective advocate for his own ideals.
It is possible, sure, but I have a feeling it goes unrecognized how prophetic and precise his concerns were, and that this is very similar to his original issue with the closed-source printer software he was not allowed to fix, and he does not get credit for his predictions, as people simply pass by, and not connect it to the Free Software issue, when issues like this happen; meanwhile he takes all the downsides of being brash and anti-corporate, which is taken advantage of by the Corporate Open Source crowd.
Re: Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android
#514The funny thing is Stallman started his fight like half a century ago and on regular days Hacker News shits on him eating something off of his foot and not being polished and diplomatic, and loves practical aspects of Corporate Open Source and gratis goodies and doesn't particularly care about Free Software. On this day suddenly folks come out of the woodwork advocating for half baked measures to achieve what Stallma…
It's possible to believe both that Stallman is over the top and that stuff like this Google action is bad, and even to be right on both. It's even easier to believe that Stallman has had some good ideas but is still a deeply flawed human being, and has also incidentally not been the most effective advocate for his own ideals.
Who is doing a better job?
Because I see A LOT of “open source” advocates these days, and more and more “source available”.
But the old school Free Software hippies(that started with BSD, NOT GNU, IMNHO) are slowly dying out and being replaced with?
Re: Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android
#515If this is a thing then the solution they offer is incorrect. A big giant red screen: “warning the identity of this application developer has not been verified and this could be an application stealing your data, etc” would have worked. What they want is to get rid of apps like YouTube Vanced that are making them lose money (and other Play Store apps)
Do you like losing money?
Of course i care that i lose money.
I dont care that google loses money.
Re: Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android
#516Google is doing everything in their power to make me move to an iphone... between shit like this, effectively bricking some old models of pixels with un-rollbackable patches that destroy batteries, closing down the android development process, making absurd testing requirements to publish apps, etc. Google doesn't make better phones, they were just less hostile to the consumer. That seems to be going away :(
More power to Apple then..?
Re: Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android
#517The funny thing is Stallman started his fight like half a century ago and on regular days Hacker News shits on him eating something off of his foot and not being polished and diplomatic, and loves practical aspects of Corporate Open Source and gratis goodies and doesn't particularly care about Free Software. On this day suddenly folks come out of the woodwork advocating for half baked measures to achieve what Stallma…
[flagged]
Re: Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android
#518This is really bad. I think that most people on HN will agree with that. The problem is that most normal people (HN is not normal - mostly for the better) don't even understand what sideloading is - let alone actually care . How can we fix this? (aside from making people care - apathy enables so many political problems in the current age, but it's such a huge problem that this definitely isn't going to be the impetus…
People install games from Steam or the Epic Store on their computers without Microsoft preventing that or taking a cut all the time (not for lack of trying. I know). But somehow, in the mobile world, we went with total lockdowns and platform extortion as the rule? The irony of that iconic Apple 1984 add .
> People install games from Steam or the Epic Store on their computers without Microsoft preventing that
microsoft wishes they could have the level of platform control that google/apple on mobiles have.
It's pure luck that the IBM-compatible PC was not locked down and restricted, because at the time IBM had not thought of it as being important. When it became clear that it was a lost profit opportunity, the cat was already out of the bag and so IBM had no choice.
Microsoft repeated the same "mistake". But apple learnt, and google also from apple.
Re: Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android
#519So for our non public company apps I will now have to verify? What.
Re: Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android
#520Every day we stray farther from the premise that we should be allowed to install / modify software on the computers we own. Will once again re-up the concept of a “right to root access”, to prevent big corps from pulling this bs over and over again: https://medhir.com/blog/right-to-root-access
It's amazing how often we hamper the majority of society by protecting the bottom quintile from the consequences of their own mistakes.
The "bottom quintile"? By what metric?