Open-source apps removed from Google Play Store due to donation links • Hacker News Board

Re: Open-source apps removed from Google Play Store due to donation links

#531

Post by ngold » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 10:46 PM UTC

tikiman163 wrote: post #529

tolmasky wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but why ? If the rules clearly said "no chess games", one could say "that ends the discussion of why chess games are denied", or you could further ask "but why are no chess games allowed?". Is it because Google plans on having their own Google-Chess someday and thus is preemptively preventing competition? Is there a technical or regulatory reason chess games aren't allowed? That's the question (at least for me)…

The requirement for provable non-profit status is a legal requirement. A new federal law that passed last year makes it so any "online" content distribution network (including Google play) is legally responsible for any crimes committed by someone else listing a product or message on their platform. Basically, if you include a donation link in your app without proving non-profit status you could be committing fraud,…

Thank's for the insightful response. I figured it was google covering their financial butt.

Re: Open-source apps removed from Google Play Store due to donation links

#532

Post by diminoten » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 10:51 PM UTC

catalogia wrote: post #513

diminoten wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hardly unreasonable; if their problem is, as they've said, "giving money to Apple", then it's not the amount, but the fact that Apple gets a cut at all. And none of this is surprising, merely inconsistently applied logic. I fully understand what is happening here, clarifying statements will not help.

> then it's not the amount Says you, but obviously that's not how most people approach matters like this. Most people can reasonably be assumed to think that differences in degree, particularly an order of magnitude apart, are very relevant. At best you're being a pedantic pain in the ass, hassling people for not explicitly stating that a difference in degree is being considered, when such considerations should be re…

Says me? No. Says the person I replied to. Their outrage wasn't sparked by the size of the payment, but that payment went to Apple at all.

Nothing is reasonable about what you're writing, not one thing. At best you're being absurdly pedantic yourself, and hiding behind a throwaway no less. At worst you're trolling. I'm guessing it's the latter, so stop trolling.

Re: Open-source apps removed from Google Play Store due to donation links

#533

Post by megous » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:02 PM UTC

kgersen75 wrote: post #500

megous wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, let's do the math: Say app has 10MiB, 100,000 downloads is ~1TiB, 1 have a 1GiB/20GiB VPS with that monthly bandwidth which I pay $1/month. So distributing 100,000 copies costs $1. I'll give Google $1 for distribution of 100000 copies of my app. Fair? Yeah, I'll give Google a bit more for payment processing, perhaps. But actual distribution costs nothing really, for most apps.

you completely ignore the #1 cost: human cost to setup your vps, manage it, backups and whatnot etc. you gotta take all costs into account. not every developer is willing to learn and spend time configuring & managing a server. that's not the same skill set.

Human cost is not really very well measurable.

First we're talking about the free app for a good cause, so you're already providing an app for free, so you've assumed some sacrifice for others for whatever reason, and setting up a website for it may be comparatively negligible part of the whole cost to you in terms of time.

In my case I would have already had an infrastructure and knowledge how to host things, so it might take a few minutes to put some new files up on a machine used for other projects. Additional costs being pretty much 0.

And there may be benefits (even if I didn't have the knowledge and infra) like learning something new, or now having an infrastructure and knowledge that helps you save expenses or time in the future. So that would offset the costs. You can't just look at costs alone.

Re: Open-source apps removed from Google Play Store due to donation links

#534

Post by thethirdone » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:07 PM UTC

tikiman163 wrote: post #529

tolmasky wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but why ? If the rules clearly said "no chess games", one could say "that ends the discussion of why chess games are denied", or you could further ask "but why are no chess games allowed?". Is it because Google plans on having their own Google-Chess someday and thus is preemptively preventing competition? Is there a technical or regulatory reason chess games aren't allowed? That's the question (at least for me)…

The requirement for provable non-profit status is a legal requirement. A new federal law that passed last year makes it so any "online" content distribution network (including Google play) is legally responsible for any crimes committed by someone else listing a product or message on their platform. Basically, if you include a donation link in your app without proving non-profit status you could be committing fraud,…

> Basically, if you include a donation link in your app without proving non-profit status you could be committing fraud,

How is it fraud to ask for donations without being a non-profit?

> Google also has to report non-tax exempt profits made by any app/content they host in many locations,

I am not familiar with google's payment model, but is there no way to charge users except through Google for google play apps?

Re: Open-source apps removed from Google Play Store due to donation links

#535

Post by Operyl » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:17 PM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #317

londons_explore wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All I really want is an OS facility that only executes code that has been installed explicitly by me, and always in a sandbox. Androids app sandbox is pretty leaky. It has a massive surface area, and the chances of finding exploits to get out of it to find root are high. Also, even from within the sandbox, there are lots of evil things you can do (for example, start on boot, and go fullscreen and use all the ram so…

You say this, but rooting attempts for flagship Android phones have failed at many recent pwn2owns. The grey market price for a root exploit on flagship Android is comparable to iPhone. The most popular third party rooting services don't seem to support past Android 8. Clearly it isn't easy to root these things.

I wonder if part of that is that a lot of flagships seem to have unlockable boot loafers now, with a force wipe to do so. Does that have a measurable impact on the number of people trying?

Re: Open-source apps removed from Google Play Store due to donation links

#536

Post by hnick » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:31 PM UTC

the8472 wrote: post #410

krn wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Disallowing developers from using in-app billing for donations, while also barring them from linking to external donation platforms, puts open source projects in a difficult position, and appears to be overly hostile towards funding open source development. Google Play has been very clear about this[1]: > Fund solicitations > Examples: Donation solicitations from parties without a valid 501(c)(3) tax exempt status…

> Examples Since those are examples I hope this also covers tax-exempt charities in other jurisdictions. I switched to the german site and it still only refers to american laws.

The full text says "relevant country's regulatory bodies and authorities".

"Examples: Donation solicitations from parties without a valid 501(c)(3) tax exempt status clearly displayed to the public; solicitations from parties without valid proof of exempt tax status or proof of registration with the relevant country's regulatory bodies and authorities; and political organizations that have registered with the Federal Election Commission (FEC)."

Re: Open-source apps removed from Google Play Store due to donation links

#537

Post by camhart » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:32 PM UTC

A bit of a tangent, but does anyone know how Netflix gets away with not doing in app payments?

Re: Open-source apps removed from Google Play Store due to donation links

#538

Post by neop1x » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:41 PM UTC

segfaultbuserr wrote: post #62

I use WireGuard daily since 2017, and it's one of my most favorite computer programs in the entire world - robust, reliable, state-of-art cryptography, and seamless integration into the system. I've never donated to WireGuard before, and I didn't think about donation (I installed WireGuard from my package manager and didn't realize a donation link exists), until now. Just donated 25 USD. Thanks Jason. No thanks, Goog…

Me too. Just donated. Awesome software.

Re: Open-source apps removed from Google Play Store due to donation links

#539

Post by jraph » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 11:46 PM UTC

jmsmistral wrote: post #530

ummonk wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As crazy as this policy is, firing and publicly shaming an employee is not the right response to a poor decision by an employee.

I feel it is. It's an effective platform for (positive) change, in this case.

I think this is a bad decision, but I don't want to live in a world in which people risk their privacy by making poor decisions.

We just need processes to learn and avoid doing mistakes twice, and shaming is a poor way to do it.

If I risked being ashamed when making decisions, I would probably avoid decisions altogether. This would be awful. The discussed decision is not even out of law.

What we can do though, is to tell people we know and love about F-Droid and suggest them to only fall back to the Play Store if they don't find what they want, and that they should be aware that by doing so, they enter the jungle and that this jungle follows Google's arbitrary rules, some of which are not in their own interests.

Re: Open-source apps removed from Google Play Store due to donation links

#540

Post by newdaynewuser » Thu, Oct 17, 2019, 1:15 AM UTC

jonas21 wrote: post #523

y49 wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is you missed the point of Free Software. Anyone can use it in any way, including selling for profit. "Free" as in "freedom", you know Recently I created a small homepage with different re-packaged versions of Java: https://jdk.dev All that alternative packages are free of charge but they have extended support from a number of big companies. All these companies funded separately, there's no common place for…

Just because the license lets you do what you want with the code doesn't mean you’re allowed to commit fraud. For example, if a person were to repackage someone else's open source project with a link that says, "Donate to support the development of this software" that's still fraud (assuming they keep the donations).

I understand your point but we should not assume criminal intent without some solid evidence.

Back in days I paid for CDs with only open source software because internet was too slow. CDs were definitely priced for decent profit. The beauty of opensource is that we can do this legally.