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Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem

f-droid.org

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Re: Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem

#71

Post by glenstein »

izacus wrote: post #29
glenstein wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Decentralized mobile app distribution for Android. For my part I feel perfectly clear on what the "it" is but I'm a little unclear on how it's in a different from what F-Droid already does.

But if you open the linked page, it has bunch of projects that aren't app distribution - /e/OS, some 5G edge VPN thing, etc.

Those are mentioned in the first paragraph. Those are under the umbrella of Mobifree.

The part about app distribution is specific to F-Droid.

Re: Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem

#72

Post by jwells89 »

butz wrote: post #63

It would be great to have some basic, no nonsense Android applications, with least possible permissions possible and no internet connectivity. Some examples: SMS app, tasks, calculator, authenticator (2FA), weather, audio recorder, image/photo viewer, barcode/qr code scanner, calendar, file manager, music player, etc. Small app sizes, no Kotlin or support libraries. With very limited feature set, to keep maintenance…

One issue I’ve read that devs of good, no-nonsense, telemetry-free offline-only/first apps face on the Play Store is that they get review-bombed and reported by their less scrupulous counterparts to drive more users to their ad-filled, IAP-heavy, or borderline malicious apps.

This could be fixed pretty easily if Google took fraudulent reviews more seriously and their handling of reports were less automated and opaque, but they haven’t shown much interest in either.

Re: Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem

#73

Post by wkat4242 »

Nice! I see MicroG is part of this initiative too: https://mobifree.org/

I hope it becomes a bit more mainstream now. Some custom roms like lineage are very hostile to it because they're afraid Google will do more against them if they include it. You can't even mention it in their community or you will get kicked. It's nothing nasty though, it's just a bare minimum implementation of google play services remade in open source, withholding as much information as possible and giving you the ability to fake things like device model and attestation "safetynet". Luckily there's a fork from the microg team https://lineage.microg.org/ . So this is what I normally use.

But it's a great middle-ground, you can still use google push and you replace all the other parts like the location DB with privacy-conscious alternatives (though with the abolition of mozilla's wifi location database this has become harder).

I'm not a fan of /e/ though, especially because of the name that makes it impossible to google anything. And they are often years behind in android versions.

Re: Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem

#74

Post by realusername »

palata wrote: post #38
wicket wrote: post #32

It seems that Mobifree largely depends on the Android/AOSP ecosystem, which is controlled by Big Tech.

But being open source means that one could fork AOSP. Also the Google proprietary stuff comes with the Play Services, not AOSP. So AOSP is a lot better than the alternatives, I would say. I have a different feeling about Chromium: it is open source, but through it Google gets to control the future of the Web. But Android is not a standard, it's "just" one OS, so changes made by Google in AOSP don't really impact, say…

> But Android is not a standard, it's "just" one OS, so changes made by Google in AOSP don't really impact, say, iOS.

That's interesting because I personally do believe that Android is kind of the mobile standard, it has everything to be one, from the wide variety of devices to the certifications of conformity.

Re: Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem

#75

Post by mid-kid »

janosdebugs wrote: post #62
jraph wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also its strength and raison d'etre. What use is F-droid if it starts including proprietary software?

No tracking? Providing an alternative? Not strengthening the Google-Apple duopoly on the mobile phone market? I was looking at it as a platform to publish an app on, which the open source requirement stopped dead in its tracks. I didn't have a viable open source business model for it at this time because it was a straight "customer pays money, gets software" deal with no tracking or other nonsense. As-is, F-Droid wil…

I mean, f-droid allows adding custom repositories that don't follow the main one's rules. There's a decent amount of apps that do this for one reason or another. Other apps, like for example OSMAnd, have a special f-droid build with google services removed, leading to the lack of some features like android auto support.

The client doesn't support any form of purchases and I don't think it ever will. I think you'd be best served using any of the other stores that support this or hosting it on your own website.

Re: Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem

#76

Post by fabrice_d »

nextos wrote: post #39
mitchitized wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Do they mandate process or procedure policies that kill productive organizations, or what? I'm genuinely curious.

I've been part of some large consortia. Generally, there is a ton of paperwork. Lots of project partners focus on filling in this paperwork to pretend they are doing something and pocket grant money. But, usually, nothing good is delivered, aside from some expensive DOCX. With that said, things are changing a bit and becoming a bit more efficient and dynamic.

That was the case for big EU funded projects with lots of industrial + accademia participants. I worked at a place where we had people working full time on setting up proposals for these projects. This was a very political game (find partners in countries the EU wants to help this year!), and very low risk too for big partners. We were usually "selling" stuff that had been done already, and the new funding was used to work on new stuff. That meant we could always show successful projects, which in turn helped getting new funding - rinse and repeat.

NGI is different, they seem to focus more on funding individuals and open source projects with relatively small grants. This has good and bad sides of course - a more level playing field, but makes it still difficult for projects that require long term work.

Re: Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem

#77

Post by Apocryphon »

glenstein wrote: post #30
c-fe wrote: post #15

I wish them success ... but with a website that looks like this I doubt their engineering efforts. https://mobifree.org (screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/TITC9bN )

I fully support the values being expressed put the ratio of talk to action on the website is not great. It looks like a website from 2007 for a custom fork of a Ubuntu distribution. Again, I think the initiative, the funding, the rollout of technologies is the important thing and I'm perfectly fine with there being an aspect of public communication that gives it the kind of visibility that bureaucrats need so that it…

There's something about the font that looks awful but having a 2007 look and feel is fine, in my opinion. There's something charmingly retro about the gradients and AJAX era of Web 2.0 before apps ate everything.

Re: Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem

#78

Post by jraph »

janosdebugs wrote: post #62
jraph wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also its strength and raison d'etre. What use is F-droid if it starts including proprietary software?

No tracking? Providing an alternative? Not strengthening the Google-Apple duopoly on the mobile phone market? I was looking at it as a platform to publish an app on, which the open source requirement stopped dead in its tracks. I didn't have a viable open source business model for it at this time because it was a straight "customer pays money, gets software" deal with no tracking or other nonsense. As-is, F-Droid wil…

I won't trust no tracking if it's non free.

I know I will sound extreme (although I think it shouldn't be the case in among developers) and no offense, but this sounds like a happy outcome to me. I believe proprietary software to be unethical. I'm not interested in being proposed non free software. The software industry should figure it out and start respecting its users.

However software funding is a real concern and I do believe there's room for some set of builtin solutions allowing free software funding beyond a donate link.

There are many ways to fund free software. I'm not saying it's easy but there are many open source businesses now and as a developer I decided to join one of them.

Support, consulting and paid (but still open source) paid features are some options. I don't think anybody would remove a license check in an app sent to f-droid if it's free software.

Now, I genuinely thank you for having considered an alternative to Google for distributing your software.

I know it's hard to build stuff and bootstrap it. I'm with you on this.

In f-droid, you can still add third party repositories and I heard it's getting easier for users. Not sure it is easy enough.

Now I'm totally aware only free software doesn't cut it for most people yet, and fdroid will not suffice. Most people will do with the play store, but some will use fdroid as a store of "trusty" apps and resort to the play store if really needed. I know people doing this.

Re: Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem

#79

Post by janosdebugs »

jraph wrote: post #78
janosdebugs wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No tracking? Providing an alternative? Not strengthening the Google-Apple duopoly on the mobile phone market? I was looking at it as a platform to publish an app on, which the open source requirement stopped dead in its tracks. I didn't have a viable open source business model for it at this time because it was a straight "customer pays money, gets software" deal with no tracking or other nonsense. As-is, F-Droid wil…

I won't trust no tracking if it's non free. I know I will sound extreme (although I think it shouldn't be the case in among developers) and no offense, but this sounds like a happy outcome to me. I believe proprietary software to be unethical. I'm not interested in being proposed non free software. The software industry should figure it out and start respecting its users. However software funding is a real concern an…

In this case the software in question was a game. I have not seen any visble business models for truly open source games under the acceptable licenses for F-Droid. There are source-available games, but that would not be enough in this case.

I think the main issue may be how much up-front investment games need that would never be recouped with an open source license, but I'd love to be shown an example to the contrary.

Re: Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem

#80

Post by jraph »

janosdebugs wrote: post #79
jraph wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't trust no tracking if it's non free. I know I will sound extreme (although I think it shouldn't be the case in among developers) and no offense, but this sounds like a happy outcome to me. I believe proprietary software to be unethical. I'm not interested in being proposed non free software. The software industry should figure it out and start respecting its users. However software funding is a real concern an…

In this case the software in question was a game. I have not seen any visble business models for truly open source games under the acceptable licenses for F-Droid. There are source-available games, but that would not be enough in this case. I think the main issue may be how much up-front investment games need that would never be recouped with an open source license, but I'd love to be shown an example to the contrary…

Game is its own thing indeed and I'll admit that first, I don't play much, and second, never even started thinking about business models for open source games.

Maybe you could license the data for a fee and have the code as open source?

Of course this is low effort and you know way better than me.

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