Known F/LOSS Development of F-Droid Apps

For now, I want to applaud developers based on the criteria stated above: Metadata in F-Droid; what sites users would use to file issue reports and look at source for the app from F-Droid. Maybe later we consider second-order connections in giving a Score.

For now, IMO a note could be added to the listing, but Mull should not be removed.

Gmaps WV and Privacy Browser depend on Webview, which may or not be developed on free systems, depending which Webview you have. Should Privacy Browser be delisted or penalized because of that? All run on devices with non-free firmware. How far do we go with second-order considerations outside the control of the app developers?

SkewedZeppelin · April 26, 2022, 2:11pm

gitlab.com is non-free fwiw: ee/LICENSE · master · GitLab.org / GitLab · GitLab

anon46495926 · April 26, 2022, 3:16pm

But there goes the Divested apps.

IIUC, gitlab enterprise edition is non-free, but self-hosted gitlab community and gitlab for open source are free. Currently.

Personally, I tend to agree with excluding apps on main gitlab dot com because of difficulty using gitlab dot com over Tor; intentionally broken search when not logged in; not easily knowing what kind of account (EE or Community) a developer uses, AFAIK; similarity with other sites like MetaBook in terms of privacy and data collection (or too complex Terms and Privacy policy). It would also reduce the number of apps to list here by another approximately 350, and get it down to a reasonably small number for a list. I was trying to not bias this list too much by my personal feelings, but I can easily go along excluding main gitlab dot com apps due to overwhelming anti-reasons over-riding the technical free license applying to selected circumstances… How’s that for semi-arbitrary.

Other opinions?

SkewedZeppelin · April 26, 2022, 5:13pm

selfhosted gitlab-ce is FOSS
gitlab-ee and gitlab.com are not

anon46495926 · April 28, 2022, 9:02am

Any others to exclude, like sourceforge? Wiki says it is free, but…

$ grep -v -e github.com -e gitlab.com -e bitbucket.org -e code.google -e googlecode.com -e archive.softwareheritage index-v1-x.json |wc -l
301
$ grep sourceforge.net index-v1-x.json |wc -l
74

Over 200 is a (surprisingly) long list.

anon88801960 · May 2, 2022, 10:12pm

Gitlab doesn’t let me search/filter issues or merge requests without login in…

Licaon_Kter · May 3, 2022, 6:15am

yes, known issue: leave gitlab.com (#159) · Issues · F-Droid / admin · GitLab

anon46495926 · May 7, 2022, 6:08pm

Don’t forget site searches, on whatever search works for you: https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q=site%3Agitlab.com fdroid%2Fadmin%2F-%2Fissues "leave gitlab"

anon46495926 · May 9, 2022, 4:43pm

F-Droid seemed like the classic, but now I see a reason to try “F-Droid Classic” https://f-droid.org/en/packages/eu.bubu1.fdroidclassic. If @Bubu can run self-hosted gitlab, why can’t F-Droid?

Licaon_Kter · May 9, 2022, 4:44pm

CI’s, bigger repo, bigger resource needs.

anon46495926 · May 9, 2022, 4:51pm

CI’s, bigger repo, bigger resource needs.
Phishing Warning - Gadgetbridge - #21 by Licaon_Kter
“Who is helped with these halfassed answers?”

If that’s all you have, just don’t. It’s OK to leave posts unanswered IMO.

Licaon_Kter · May 9, 2022, 4:53pm

Each word carries thousands of hours of use, of scripts making, of tweaks, of ideas. Again, do treat each of my answer as an attack, it will lead to a good place.

anon46495926 · May 9, 2022, 4:55pm

Your jumping on every post of mine with insults and BS is to the level of harassment now. Do stop.

TheLastProject · May 9, 2022, 6:28pm

I think F-Droid Client doesn’t need that much CI time, but especially F-Droid Data does. Hosting this would probably cost a lot and take a lot of time to maintain.

anon46495926 · May 10, 2022, 1:29am

As seen in this growing list, dozens or hundreds of apps are independently developed on F/LOSS network systems, by developers with limited resources. F-Droid has enough resources to pay some of their developers, and gets deals and support from CI runners, cloudflare, etc. But does not have the resources to set a good example by using F/LOSS net services, with just F-Droid app, or more?

anon46495926 · May 10, 2022, 1:34am

Any chance of getting this added to this thread:

Images (screenshots) SHOULD require “click for More”, and should not be downloaded until then.

Glad to see “F-Droid Classic” has this more sensible approach as an option! And is developed on FOSS net service!!

TheLastProject · May 10, 2022, 9:10am

We are looking into maybe migrating to Salsa actually, which is a Debian-hosted GitLab Community Edition. See Apply for the GitLab Open Source Program (#223) · Issues · F-Droid / admin · GitLab

Moving only one part of F-Droid would really complicate group membership and access rights and stuff and increase maintenance burden, so that sounds pretty awful. I’d personally rather see us move completely or not at all.

anon46495926 · May 10, 2022, 2:50pm

With the couple issues linked by you and LK, it looks like F-Droid is being pushed along by whims of others (slowly), more than being proactive. It’s good to see a little inclusion of values in the discussion; would be better to see that be the driver.

All or nothing

Perfect is the enemy of good enough, they say. One step, in the right direction, is a good start.