The future of this elegant and proven system was put in jeopardy last month, when Google unilaterally decreed that Android developers everywhere in the world are going to be required to register centrally with Google. In addition to demanding payment of a registration fee and agreement to their (non-negotiable and ever-changing) terms and conditions, Google will also require the uploading of personally identifying documents[^regid], including government ID, by the authors of the software, as well as enumerating all the unique “application identifiers” for every app that is to be distributed by the registered developer.
If it were to be put into effect, the developer registration decree will end the F-Droid project and other free/open-source app distribution sources as we know them today, and the world will be deprived of the safety and security of the catalog of thousands of apps that can be trusted and verified by any and all. F-Droid’s myriad users5 will be left adrift, with no means to install — or even update their existing installed — applications.
How will this be enforced?
It will be enforced by Package Installer app, just like how minimal SDK version requirement is enforced, per recent commits to AOSP repo.
Did
--bypass-low-target-sdk-blockget removed?Not last time I checked, and it does seem like bypassing Google’s new developer verification restrictions for installing apk packages via ADB should remain an option after it gets enforced.
But that’s besides the point, you should NOT need to literally hook up a dev kit just to install a software on your own general purpose computing devices FFS
i think basically play protect, but instead of a ban list, it will be an allow list.
So people without gapps are unaffected, cool.
Nothing burger scare and cowardice from F-Droid
Right only 99.998% of people will be affected
More like 80%? But when people find out they can’t install Foss software, that number will drop fast as folks strip google off their Android devices