7 ms·

The Apple/Play stores are essentially a totally broken implementation of something that had existed for over a decade before: package repositories. It's embrace

The Apple/Play stores are essentially a totally broken implementation of something that had existed for over a decade before: package repositories. It's embraced and extended Linux/BSD package/ports trees, except without things like the ability to add a 3rd party repository with other authors signing keys, pin certain versions, etc. https://battlepenguin.com/tech/android-fragmentation/#package-management https://battlepenguin.com/tech/android-fragmentation/#packag... We could go on about how regular users wouldn't understand or care and blah blah blah and we'll keep getting software that's neutered, tracks us and becomes more like the proverbial car with the hood welded shut; where people who know about cars have to attach several sidecars just to keep our vehicle doing what we want it to do.

baxtr 7y ago
“Totally broken implementation” is very close to BS, at least strongly exaggerated. They’re both highly successful distribution models. Of course, every system has downsides. You’re free not to participate
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- mimi89999 7y ago
  Really? It's basically impossible to distribute apps for iOS outside the AppStore and very difficult (all security, warranty warnings, settings, etc.) to distribute them outside the PlayStore.
  - dna_polymerase 7y ago
    Thankfully so. Apple keeps the App Store pretty clean, legacy apps, that are not maintained enough don't make it to the next iOS release and their capability system means I don't have to trust third party apps with anything. Of course, there are cases that essentially suffer from this, but for me as a user, I've got to say I'm pretty satisfied.
    - BlueTemplar 7y ago
      Yes, by using Apple you knew what you were getting into, however we're still butthurt from the Android bait and switch...
  - IAmEveryone 7y ago
    Yeah... really. As a user, I (and >99% of others) just don't care about the distribution channel. The stores work. I've never been hit by a security issue. Choice is plentiful. Prices are ok. So "totally broken" just isn't a rational description.
- klagermkii 7y ago
  This might be a fine answer to dealing with a commodity product in a market with strong competition, but a terrible one for any system with limited choice and an extremely strong network effect.
kyle-rb 7y ago
Doesn't F-droid (and other stores) count as a '3rd party repository'?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- kees99 7y ago
  According to [0]: F-Droid is both a repository of verified free software Android apps as well as a whole "app store kit" F-Droid also allows to source multiple repositories within one app. [1] [0] https://f-droid.org/wiki/ https://f-droid.org/wiki/ [1] https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/Known_Repositories https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/Known_Repositories
caconym_ 7y ago
The primary goal of package repositories is to make available the software users need. The primary goal of Apple/Play/whatever stores is to make money.
- teknopaul 7y ago
  Shocking they can ban an app that has a voluntary donations link.
Steltek 7y ago
Don't conflate Apple's monopoly with Google's store. Anyone can go install F-Droid or Amazon or whatever on their Android phone. The only thing stopping people is satisfaction with the status quo and/or ignorance. However, Apple totally rules their walled garden, with some added gross exploitation to boot (recent "Sherlocking" story for Luna Display).
- lovelearning 7y ago
  Android/Google don't make it easy though. Installing an APK requires a security setting change. Search results for "install f-droid on android" on google are very unhelpful for a general user compared to search results from DDG or Bing.
  - xnyan 7y ago
    I’m fine with that being difficult. My grandmother, bless her wonderful heart, clicks on everything no matter what you tell her or do. I like being able to give her a lockeddown android device and I know that she has no reasonable way to escape the android market (which is what she wants) but I can still drill into the menus and do as i will
    - anoncake 7y ago
      Nudging non-technical users to a trustworthy default store without actually restricting alternative sources is a pretty good solution for protecting non-technical users without limiting users' freedom. But it still gives the store operator an extremely strong market position, making meaningful competition very unlikely. In fact, for non-technical users it's a monopoly because they aren't in the market for apps but for apps they can trust aren't malware. So this is no excuse for Google banning apps to protect their profits at their users' expense.
  - codazoda 7y ago
    I've never used f-droid, but decide to try it on my (original) Pixel XL. I clicked "Download" and the file saved. I pulled down the top drawer and opened the file with "files". I clicked the APK and got a security warning with a link to the exact "settings" page where I change it. I clicked the security option off. I returned to files and clicked the APK again and it installed. This is very wordy and sounds a bit complicated, but it was simply a few extra taps and it installed. A pretty good balance of not too easy that a novice might do it by accident and still accessable.
whalesalad 7y ago
Your analogy is certainly interesting... but expecting everyone to want or know how to look under the hood of their car is a little delusional. Most people don’t even know or care to check their oil. They drive from A to B and only take their car in for service when a light is illuminated on the dash or if it’s making a funny noise. Personally, I do all my own maintenance and love to look under my hood. My wife? She’d drive a car until it was devoid of oil or coolant and the block seized up without even batting an eye lash. I’m not passing judgement here, just offering a more realistic viewpoint. The same is true for users of apps. There’s a reason the stores have grown to be so successful, and a reason the Google store is evolving to be more and more like Apple’s. I don’t think that they are perfect, but I also would never consider the open source package systems to be perfect either. Everything has a trade off, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
- xnyan 7y ago
  A better analogy might be a hood locked with a separate key only Apple has. Your wife wants to visit an experienced local car shop? Pound sand.
  - whalesalad 7y ago
    Tesla.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    It's best to avoid analogies. Computing devices nowadays contain all of one's information including sensitive photos, passwords, ability to authenticate, location data, and other security risks that a car doesn't pose.
Pxtl 7y ago
I do wonder how crappy an opensource package repository would get if it faced the kind of sustained attack by con-men that Play & Apple have to deal with.
- benibela 7y ago
  kind of like npm
aranelsurion 7y ago
For a brief moment in time, there was an alternative in mobile space having best of the both worlds. Back then Nokia was still a thing, Meego/Maemo OSes on some -very few- Nokia devices had apt & rpm. Nokia repository would be there by default, and you could easily go and add any package repository through their UI. Just like good ol' Linux package managers, because it was one. In fact this capability even enabled the community of these OSes to support the platform much longer than Nokia intended to. They made emulators, enabled hidden functionality (like FM Radio), even the bootloader was unlocked so you could go and install Android -but drivers were not open-source- if you wanted. It was liberating. Too bad it got killed prematurely, and from its ashes Windows Phone was born.
- BlueTemplar 7y ago
  WTF Europe is waiting for ?? We have to resurrect Meego/Maemo!
  - ac29 7y ago
    It lives on as Jolla: https://jolla.com/ https://jolla.com/
m-p-3 7y ago
Thank goodness F-Droid exists and allows additional repos to be added, and even put donation links in the app listing when possible.
ken 7y ago
Huh? The "hood welded shut" analogy has always been about proprietary software. That's 99% of the Apple/Play stores already. We're already there.
UncleMeat 7y ago
Package repos don't provide analytics for developers, search for discovery, malware and abuse detection that scales to millions of apps, and loads of other features that the app stores offer. They aren't equivalent.
- progval 7y ago
  > Package repos don't provide analytics for developers They can. Debian does it on an opt-in basis: http://popcon.debian.org/ http://popcon.debian.org/ > search for discovery You can use text search on APT repositories, and probably other ones. > malware and abuse detection that scales to millions of apps We don't need millions of apps. A thing I like with distribution repos is curation: only trusted people can add new packages. Of course it means less packages, but it also means there is no junk at all. Also, whenever I needed to do something, either F-Droid already had an application for it, or there wasn't any open source app doing what I needed.
  - UncleMeat 7y ago
    Wait. People complain about app stores being restrictive and then you suggest only trusted people being able to distribute code that I can use? That's way worse.
    - progval 7y ago
      Part of the complaint is also lack of transparency when a Google Play app is removed. When I want to use some popular software and it's missing from Debian, I can usually find a thread on Debian's bug tracker with a detailed discussion on what the issues around providing this particular software are.

baxtr 7y ago

“Totally broken implementation” is very close to BS, at least strongly exaggerated. They’re both highly successful distribution models. Of course, every system has downsides. You’re free not to participate

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
mimi89999 7y ago
Really? It's basically impossible to distribute apps for iOS outside the AppStore and very difficult (all security, warranty warnings, settings, etc.) to distribute them outside the PlayStore.
- dna_polymerase 7y ago
  Thankfully so. Apple keeps the App Store pretty clean, legacy apps, that are not maintained enough don't make it to the next iOS release and their capability system means I don't have to trust third party apps with anything. Of course, there are cases that essentially suffer from this, but for me as a user, I've got to say I'm pretty satisfied.
  - BlueTemplar 7y ago
    Yes, by using Apple you knew what you were getting into, however we're still butthurt from the Android bait and switch...
- IAmEveryone 7y ago
  Yeah... really. As a user, I (and >99% of others) just don't care about the distribution channel. The stores work. I've never been hit by a security issue. Choice is plentiful. Prices are ok. So "totally broken" just isn't a rational description.
klagermkii 7y ago
This might be a fine answer to dealing with a commodity product in a market with strong competition, but a terrible one for any system with limited choice and an extremely strong network effect.

kyle-rb 7y ago

Doesn't F-droid (and other stores) count as a '3rd party repository'?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
kees99 7y ago
According to [0]: F-Droid is both a repository of verified free software Android apps as well as a whole "app store kit" F-Droid also allows to source multiple repositories within one app. [1] [0] https://f-droid.org/wiki/ https://f-droid.org/wiki/ [1] https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/Known_Repositories https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/Known_Repositories

caconym_ 7y ago

The primary goal of package repositories is to make available the software users need. The primary goal of Apple/Play/whatever stores is to make money.

teknopaul 7y ago
Shocking they can ban an app that has a voluntary donations link.

Steltek 7y ago

Don't conflate Apple's monopoly with Google's store. Anyone can go install F-Droid or Amazon or whatever on their Android phone. The only thing stopping people is satisfaction with the status quo and/or ignorance. However, Apple totally rules their walled garden, with some added gross exploitation to boot (recent "Sherlocking" story for Luna Display).

lovelearning 7y ago
Android/Google don't make it easy though. Installing an APK requires a security setting change. Search results for "install f-droid on android" on google are very unhelpful for a general user compared to search results from DDG or Bing.
- xnyan 7y ago
  I’m fine with that being difficult. My grandmother, bless her wonderful heart, clicks on everything no matter what you tell her or do. I like being able to give her a lockeddown android device and I know that she has no reasonable way to escape the android market (which is what she wants) but I can still drill into the menus and do as i will
  - anoncake 7y ago
    Nudging non-technical users to a trustworthy default store without actually restricting alternative sources is a pretty good solution for protecting non-technical users without limiting users' freedom. But it still gives the store operator an extremely strong market position, making meaningful competition very unlikely. In fact, for non-technical users it's a monopoly because they aren't in the market for apps but for apps they can trust aren't malware. So this is no excuse for Google banning apps to protect their profits at their users' expense.
- codazoda 7y ago
  I've never used f-droid, but decide to try it on my (original) Pixel XL. I clicked "Download" and the file saved. I pulled down the top drawer and opened the file with "files". I clicked the APK and got a security warning with a link to the exact "settings" page where I change it. I clicked the security option off. I returned to files and clicked the APK again and it installed. This is very wordy and sounds a bit complicated, but it was simply a few extra taps and it installed. A pretty good balance of not too easy that a novice might do it by accident and still accessable.

whalesalad 7y ago

Your analogy is certainly interesting... but expecting everyone to want or know how to look under the hood of their car is a little delusional. Most people don’t even know or care to check their oil. They drive from A to B and only take their car in for service when a light is illuminated on the dash or if it’s making a funny noise. Personally, I do all my own maintenance and love to look under my hood. My wife? She’d drive a car until it was devoid of oil or coolant and the block seized up without even batting an eye lash. I’m not passing judgement here, just offering a more realistic viewpoint. The same is true for users of apps. There’s a reason the stores have grown to be so successful, and a reason the Google store is evolving to be more and more like Apple’s. I don’t think that they are perfect, but I also would never consider the open source package systems to be perfect either. Everything has a trade off, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

xnyan 7y ago
A better analogy might be a hood locked with a separate key only Apple has. Your wife wants to visit an experienced local car shop? Pound sand.
- whalesalad 7y ago
  Tesla.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  It's best to avoid analogies. Computing devices nowadays contain all of one's information including sensitive photos, passwords, ability to authenticate, location data, and other security risks that a car doesn't pose.

Pxtl 7y ago

I do wonder how crappy an opensource package repository would get if it faced the kind of sustained attack by con-men that Play & Apple have to deal with.

benibela 7y ago
kind of like npm

aranelsurion 7y ago

For a brief moment in time, there was an alternative in mobile space having best of the both worlds. Back then Nokia was still a thing, Meego/Maemo OSes on some -very few- Nokia devices had apt & rpm. Nokia repository would be there by default, and you could easily go and add any package repository through their UI. Just like good ol' Linux package managers, because it was one. In fact this capability even enabled the community of these OSes to support the platform much longer than Nokia intended to. They made emulators, enabled hidden functionality (like FM Radio), even the bootloader was unlocked so you could go and install Android -but drivers were not open-source- if you wanted. It was liberating. Too bad it got killed prematurely, and from its ashes Windows Phone was born.

BlueTemplar 7y ago
WTF Europe is waiting for ?? We have to resurrect Meego/Maemo!
- ac29 7y ago
  It lives on as Jolla: https://jolla.com/ https://jolla.com/

m-p-3 7y ago

Thank goodness F-Droid exists and allows additional repos to be added, and even put donation links in the app listing when possible.

ken 7y ago

Huh? The "hood welded shut" analogy has always been about proprietary software. That's 99% of the Apple/Play stores already. We're already there.

UncleMeat 7y ago

Package repos don't provide analytics for developers, search for discovery, malware and abuse detection that scales to millions of apps, and loads of other features that the app stores offer. They aren't equivalent.

progval 7y ago
> Package repos don't provide analytics for developers They can. Debian does it on an opt-in basis: http://popcon.debian.org/ http://popcon.debian.org/ > search for discovery You can use text search on APT repositories, and probably other ones. > malware and abuse detection that scales to millions of apps We don't need millions of apps. A thing I like with distribution repos is curation: only trusted people can add new packages. Of course it means less packages, but it also means there is no junk at all. Also, whenever I needed to do something, either F-Droid already had an application for it, or there wasn't any open source app doing what I needed.
- UncleMeat 7y ago
  Wait. People complain about app stores being restrictive and then you suggest only trusted people being able to distribute code that I can use? That's way worse.
  - progval 7y ago
    Part of the complaint is also lack of transparency when a Google Play app is removed. When I want to use some popular software and it's missing from Debian, I can usually find a thread on Debian's bug tracker with a detailed discussion on what the issues around providing this particular software are.