5 ms·

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 thi

by jraph 2y ago

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.

janosdebugs 2y ago
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.
- jraph 2y ago
  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.
  - janosdebugs 2y ago
    I've done a fair bit of open source work, but the best I could come up with for games is "source available" where you can get the code to recompile for yourself or mod it. (My wife and I put up the source code of our first game as a DLC on Steam as an experiment.) Re only code: Game engines often tie code and data together and the code without the data won't even compile in many cases, or you won't be able to produce a new dataset because documenting the required settings is a monumental task. Finally, there is no real benefit to open sourcing a game if you want to make money. There is no complementary product or service you can sell with it. Reviewing and incorporating community fixes requires work and potentially legal review as not everyone in the modding community is also necessarily well versed in IP law. All these things need funding which is not a given if the game is open source in any meaningful way. If a game is truly open source, a less than ethical company with a bunch of cheap labor can go and undercut you, so there is an incentive to make creating an alternative build as hard as possible, defeating the entire idea of open source. I would like to be able to release on an alternative storefront so people who want to degoogle their phones, but F-Droid's policies (most known alternative) make that impossible. (To be clear, it's a perfectly legit choice, I just wish there was a meaningful alternative to Google.)
    - jraph 2y ago
      (Not commenting most of your comment, I assumed a clear data and code separation because that's typically what doom does, but that's very old and I'm utterly incompetent in this domain) > Finally, there is no real benefit to open sourcing a game if you want to make money. the same thing can be said for pretty much all software (although it's not always actually true, sometimes open source is a selling point and/or have specific strengths beyond ethics) > a less than ethical company with a bunch of cheap labor can go and undercut you Isn't the data which is the most costly part in developing a game? Of course I realize you stated that separating the data is not practical. > I would like to be able to release on an alternative storefront so people who want to degoogle their phones Still 100% with you on this. Also degoogled with some proprietary software is still a step in the right direction
      - 2y ago
- xigoi 2y ago
  Why would a game need to be a business?
  - jraph 2y ago
    Because it takes time and quite some work to build one and there's nothing wrong wanting to live from it.
    - xigoi 2y ago
      Sure, but nobody is forcing you to publish on F-Droid.
      - jraph 2y ago
        I'm not sure what you are arguing for or against. I think janosdebugs made it quite clear what they are trying to do. You do realize that many apps on F-Droid are developed by businesses? OSMAnd, Fennec, Jitsi Meet, Element, Telegram being big examples. We also had the Simple family of apps for a while.
- onli 2y ago
  Shattered Pixels is one example of a game with a commercial side that is published on f-droid.
yencabulator 2y ago
> I won't trust no tracking if it's non free. Meanwhile, lots of non-mobile free software includes tracking (telemetry) these days. The cynic in me has had to switch to I won't trust no tracking if it's not enforced by a security boundary.
- jraph 2y ago
  Which free software does this without asking / telling the user? Especially free software that tells you no tracking? But yes, free software is not a guarantee against tracking. It only allows auditing and be modified.
  - yencabulator 2y ago
    Here's a sampling of stuff I've semi-recently encountered on Github that all spy on you by default. For some, it's undocumented, for others it's a minor subsection in the docs. (Some of them are source-available not free, I didn't keep track as I collected the URLs.) https://github.com/zed-industries/zed https://github.com/zed-industries/zed https://github.com/microsoft/vscode https://github.com/microsoft/vscode https://github.com/keystonejs/keystone https://github.com/keystonejs/keystone https://github.com/meilisearch/meilisearch https://github.com/meilisearch/meilisearch https://github.com/hasura/graphql-engine https://github.com/hasura/graphql-engine https://github.com/manticoresoftware/manticoresearch/ https://github.com/manticoresoftware/manticoresearch/ https://github.com/coder/code-server https://github.com/coder/code-server https://github.com/loft-sh/devpod https://github.com/loft-sh/devpod https://github.com/quickwit-oss/quickwit https://github.com/quickwit-oss/quickwit https://github.com/rilldata/rill-developer/ https://github.com/rilldata/rill-developer/ https://github.com/hocus-dev/hocus https://github.com/hocus-dev/hocus https://github.com/firezone/firezone https://github.com/firezone/firezone Here's a write-up of how bad it gets -- it's pretty obnoxious: https://www.roboleary.net/tools/2022/04/20/vscode-telemetry.html https://www.roboleary.net/tools/2022/04/20/vscode-telemetry....
    - jraph 2y ago
      VSCode is proprietary. That's why the difference between Codium and VSCode matters. Actually, IIRC the code from the ms repo does not do telemetry, they add it to the binary they distribute.

by jraph 2y ago

janosdebugs 2y ago

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.

jraph 2y ago
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.
- janosdebugs 2y ago
  I've done a fair bit of open source work, but the best I could come up with for games is "source available" where you can get the code to recompile for yourself or mod it. (My wife and I put up the source code of our first game as a DLC on Steam as an experiment.) Re only code: Game engines often tie code and data together and the code without the data won't even compile in many cases, or you won't be able to produce a new dataset because documenting the required settings is a monumental task. Finally, there is no real benefit to open sourcing a game if you want to make money. There is no complementary product or service you can sell with it. Reviewing and incorporating community fixes requires work and potentially legal review as not everyone in the modding community is also necessarily well versed in IP law. All these things need funding which is not a given if the game is open source in any meaningful way. If a game is truly open source, a less than ethical company with a bunch of cheap labor can go and undercut you, so there is an incentive to make creating an alternative build as hard as possible, defeating the entire idea of open source. I would like to be able to release on an alternative storefront so people who want to degoogle their phones, but F-Droid's policies (most known alternative) make that impossible. (To be clear, it's a perfectly legit choice, I just wish there was a meaningful alternative to Google.)
  - jraph 2y ago
    (Not commenting most of your comment, I assumed a clear data and code separation because that's typically what doom does, but that's very old and I'm utterly incompetent in this domain) > Finally, there is no real benefit to open sourcing a game if you want to make money. the same thing can be said for pretty much all software (although it's not always actually true, sometimes open source is a selling point and/or have specific strengths beyond ethics) > a less than ethical company with a bunch of cheap labor can go and undercut you Isn't the data which is the most costly part in developing a game? Of course I realize you stated that separating the data is not practical. > I would like to be able to release on an alternative storefront so people who want to degoogle their phones Still 100% with you on this. Also degoogled with some proprietary software is still a step in the right direction
    - 2y ago
xigoi 2y ago
Why would a game need to be a business?
- jraph 2y ago
  Because it takes time and quite some work to build one and there's nothing wrong wanting to live from it.
  - xigoi 2y ago
    Sure, but nobody is forcing you to publish on F-Droid.
    - jraph 2y ago
      I'm not sure what you are arguing for or against. I think janosdebugs made it quite clear what they are trying to do. You do realize that many apps on F-Droid are developed by businesses? OSMAnd, Fennec, Jitsi Meet, Element, Telegram being big examples. We also had the Simple family of apps for a while.
onli 2y ago
Shattered Pixels is one example of a game with a commercial side that is published on f-droid.

yencabulator 2y ago

> I won't trust no tracking if it's non free. Meanwhile, lots of non-mobile free software includes tracking (telemetry) these days. The cynic in me has had to switch to I won't trust no tracking if it's not enforced by a security boundary.

jraph 2y ago
Which free software does this without asking / telling the user? Especially free software that tells you no tracking? But yes, free software is not a guarantee against tracking. It only allows auditing and be modified.
- yencabulator 2y ago
  Here's a sampling of stuff I've semi-recently encountered on Github that all spy on you by default. For some, it's undocumented, for others it's a minor subsection in the docs. (Some of them are source-available not free, I didn't keep track as I collected the URLs.) https://github.com/zed-industries/zed https://github.com/zed-industries/zed https://github.com/microsoft/vscode https://github.com/microsoft/vscode https://github.com/keystonejs/keystone https://github.com/keystonejs/keystone https://github.com/meilisearch/meilisearch https://github.com/meilisearch/meilisearch https://github.com/hasura/graphql-engine https://github.com/hasura/graphql-engine https://github.com/manticoresoftware/manticoresearch/ https://github.com/manticoresoftware/manticoresearch/ https://github.com/coder/code-server https://github.com/coder/code-server https://github.com/loft-sh/devpod https://github.com/loft-sh/devpod https://github.com/quickwit-oss/quickwit https://github.com/quickwit-oss/quickwit https://github.com/rilldata/rill-developer/ https://github.com/rilldata/rill-developer/ https://github.com/hocus-dev/hocus https://github.com/hocus-dev/hocus https://github.com/firezone/firezone https://github.com/firezone/firezone Here's a write-up of how bad it gets -- it's pretty obnoxious: https://www.roboleary.net/tools/2022/04/20/vscode-telemetry.html https://www.roboleary.net/tools/2022/04/20/vscode-telemetry....
  - jraph 2y ago
    VSCode is proprietary. That's why the difference between Codium and VSCode matters. Actually, IIRC the code from the ms repo does not do telemetry, they add it to the binary they distribute.