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>Sideloading is a neologism to scare users and lawmakers, it just means "Installing software" and should be a basic right. No it's not. The term originated far

by gruez 10mo ago

>Sideloading is a neologism to scare users and lawmakers, it just means "Installing software" and should be a basic right. No it's not. The term originated far before this debacle, and carries a meaningful distinction than just "installing". Specifically it means installing from a non-first party source. You might not agree the restriction should exist, or that even the concept of first party source at all, but for communication purposes it's worth having a simple word to describe that concept, rather than something like "installing from a non-first party app store".

archvile 10mo ago
So... installing software? >Specifically it means installing from a non-first party source. Just like 99% of software running on computers in the world today? How is it different from "installing software"?
- gruez 10mo ago
  >How is that different from "installing software"? It's easy to see this play out if try to replace "sideloading" with "installing software". If you apply it to OP's headline of >Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android You get >Google confirms 'high-friction' installing software flow is coming to Android which isn't at all accurate. You still need the distinct concept of "installing software not from first party sources", otherwise it sounds like google is making it a pain to install all apps, which isn't the case.
  - glenstein 10mo ago
    Sure, you could argue it helps to express a distinction but that doesn't mean it has to live inside the verb install. Historically installing software was the general act and provenance was handled with qualifiers eg installing from "third-party sources", "manual install" etc. Android is alone among computing platforms in collapsing that qualifier into a new term that implicitly recenters the Play Store as the default meaning of "install." In other ecosystems the store path is described as "store install" not the other way around. Android chose the inverse framing and that choice isn't neutral.
    - gruez 10mo ago
      >Sure, you could argue it helps to express a distinction but that doesn't mean it has to live inside the verb install. Right, which is why they used "sideload". >In other ecosystems the store path is described as "store install" not the other way around. Android chose the inverse framing and that choice isn't neutral. No, this is just being non-neutral in the opposite direction. Given the fact that installing from the play store is the default experience for the overwhelming majority of the user, calling it "store install" is even more obtuse.
      - glenstein 10mo ago
        "That’s why they used sideload" is exactly the point being contested. Historically, install was the unmarked, neutral verb for adding software, regardless of source. The distinction, when needed, lived in qualifiers about provenance. Introducing a new verb for non-store installs does more than merely describe a difference, it reassigns conceptual ownership of "install" to the store path. And neutrality here isn't about mirroring current usage frequency (which is unique to Android and recent relative to the history of computing), it's about continuity with prior computing norms. Even when one distribution path dominated in practice, it didn't get to redefine the base verb.
  - sophrosyne42 10mo ago
    It is more informative to reword it
  - dns_snek 10mo ago
    Well that's just self-referential. You're justifying the distinction by referring to Google's (artificial) distinction.
- estimator7292 10mo ago
  How are "programming" "coding" and "developing" different? Is a "tap" different from a "click"? How about "swipe" vs "drag"? Sometimes we use different words in different contexts. Language usually doesn't make logical sense. In mobile environments you sideload to get the binary onto the device and use the OS to properly install it. This dates from a time where putting the binary on the device was the difficult part. Devices didn't have standard ports or fast/free wireless data. You had to do something special to transfer the data. In a lot of cases, installation was also a separate special process involving the command line. It wasn't always just tapping the install button.
functionmouse 10mo ago
before phones that was just called installing software
glenstein 10mo ago
>No it's not. The term originated far before this debacle, and carries a meaningful distinction than just "installing". Specifically it means installing from a non-first party source It's amazing how many confidently wrong people are springing up out of the wordwork to present revisionist history about the meaning of "install" like it's ancient wisdom. Pre-mobile computing treated "install" as neutral and primary and had no built in relation to centralized distribution. Sideloading as a term of art originally, in practice came into usage for transferring media to devices, and some cloud file hosts briefly used it to mean load a file to an online drive without downloading it to computer. It's usage was varied, irregular, and not at any threshold of popular acceptance for one meaning or another. Windows, Dos, Linux, and online self-hosted services had no notion of "sideloading", or at least no usage of that vocabulary and did not use this notion of "install" that is now being retrospectively declared a longstanding historical norm. Even now, that's not a term used in Windows or Linux. Even Apple, who very much in practice utilize this controlled distribution model but even they don't use this sideloading/installing verbal distinction. In Apple's lexicon installing is neutral with respect to where an app comes from. So it's staggering to see a specific term of art that deviates from historical precedent that only is used in an Android context and only relatively recently in the history of computing be referred to as if its observing a longstanding precedent across all of computing. It's nothing of the sort.
- gruez 10mo ago
  >Even now, that's not a term used in Windows or Linux. No, it's existed in windows 10 (and probably windows 8.1) for over a decade. https://www.ghacks.net/2015/06/13/how-to-enable-developer-mode-in-windows-10-to-sideload-apps/ https://www.ghacks.net/2015/06/13/how-to-enable-developer-mo... (note the date) >So it's staggering to see a specific term of art that deviates from historical precedent that only is used in an Android context and only relatively recently in the history of computing be referred to as if its observing a longstanding precedent across all of computing. It's nothing of the sort. None of that refutes anything I said. You're basically arguing "back in the good old days, all installs were not from first party source and there was no distinction", but that doesn't mean no such distinction exists right now. Otherwise it's like arguing "immigration" is some "neologism" because back before the advent of the nation state, people just moved wherever, there wasn't random lines that turned "moving" to "immigration", and the word "immigration" is coined by statists that want to impose their worldview on the populace.
curt15 10mo ago
> Specifically it means installing from a non-first party source What "first-party" source? Apple invented out of thin air the notion of a "first-party" software source or that computer users can only install software approved by a central authority.
ThunderSizzle 10mo ago
The idea the manufacturer of a product is a "first party" is BS. You are the first party. If I own the device, I am the first party. The manufacturer is now a second or third party after you own the device, and for most ideas, a third party, especially if they don't truly offer real support of the device.

by gruez 10mo ago

archvile 10mo ago

So... installing software? >Specifically it means installing from a non-first party source. Just like 99% of software running on computers in the world today? How is it different from "installing software"?

gruez 10mo ago
>How is that different from "installing software"? It's easy to see this play out if try to replace "sideloading" with "installing software". If you apply it to OP's headline of >Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android You get >Google confirms 'high-friction' installing software flow is coming to Android which isn't at all accurate. You still need the distinct concept of "installing software not from first party sources", otherwise it sounds like google is making it a pain to install all apps, which isn't the case.
- glenstein 10mo ago
  Sure, you could argue it helps to express a distinction but that doesn't mean it has to live inside the verb install. Historically installing software was the general act and provenance was handled with qualifiers eg installing from "third-party sources", "manual install" etc. Android is alone among computing platforms in collapsing that qualifier into a new term that implicitly recenters the Play Store as the default meaning of "install." In other ecosystems the store path is described as "store install" not the other way around. Android chose the inverse framing and that choice isn't neutral.
  - gruez 10mo ago
    >Sure, you could argue it helps to express a distinction but that doesn't mean it has to live inside the verb install. Right, which is why they used "sideload". >In other ecosystems the store path is described as "store install" not the other way around. Android chose the inverse framing and that choice isn't neutral. No, this is just being non-neutral in the opposite direction. Given the fact that installing from the play store is the default experience for the overwhelming majority of the user, calling it "store install" is even more obtuse.
    - glenstein 10mo ago
      "That’s why they used sideload" is exactly the point being contested. Historically, install was the unmarked, neutral verb for adding software, regardless of source. The distinction, when needed, lived in qualifiers about provenance. Introducing a new verb for non-store installs does more than merely describe a difference, it reassigns conceptual ownership of "install" to the store path. And neutrality here isn't about mirroring current usage frequency (which is unique to Android and recent relative to the history of computing), it's about continuity with prior computing norms. Even when one distribution path dominated in practice, it didn't get to redefine the base verb.
- sophrosyne42 10mo ago
  It is more informative to reword it
- dns_snek 10mo ago
  Well that's just self-referential. You're justifying the distinction by referring to Google's (artificial) distinction.
estimator7292 10mo ago
How are "programming" "coding" and "developing" different? Is a "tap" different from a "click"? How about "swipe" vs "drag"? Sometimes we use different words in different contexts. Language usually doesn't make logical sense. In mobile environments you sideload to get the binary onto the device and use the OS to properly install it. This dates from a time where putting the binary on the device was the difficult part. Devices didn't have standard ports or fast/free wireless data. You had to do something special to transfer the data. In a lot of cases, installation was also a separate special process involving the command line. It wasn't always just tapping the install button.

functionmouse 10mo ago

before phones that was just called installing software

glenstein 10mo ago

>No it's not. The term originated far before this debacle, and carries a meaningful distinction than just "installing". Specifically it means installing from a non-first party source It's amazing how many confidently wrong people are springing up out of the wordwork to present revisionist history about the meaning of "install" like it's ancient wisdom. Pre-mobile computing treated "install" as neutral and primary and had no built in relation to centralized distribution. Sideloading as a term of art originally, in practice came into usage for transferring media to devices, and some cloud file hosts briefly used it to mean load a file to an online drive without downloading it to computer. It's usage was varied, irregular, and not at any threshold of popular acceptance for one meaning or another. Windows, Dos, Linux, and online self-hosted services had no notion of "sideloading", or at least no usage of that vocabulary and did not use this notion of "install" that is now being retrospectively declared a longstanding historical norm. Even now, that's not a term used in Windows or Linux. Even Apple, who very much in practice utilize this controlled distribution model but even they don't use this sideloading/installing verbal distinction. In Apple's lexicon installing is neutral with respect to where an app comes from. So it's staggering to see a specific term of art that deviates from historical precedent that only is used in an Android context and only relatively recently in the history of computing be referred to as if its observing a longstanding precedent across all of computing. It's nothing of the sort.

gruez 10mo ago
>Even now, that's not a term used in Windows or Linux. No, it's existed in windows 10 (and probably windows 8.1) for over a decade. https://www.ghacks.net/2015/06/13/how-to-enable-developer-mode-in-windows-10-to-sideload-apps/ https://www.ghacks.net/2015/06/13/how-to-enable-developer-mo... (note the date) >So it's staggering to see a specific term of art that deviates from historical precedent that only is used in an Android context and only relatively recently in the history of computing be referred to as if its observing a longstanding precedent across all of computing. It's nothing of the sort. None of that refutes anything I said. You're basically arguing "back in the good old days, all installs were not from first party source and there was no distinction", but that doesn't mean no such distinction exists right now. Otherwise it's like arguing "immigration" is some "neologism" because back before the advent of the nation state, people just moved wherever, there wasn't random lines that turned "moving" to "immigration", and the word "immigration" is coined by statists that want to impose their worldview on the populace.

curt15 10mo ago

> Specifically it means installing from a non-first party source What "first-party" source? Apple invented out of thin air the notion of a "first-party" software source or that computer users can only install software approved by a central authority.

ThunderSizzle 10mo ago

The idea the manufacturer of a product is a "first party" is BS. You are the first party. If I own the device, I am the first party. The manufacturer is now a second or third party after you own the device, and for most ideas, a third party, especially if they don't truly offer real support of the device.