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F-Droid Board of Directors nominations 2026

163 points| edent | 2 days ago |f-droid.org

138 comments

order

scrollop|2 days ago

Will F-droid continue when Google bring in their changes, soon?

microtonal|2 days ago

Even with Google's changes, F-Droid will continue to work with Android phones that do not use Google GMS.

If you care about your actually owning your device, install something else than stock OS. I would recommend GrapheneOS, since the security of some/most other alternatives is pretty bad.

duskdozer|2 days ago

As of now, Google isn't destroying non-Google android installs, so F-droid will still work there (correct me if wrong). So until Google takes android fully closed or succeeds in getting popular/necessary apps to blacklist non-Google-verified devices, F-droid still has a role

izacus|2 days ago

Is there a KDE/GNOME/kernel-like group forming to take over Android AOSP development and provide free alternative yet?

riedel|2 days ago

I hope so. The changes can mean two things: people can only use it easily in custom roms (I guess there is an overlap there) or they actually would play with Google: i guess technically they could as well register and sign the stuff with a Google key as the software is all FOSS and would allow defining another responsible developer (otherwise Google would have to through out all FOSS without CLA from their playstore). I guess quitting would be an option, but IMHO the outrage outside the bubble would probably be hardly noticable, so what would be the point?

bentley|2 days ago

Were any of the current directors or new nominees involved in the incident where F-Droid marked Bible and Quran apps as NSFW, hid them from search by default, and expressed the intent to remove them completely (https://gitlab.com/fdroid/admin/-/issues/252#note_2578531026)? (Discussed on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45638096)

If I’m charitable, I could assume they intended to make a controversial move to drive public attention to the growing government restrictions on innocuous apps. As far as I know, though, nobody at F-Droid admitted to this; and if they were, why didn’t they mark other widely used apps like Wikipedia and Reddit frontends that provide easy access to much more sexually explicit content in the same protest?

If I’m less charitable, and go by what F-Droid admins actually said, they took this action out of a sincere belief that these apps contained content unsafe for minors that necessitated flagging, and sincerely believed that Wikipedia and Reddit frontends somehow don’t qualify for the same. If they honestly believed this, it demonstrates (to me) poor judgment; and since the action was walked back almost immediately due to negative public response, that indicates further that they never actually believed this in the first place, and that instead somebody took it upon himself to specifically target religious apps out of his own bias.

Either way, it really soured me on the judgment of the F-Droid maintainers. After a stunt like that, I no longer trust them to fight the battle against oppressive government restrictions on operating systems effectively. Formerly an F-Droid user of many years, this caused me to switch away completely: I’ve started donating monthly to Accrescent instead, download as many apps as I can from there, and switched from F-Droid to Obtanium for any apps not yet on Accrescent.

9864247888754|2 days ago

She lusted after lovers with genitals as large as a donkey’s and emissions like those of a horse. 21 And so, Oholibah, you relived your former days as a young girl in Egypt, when you first allowed your breasts to be fondled.

Ezekiel 23:20

F3nd0|2 days ago

My reading is they were simply trying to comply with regulations. It wasn't about what ideas they believed the religious texts were trying to convey, but whether their content met a certain definition set by law. The law could be poorly written, or it could be poorly and over-cautiously interpreted by F-Droid maintainers. But I didn't get the feeling they were acting on any kind of moral judgement or own belief about what's appropriate for children.

Does the Bible encourage violence or promiscuity? Not really, no. Does it mention and describe those things in some detail? Yes, absolutely. If that's the kind of content you need to remove from your store, then obviously you need to remove the Bible from your store. Whether that was really the case seems questionable at best, but the stated logic seemed pretty coherent to me.

behringer|2 days ago

Ironic as Governments use religion to oppress. In facts it's one of religions primary roles.

eikenberry|2 days ago

Even mainstream religions are seen at brainwashing cults by many people and my guess is it was something along these lines. They thought they were contributing to the greater good by keeping people from being indoctrinated into a cult. I don't agree but I've seen many self-proclaimed atheists make such statements.

tasuki|2 days ago

> a sincere belief that these apps contained content unsafe for minors

Hey I believe that too. If people are entitled to believe whatever is written in those books, surely people are also entitled to believe it's nonsense and actively harmful.

asacrowflies|1 day ago

I hope so! What a great move! Masterclass trolling of scumbags and no actual censorship.

twocommits|2 days ago

Why is there a need for whole "board of directors"?

brador|2 days ago

You always start open source at the kernel.

Linus knew this day 1 and it bows to no one.

ZeroCooly|2 days ago

Just recalling from memory, Linus Torvalds wasn't making a free and open source kernel at first. He was making a kernel yes, but he attended a Richard Stallman speech where Stallman introduced GNU and expressed that he needed a kernel cause AT&T was cracking down on Unix clones. And Linus was moved by that enough to change gears and renamed the project to Linus Unix aka Linux. Anyone who remembers better or has sources, correct me below, I'm writing from memory. My point is though that Linus wasn't originally intending to make a free and open source kernel.

iberator|2 days ago

what do you even mean?! start what at the kernel?

kernel is locked and most phones can't be rooted anymore