Great news: someone at the EU understands that public services must not foist Big Tech on their citizens.

F-Droid.org tooted the news yesterday: “EU Pilot project — De-monopolized access to EU applications”

What does this mean and why is it important?

I recently framed a take on this issue as “FOSS Apps Live In FOSS App Stores”. Free (Libre) Open Source Software apps should be distributed in such a way as to be available to everyone, not only to Apple's and Google's users.

The same fundamental issue applies to apps provided by governments for public use. Today, our governments are distributing their apps only through Google's and Apple's stores, and so are requiring their citizens to be signed-up users of these particular Big Tech companies in order to use them. We citizens do not all want to be under the control of such companies: many of us opt out, and many others wish to opt out but find too many obstacles such as this.

The governments must stop doing this.

How are they looking at solving this?

The long EU paper says, under “Item PP 02 23 02”: “The focus of the pilot project includes EU institutions releasing their apps on existing alternative app stores, including f-droid that aims at promoting apps released under open source licenses”.

Saying “alternative app stores, including f-droid” recognises that the goal is to have app stores that are independent of the Big Tech corporations, and that currently there is one well established technology for independent app stores, called F-Droid.

How does F-Droid come in?

To understand better the role that F-Droid will likely play in this pilot project, it is important to understand that F-Droid refers to two things.

First, F-Droid is a curated app store, known for its ethic and strong enforcement of only Free (Libre) Open Source Software, and warnings about anti-features in the apps it distributes.

Second, F-Droid is also an open standard mechanism by which other organisations can set up their own curated app stores¹, and by which people can search and install apps from those independent f-droid app stores in just the same way as from the F-Droid.org app store. (I'll use lower-case “f-droid” as a reminder.) Unlike most well known Big Tech platforms, independent f-droid app stores are absolutely independently governed by their creators: they are not created inside some platform controlled by the F-Droid.org team.

Anyone can use F-Droid on a Google-Android phone and also, importantly, on a phone that is android-compatible but not connected to a Google account and perhaps not running any Google software, especially not their Play Store. Such a phone is also known as “a degoogled phone”).

A citizen using a degoogled phone, or one who does not want to get an app via Google for other reasons, can search and install apps from both the F-Droid.org app store and also any other compatible app stores to which the user opts in.

It is entirely feasible and I would suggest likely that the EU would evaluate running their own F-Droid app store for their apps, either in addition to or instead of submitting their apps to the F-Droid.org store, so as not to be dependent on it, and to have control over their terms and conditions and schedule of distribution.

Hurray! and may others take up the idea too.

Read More

• FOSS Apps Live in FOSS App Stores!
• F-Droid's fediverse feed
• FOSDEM '23 talk Sat 15:00 Reckoning with new app store changes: Is now our chance? — Recent legal and policy developments around app stores and what they mean for free software
• FOSDEM '23 talk Sat 16:00 EU alternative to app stores — Guardian Project tooted: “At #FOSDEM, @marcel_kolaja will present the #EU pilot project to look into open-sourcing the EU's apps and publishing them outside of #BigTech including on @fdroidorg. @eighthave will join, talking about how F-Droid will help pull the EU towards #FreeSoftware. Join us!”

[¹] The f-droid mechanism is quite Small Tech, and open to anyone with technical skills. For example, I run a little f-droid repository myself, with currently just one app in it.

#degoogled

Feedback:

• email me: julian@foad.me.uk
• matrix me: @julian:foad.me.uk

Donations gratefully accepted

Feedback:

• email me: julian@foad.me.uk
• matrix me: @julian:foad.me.uk

Donations gratefully accepted

F-Droid

2023-01-19 17:23:45

#FDroid in an #EU "Pilot project — De-monopolized access to EU applications"... "The focus of the pilot project includes EU institutions releasing their apps on existing alternative app stores, including f-droid that aims at promoting apps released under open source licenses"

https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-14783-2022-ADD-5/en/pdf

Don't lock a FOSS Android app in Google's proprietary store!

Many of us are looking to FOSS solutions in order to keep our digital lives under our own control. We don't accept that any Big Tech company should hold the keys to a vast swathe of our digital life. So on our smart phones we may choose to use a FOSS version of Android. That means one that uses the open source parts of Android but avoids the proprietary Google lock-in parts. These so-called “deGoogled” Android-compatible operating systems include LineageOS, Murena /e/-OS, CalyxOS, GrapheneOS and more. Users of non-Google phones can find various “back door” ways to obtain apps from Google's play-by-our-rules-store, but that's completely the wrong way. FOSS apps should be available through FOSS app stores such as F-Droid.

F-Droid is not only an app store, it's also a protocol or “app store kit” that allows anyone to publish their own F-Droid-compatible app store. (I set up one up just to publish one camera app for myself and friends.) Each app publisher can choose whether to publish their app in the F-Droid store following its rules and conditions, or publish on their own store where they can set their own rules and conditions. Each user can decide which F-Droid-compatible stores they want to use, according to their own assessment of the publisher's reputation.

Read more about F-Droid:

• “Why curation and decentralization is better than millions of apps”

These fine FOSS people do it right

• FUTO Circles a.k.a. Circuli, matrix-based private social media — published in their own f-droid repo [1]

These fine FOSS people need a nudge

• Pocket Casts — issue filed: “Add to F-Droid” (I've up-voted it)

TODO: add lots more examples

These Fine People Understand

• EU Pilot Project: Public Apps in F-Droid

Read More

• FOSDEM '23 talk Sat 15:00 Reckoning with new app store changes: Is now our chance? — Recent legal and policy developments around app stores and what they mean for free software
• FOSDEM '23 talk Sat 16:00 EU alternative to app stores — Guardian Project tooted: “At #FOSDEM, @marcel_kolaja will present the #EU pilot project to look into open-sourcing the EU's apps and publishing them outside of #BigTech including on @fdroidorg. @eighthave will join, talking about how F-Droid will help pull the EU towards #FreeSoftware. Join us!”

[1] An f-droid repo link is not a web page. To use it, you open your f-droid app's “repositories” settings and add the link there.

Related: – FOSS Apps Live in FOSS Forges– Your FOSS Project Deserves its Own Domain

More: #degoogled #awesomeFOSS #selfHosted #GiveUpGithub #DitchDiscord

Feedback:

• email me: julian@foad.me.uk
• matrix me: @julian:foad.me.uk

Donations gratefully accepted

Feedback:

• email me: julian@foad.me.uk
• matrix me: @julian:foad.me.uk

Donations gratefully accepted

Julian Foad

2021-05-11 21:04:46

I made my first Android app. Well, I didn’t write it from scratch, I took an open source camera app and just renamed and modified it a bit, and rebuilt it.

I called it Trax Cam.

It is a fork of Open Camera. The initial, test version of Trax Cam makes just two small improvements over Open Camera:

• (old)
• Trax Cam
• (old)
• Trax Cam

1. improving the visual difference of the shutter buttons between video and photo mode, recording and not recording, by contrasting colour and style;
2. not forgetting the zoom level when temporarily switching to another app and back, switching between photo and video modes, and the like.

Impressive? Is this everything you have ever wanted from a camera app? No, I didn’t think so. That’s not the point of it. Dear reader, it’s not for you. Not yet, anyway. Sorry!

Trax Cam is not yet intended as a product for ordinary users. Rather, the purpose of this project, at least initially, is as a learning exercise for me. The status of it, at the time of writing, is it is stable, being based on a stable version of Open Camera, and I am running it as my main camera app on two different phones, but I am not committing to making further fixes or updates. I might or might not continue developing or updating it. Switching to other projects will give me a broader and probably more useful learning experience.

Default Camera for /E/-OS

/e/-foundation‘s /e/-OS comes with OpenCamera as its default camera app. I had previously installed OpenCamera on my main LineageOS-powered phone, alongside the default LineageOS camera code-named ‘snap’.

I would sometimes switch between OpenCamera and ‘snap’. I like different things about them, mainly the range of options in OpenCamera and the simplicity of ‘snap’, with neither of them managing to bring the best possible combination, and both still having annoyances and room for improvement.

It was while evaluating /e/ that I noticed again several of the shortcomings of OpenCamera, and decided it could be time for me to do something about it. I had some ideas noted in my head, and have now written them down in a bug tracker.

Trax Cam Issues: https://lab.trax.im/trax.im/traxcam/-/issues . Issue #1 is Remember my zoom level , #2 is Boldly indicate photo/video/recording states (both still “open” as I am not satisfied that I have yet completed them as well as could be done), and I have opened several more.

At the same time, I discovered /e/-foundation is recruiting among other positions a Camera developer: “[You want] to make open source camera apps as good as high-end camera apps?” (If you are an “experienced (5+ years) Android developer”, check it out.) It’s good to see that /e/-foundation recognizes the need and seems to have some resources to tackle it.

In my opinion, one thing /e/ could do to encourage volunteer developers to develop OpenCamera (or another) in a useful direction for /e/ and other libre Android uses, would be to publish a road map or a prioritization of issues for what they consider needs to be done. I feel that projects providing a summary of what they want done is often missing and often a surprisingly effective driver in open source development. Developers tend to be quicker and more efficient at implementing something that is at least loosely specified (along with rationale to explain why) than creating something that they need to invent from scratch.

Comparing with Other Cameras

Besides OpenCamera and Lineage ‘snap’ I also briefly tried FreeDCam and OxygenOS camera (proprietary). Those each have some very slick UI designs which bear studying and would be nice to bring in. In particular, if I recall correctly they both use swipe to review the last and earlier taken pictures, which seems to me more intuitive and easier to use.

I noticed the OxygenOS camera used slick-looking rotary dials for analogue settings such as exposure compensation. I really liked this at first sight. In use, I found their behaviour a bit fussy and skiddy, easy to leave it on a random in-between value, hard to return quickly to the previously used value. It would be great if we could create something along those lines of analogue beauty, but with more positive and robust behaviour to set and leave a desired value. For example, I think it is common and so needs to be easy to switch between “auto” and the last used non-auto value. (Not just for camera controls, indeed, but for all kinds of settings in all apps.)

Available on My F-Droid App Store

You can try out Trax Cam if you like, even though it is not (currently) aimed at general use. https://fdroid.foad.me.uk/fdroid/repo/im.trax.cam_80.apk is a direct link to the installer file for my initial test version. It’s not published on Google Play store. You will need your “install from unknown sources” option enabled in Android settings.

I also put up my own F-Droid app store, and put Trax Cam up on it, so we can install it on phones through the f-droid app. This too is not currently intended for general end users. However, you are welcome to try it. First install the f-droid app (https://f-droid.org/), then add my repository’s URL (https://fdroid.foad.me.uk) under settings, repositories, add.

If you are unfamiliar with F-Droid, it comprises:

• an Open/Libre app store system by which anyone can set up and serve their own app repository, and anyone can browse and install apps from such repositories; and
• the F-Droid app, for browsing and installing apps from any such repositories; and
• a repository of Free/Libre apps for Android, which is the default repository that the F-Droid app connects to until you tell it about other ones.

Putting up my own app store is part of my ambition to support independent creation of free/libre software and self-owned services.

https://blog.foad.me.uk/2021/05/11/introducing-trax-cam/

Issues · Trax / traxcam

Android camera based on Open Camera · Development repository · Introduction blog post

^GitLab