What is the future of F-Droid and apps it distributes now that Google is hell bent on stopping sideloading and forcing developers to register at google? A large portion of what F-droid distributes are apps that are not at Google’s good graces.
https://hackaday.com/2025/08/26/google-will-require-developer-verification-even-for-sideloading/
More immediately, push as hard as possible against it. No mountain is too big that it can’t be moved with the right strategy.
On the longer term, forking AOSP would be a good bet, I think, but do note it requires a continuous effort/investment. In the same vein, pushing for Linux and non-Apple-developed BSD systems for mobile (the latter dunno if exists, but if Apple did it, others could also).
Another thing, but for much longer down the line, to change culture. For example, to stop using, as the saying goes, “the language of the enemy”, like instead of “sideloading”, which implies avoiding the main/correct way, say “installing”, and “program” instead of “app”/“application”, same as more standard computers. Also if the situation allows, whenever possible, to point the problem Google is, and to not cause apathy, to include solutions in the argument.
I was calling computer programs “apps” long before the iPhone ever came out.
The term “application” far precedes iPhones. I don’t know why that term is associated with them. I usually use the term app for any application, on Linux or Android.
I’m new to this ‘language of the enemy’ lesson. There are so many categories of types of software though. How are we to distinguish best terms for this cause? love the resilient optimism this comment brings
I try to think what could the meaning behind a message be, even if as an unintended consequence. For example, referring to the Windows release of a program as the “PC release” while referring to other releases by their systems’ names, e.g. “Linux release”, “iOS release”, etc., could disassociate the notion of “PC” with the other systems, so in this example, when someone wants to get a new PC, if he/she only finds computers with Windows, he/she wouldn’t find weird the lack of other options.
Manipulating the language is a way to manipulate the people. And if you’d be interested to check regarding pointing out this in the technology niches, Louis Rossmann is tackling it way harder for some months now.
he/she is not the language of the enemy, per se, but ‘they’ does exist.
And for pointing out who the “enemy” would be, a start, I think, is to see who benefits or promotes a given “language”, and if it goes against your ideals.