Hans-Christoph Steiner @eighthave@librem.one

@r3vilo @fdroidorg If you think its a bug, could you file a bug report on this: https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroidclient/-/issues/new

Please provide your Android version, F-Droid version, and which ROM you're running.

@dreua it is indeed a nice feature that the connection is separately maintained from the username. I was responding to the discussion about reusing well known public usernames. For all my public code repos, I use "eighthave". I could claim "eighthave" for Signal then lots of people could easily connect with me via Signal. But then anyone could also send me spam or Pegasus. So I think it was a mistake for Signal to call this a "username" it behaves differently, it is more like an invite link

@mdosch @timbray @element good point, for spammers, they can just generate all the phone numbers. For user names, they can generate all the shorter usernames. I imagine to have a long lived Signal username and avoid spam, it would have to be longer than 16 characters.

@r3vilo @fdroidorg you should only see this message after your base OS has changed. I wonder if there is a bug somewhere in that logic, since you said your Android version hasn't changed.

@austin @dreua @timbray right, just like with an email address or even a phone number. My point is that people should assume that this Signal username has all the same downsides as other systems with user-selected identifiers and treat it accordingly.

The #DigitalMarketsAct and other #competition actions against #gatekeeper app stores are based on the idea that an app store companies should not "self-preference" their own apps or services. This makes sense to a certain degree, especially when thinking about business. Ethical reasons must also be considered. #FDroid preferences apps based on #FreeSoftware and Anti-Features, which we as a community define. We should always be allowed to preference apps that follow standards of #UserFreedom.

@jlou that doesn't sounds possible to make work. I think it is important to stick to the four freedoms with Free Software. Copyright licenses are not an effective tool for trying to enforce other societal values. Such licenses are more likely to harm the people you're actually trying to help because it means they'll have to get lawyers involved in order to understand how and when they can use software with that license. #GPL means every individual is free to use it without needing legal help

@timbray Using a well known username for #Signal is a recipe for receiving lots of spam. I'll bet that's the main reason why Signal does not currently have much spam. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to use my public handle. Signal does well with smaller numbers of people and less active chats. Very active chats or large groups are quite painful in my experience as compared to @element Signal's use case is communicating with people you know, while #Matrix #IRC #Mastodon are for big/active groups

#Apple and #Google are also acting as #gatekeepers when it comes to medical, health and wellness software. #SurveillanceCapitalism and #monopoly control do not belong in health care.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41746-023-00754-6

#DMA #digitalmarketsact #gatekeeper

Yet another piece of evidence to support #Marx's idea that #socialism is inevitable: #VentureCapital #BigTech and financial firms are funding #FreeSoftware without an equity stake. These are supposed to be the true capitalists but are funding a system of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". Why? Because it works better than what capitalism can provide. I have a lot of problems with Marx but his economics is looking ever more solid https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/15/sequoia-open-source-fellowship-developer-funding/

@IzzyOnDroid @fdroidorg I think the #IzzySoftRepo is a good example of how a binary repo should be run: clear criteria for inclusion, good marking of Anti-Features, regular enforcement action, etc. Indeed @IzzyOnDroid caught the missing Anti-Features on the Guardian Project repo wth one of his scans. Thanks again!

One concrete example of the damage that #BigTech #gatekeeper companies like #Apple and #Google are doing to the mobile ecosystems is clear to see with media codec libraries. Right now, malware companies like #NSOGroup have maintained zero-click exploits in both #iOS and #Android for years. This is mostly via media exploits. iOS and Android have obscene profit margins, meaning both companies have plenty of cash for improving things. Yet where is the big outflow for fixing media codecs?

@guardianproject @fdroidorg Guardian Project would welcome contributions that replace the proprietary bits with equivalent free bits. I think #MapLibre can totally replace Google Maps now, but the apps in question were implemented before MapLibre was an option.