Hans-Christoph Steiner @eighthave@librem.one

App stores are certainly a lot more than just payment clearing services for selling apps. #DMAWorkshop

@ilumium finally got #FreeSoftware in the discussion: #Apple is not the only one who can run an app store well. And they didn't even invent app stores, but instead, that came from #GNULinux distros at least a decade earlier. #DMAWorkshop

#Apple's representative gave a classic, well polished FUD PR piece framed as lots of questions. Of course, I fully agree that human review of apps is key to trustworthy app stores, that's why #FDroid goes the whole way and requires apps provide the whole source code to be review, not just the binaries. And F-Droid does done this since 2010 even though #FDroid is not a #gatekeeper. Being the only app store on the platform locks out app stores that do better review than #apple. #DMAWorkshop

#FreeSoftware was almost mentioned at #DMAWorkshop: one key point was that mobile operating systems in 2008 were in a race to get developers. #iOS and #Android were tiny newcomers with no developers. The idea from app stores came from free software and hackers. #Debian APT started in the 90s, #Cydia was on iOS when #Apple was still saying web apps were the only way. And of course, #Android used #OpenSource as a key strategy to get #developers interested in their platform.

I love that Martijn Snoep, the Dutch regulator, used the term #DarkPatterns, that gives me hope that this regulation can be effective. #DMAWorkshop

The #gatekeepers have huge resources as compared to the regulators, so regulators must be strategic and pool resources. Also, communities based on tracking and reviewing the actions of the #gatekeepers can also play a role here. #Developers know the APIs they have to work with, and can report fishy business. Bloggers can report on key technical details that steer things towards the #gatekeepers. #Hackers can show when things ate technically possible, despite what #gatekeepers say. #DMAWorkshop

Time to change my lingo, I've been saying #monopoly. At the #DMAWorkshop the talk is always about #gatekeepers. It is a clearer analogy.

Gene Burrus again raises a key point. Platform companies change APIs frequently as a method to deliberately disadvantage other developers, forcing them to play catch up to have a good user experience. #DMAWorkshop

Fully support the question from uptodown.com: file formats matter, #Android App Bundles (AAB) vs APKs give #GooglePlay a big wedge to disadvantage other app stores. #Google is good at turning small technical improvements like that into tools to maintain their #monopoly. There are other ways to solve the problem of smaller APKs. This one happens to preference Google Play, since control that format and require it. Plus they require developers give their private key to Google Play #DMAWorkshop

Great point from Gene Burrus: #Microsoft's #monopoly was broken via regulation, and that meant that #Google and #Apple were not charged a 30% fee as they worked to break into the market that had been dominated by #Microsoft. The DMA is building on that experience. #DMAWorkshop

Flying to Brussels, I was offered some digital boarding pass format which I was not familiar with: #Passbook pkpass. Living #GoogleFree, I assumed it was some proprietary thing. But I searched #FDroid and found @ligi 's app:
https://f-droid.org/packages/org.ligi.passandroid/
It worked perfectly! #FreeSoftware #FTW

So far no mention of #FreeSoftware at the #DMAWorkshop but I guess that's not surprising since it opens with in-app payments as a central topic. It would be great to see free options like #Liberapay and #OpenCollective represented. I was happy to meet @murena here, so I know I'm not alone as an #FLOSS-based implementer.

#DMAWorkshop has started, many more suits than I'm used to. The first interesting insight I gathered in conversation: "sideloading" is a loaded word which serves the monopolists. On other platforms, this is called "installing". Sideloading highlights that there is a main source, and installing outside of that source. Of course, many people don't want to think about the source, but we need choice over which is the main source.

On my way to #Brussels for the #DMAWorkshop, trying to channel #FreeSoftware communities in what I fear might be an event focused on the giants #proprietary software. Or maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised?

A century ago, Polish and Ukrainian nationalists fought a brutal war against each other, where at least 50,000 died. Now they are allies. Let's hope history continues to follow this pattern, and we put #nationalism to rest. Let people be people, and respect their culture, language, religion, and democracy wherever people happen to live. Central Europe always was and always will be multi-ethnic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Ukrainian_War
https://warsawinstitute.org/poland-ukraine-history-divides/