Add to f-droid repository

[Moini]

What brings you here and how are you?

Heh, what an unusual question. I don't even remember where I stumbled about this, just that I can't install it on my phone, because there are no build artifacts anywhere to be found, and it's also not available on f-droid. And Aurora Store is currently out of quota. It makes me a little sad to not be able to try this out :-(

Summary

It would be great to have this available for open source enthusiasts on f-droid (if you don't know what f-droid is: It's an alternative app store for Android, which only features open source apps, (most?) with reproducible builds and (most) without ads, trackers, ...

Motivation

Open source nerds need some love and support, too.

Describe alternatives you've considered

Google Playstore is already available. F-droid is the only big alternative that I know of. Artifacts on Github would be a stop-gap, but not a proper solution, as people would not be notified of updates.

Additional context

https://f-droid.org/docs/Submitting_to_F-Droid_Quick_Start_Guide/

[gewfy]

Hi,
Happy that you've found your way here! And thanks for educating me about F-Droid. As a non-Android user it was completely news to me, but makes a lot of sense.

Unfortunately our app relies on Firebase at the moment. So we're not completely FLOSS.
We know it's controversial for an open-source app. But it has really accelerated our development by being able to focus on the core of the app and not everything around it, like dev-ops and complex setups for real time messaging. Our aim is of course to remove it in the future. But we're nowhere near there.

However I gladly make sure to have our app build artefacts available here on GitHub, so you and others at least can try it out.

About Aurora Store, have you tried this? And then click on this link (our app)

[Moini]

@gewfy Happy to spread the info about f-droid, it's really cool - I don't usually install or even need anything from other sources, with some very select exceptions.

And thank you for explaining the how and why. I'm wondering whether maybe someone from the f-droid community might be able to lend a hand with the transition? Some of them must have done it themselves, at some point, I suppose. Unfortunately, I don't know anyone there personally, so can't help with connecting you.

As for the build artifacts, yes, that would be nice.

After I read your post, I remembered the 'Releases' feature of Github, though. That would make it possible to get update info, because there is an option to subscribe to the 'Releases' of a repository only. So using 'Releases' would be even better if that is possible.

[gewfy]

Great idea about using releases! I'll make sure to whip together something later in the week :)

Yeah I was thinking about asking the F-droid community for good alternatives when the time is right.

[Moini]

Thank you, that's nice!

I had forgotten to reply to the Aurora Store question: I had tried it before I came here, too, and it only showed a black screen, so failed to load the info from the PlayStore.