Post by @fsfe@mastodon.social

#Android offers what #Apple never did: you are the one deciding what runs on your device.

Until now.

⚠️ Google’s developer verification scheme, with its 24h waiting period and app store fees of up to 16,000 USD a year, fades Android as an open platform. We question if Google is turning to Apple's business model.

WE cannot afford two Apples. WE need to correct this course.

Support our work: https://fsfe.org/donate/

🗞️ https://fsfe.org/news/2026/news-20261109-01.en.html

#KeepAndroidOpen #SoftwareFreedom

FSFE - Free Software Foundation Europe

Freedom in Android is fading, but we can still reverse the course - FSFE

Android became the world’s most-used mobile system because it was Free Software. Step by step, Google is closing it. But we can change this....

Donate - FSFE

#keepandroidopen #softwarefreedom #android #apple

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Guido Günther

@agx@ruhr.social 34 min. ago

@fsfe I really appreciate the FSFEs work over the decades but the focus on proprietary mobile platforms while there are #FreeSoftware alternatives with openess and user freedom built in strikes me as odd.

Let's rather make sure those Free Software Android apps continue to run great on #MobileLinux (we don't need anything from google for that) and put the money into moving a platform forward that has freedom and openess built in from the ground up.

#LinuxMobile #mobile #linux

Eduard-Cristian Boloș 🇷🇴🇪🇺

@EdyBolos@androiddev.social 15 hr. ago

@fsfe Where is the 16k USD a year coming from? AFAIK, there's "only" a one-time 25 USD fee for registration, there are no annual fees, but maybe I am missing something.

Tumon

@alphatumon@mastodon.social 16 hr. ago

@fsfe what can we do?!

goebbe

@goebbe@social.tchncs.de 17 hr. ago

@fsfe We should force #Apple to allow full side loading on #iOS, without any restrictions.
Instead, it seems that we let Alphabet/ #Google close their open #Android ecosystem in an anti-consumer move.

luca

@luc0x61@mastodon.gamedev.place 17 hr. ago

@fsfe It's all converging to the worst outcomes, sometimes it's always been there, until discovered. Google to Apple practices, Apple to Google's. Open source converges to closed source unethical behavior.
Entropy in software goes toward disrespectful, arrogant, forceful sloppification. There you go.

derptron

@crazyeddie@mastodon.social 18 hr. ago

@fsfe Do you or will you accept code written by slaves?

haui ☭🇵🇸

@haui@mastodon.giftedmc.com 20 hr. ago

@fsfe
We already have a duopoly which infringes massively on users rights, holds to no standards whatsoever. The current push towards more restrictiveness is only consequential.

This leads to the conclusion that we need not only to prevent a further restrictive push (aka apple 2) but start pushing further to force the duopoly to let us have the freedom to use whatever software we deem fit.

014b2abd

@_id@mastodon.social 20 hr. ago

@fsfe does it only seem to me or all this ranting and info in FOSS apps "so far has led to no action"? I don't see the general Google's intention changes at all or if there has been any significant push-back or compromise.