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I was lurking on reddit and found out this post, I guess from the owner of @[email protected] .

I really hope that they will find a solution, I think that a lot of people depend on the good state of F-droid

    • [email protected]@feddit.itOP
      372·
      11 months ago

      Thats a reddit link

      that was my source, but anyway I will copy-paste the simplified explanation (the one I understood, btw)

      I might be oversimplifying, but here goes.

      The Board Community Council reached a decision on something (namely, giving members of the Community Council further direct GitLab access); Hans happens to be the one currently endowed with Owner privileges on GitLab aside from Ciaran; Hans refused to implement the decision, while arguing that the decision hadn’t been clearly taken, that the meeting minutes didn’t specify it, or such technicalities. The Community Council clearly disagreed with that view, and, seeing that they are in theory given the ability to make such decisions, but that in practice, Hans has the technical privileges to block, override, and trump them, they considered it a farce, and resigned from the Community Council, as well as leaving the F-Droid project in its entirety (except for Izzy, who however also resigned and signed the statement I link in the OP, and who is taking an indefinite break).

      I guess they didn’t realize, and didn’t like, that their project was being run by a self-appointed leader rather than by the structures that had just been carefully put in place to avoid having unclear leadership.

      from the commento of the OP here https://www.reddit.com/r/fossdroid/comments/18aq3x6/comment/kbzu7e9/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

      • sabreW4K3@lemmy.tfEnglish
        20·
        11 months ago

        That’s such a shame. From what I can gather, Izzy really cares about FOSS software. This will be a massive loss. But if we’re honest, how can two thirds of the board quit rather than just the one person that’s causing problems?

        • Johannes Jacobs@lemmy.jhjacobs.nl
          101·
          11 months ago

          Well, i would imagine if hes the only one who has administrative access to the gitlab environment, then basicly he can do as he pleases and anyone on the board cant stop him anyway (if they cant remove him from gitlab because they have no administrative rights), so all they can do is quit.

          Thats what i think :)

          • CosmicTurtle@lemmy.worldEnglish
            12·
            11 months ago

            I’m not super familiar with the situation but very familiar with how boards work.

            Anyone know why the board resigned instead of pursuing legal action? Unless the gitlab instance was in the admins actual name, it belongs to the org. A restraining order removing the admin would be enough for gitlab proper to remove the guy and install someone else.

            While most courts don’t know a lot about technology, board of director actions are very, very straight forward.

      • [email protected]@feddit.itOP
        1314·
        11 months ago

        Because without context, your link cannot be understood by the majority of people using f-droid (or, at least me)

        The reddit thread gives the context.

        It is the same difference as linking a news article about a new law or the link to the law or something very specific on a government site

  • datavoid@lemmy.mlEnglish
    191·
    11 months ago

    Sounds like F-Droid is dying because this Hans person is power tripping or having some kind of tantrum

  • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
    7·
    11 months ago

    This is why organizations need strong bylaws. Without bylaws we are in trouble.

    Anyway, does anyone know if there is a way to protest this? This Hans fella may be reasonable. I would also like to hear his prospective.

    Also, I would be concerned about two things. The first thing is who controls the finances. In the chaos of it all someone could walk off with a bunch of money. Second off, we should be worried about related organizations like lineage. Lineage os isn’t a nonprofit which means someone could or could have already started doing things like embezzling. Being a nonprofit with bylaws is time consuming but it protects against bad behavior.

  • vortexal@lemmy.ml
    73·
    11 months ago

    F-Droid alternative clients and repositories exist, so as far as I’m aware this shouldn’t really be that big of a problem.

      • vortexal@lemmy.ml
        2·
        11 months ago

        How do other repositories handle this? Do they just use F-Droid to process the apps and then just add the F-Droid version of that app to their repository, or is there another method they use?

        • [email protected]@feddit.itOP
          4·
          11 months ago

          F-droid Is multiple things

          • An app (client side) that allows users to install apps from many repos
          • A repo system (server side) that allows anyone to host apps in multiple versions
          • A build system that guarantees that the binary apks are built from the sources

          The official f-droid repo hosts only apps built with the f-droid build system. The binaries are signed with the f-droid key and in general are different from the binaries of the same apps that you can find elsewhere, like the GitHub of the apps themseves.

          For example IzzyOnDroid repo uses f-droid repo system to host the binaries of many Foss apps as found from each GitHub repo, so not from the f-droid build system.

          • vortexal@lemmy.ml
            12·
            11 months ago

            So that would mean that, unless I’m wrong, the closest thing to an alternative for F-Droid that currently exists would be Obtainium. Obtainium is the only other android app that I’m aware of that can install/update apps directly from sources like GitHub.

            • [email protected]@feddit.itOP
              3·
              11 months ago

              Like you say Obtanium is able to grab the compiled apks from many different sources, like GitHub release pages and f-droid 1st and 3rd party repos.

              F-droid, on the other hand,bgrab the sources from many repos, compiles and signs them, so that all the apks from f-droid repo are guaranteed to be compiled from the relative source, without the addition of anything (tracker, malware…). The same cannot be said (in the sense of technically guaranteed, not in the sense that they are not honest) for the apks you get from GitHub, which are uploaded from the various manteiners.

              Edit: in a sense “f-droid build system and repo” and Obtanium are different and complementary:

              • fdroid is a repo that gives transparency from source to binary of the apks and contains a certain subset of Foss apps

              • Obtanium is a system that aims at giving the greatest amount of apps, without looking too much at where that come from

              • vortexal@lemmy.ml
                3·
                11 months ago

                Yeah, that’s why I said that Obtainium was “the closest thing to an alternative for F-Droid”. If F-Droid goes down because of the current state of things, it would impact all of the other clients and repos. Meaning that Obtainium, while it does work completely differently and it’s not perfect, would be the closest thing to an alternative for F-Droid until someone else makes a real F-Droid alternative. Once again, I will state that I could be wrong, I don’t have perfect knowledge of the internet and therefor, wouldn’t know if someone has already made a more direct alternative to F-Droid that no one has probably even heard of.

  • ChiefSinner@lemm.ee
    62·
    11 months ago

    I hope the devs find good projects in the future. I use fdroidomn my phone, but now I might have to rethink it