Google Ends Its 30% App Store Fee, Welcomes Third-Party App Stores
Someone comments “Please don’t legislate me as a monopoly!”, others point out that the developer “only” needs to register on Google to be able to run anything on Android.
I was wondering if this could be turned into an opportunity to finance the development of free-as-in-freedom software.
Let me explain: you only upload on the Play Store the paid version, while on F-Droid the free one, taking for granted that people using F-Droid will be technivally savvy enough to circument Google’s obstacles to side-loading. Provided Google don’t completely ban side-loading.
In fact Google will turn Android into a locked-down platform in a few months, so please Read keepandroidopen.org open letter opposing the Android Developer Verification program.
Please, help them pressuring Google to Keep Android Open
Some people propose to define the request for non-anonymous registration of devs on the Play Store as an anti-competitive practice (or detrimental to the market), but I agree with those stating that this stance is hardly useful.
Not being able to develop and run apps without notifying Google of your identity can be problematic, although when governments are behind such requests it is very difficult to dodge them. I want to maintain my freedom to run the software I want on my hardware. Sadly from a technical-legal point of view government may mandate such identification.
This is almost exactly the scenario depicted in the cautionary tale The Right to Read here the origical copy from fsf.org website. I will do anything legal to avoid such crazy requirements to become laws but I also remember that in the past slavery was legal, racism was mandatory