fosstodon.org is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
Fosstodon is an invite only Mastodon instance that is open to those who are interested in technology; particularly free & open source software. If you wish to join, contact us for an invite.

Administered by:

Server stats:

11K
active users

Organic Maps

Due to "anti-features" introduced unilaterally by some people from FDroid community, it is not possible to find Organic Maps using the search in FDroid client without tinkering with its settings first: gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-

By default, it is possible to find apps with ads, with tracking, with non-free network services, dependencies and assets, apps without source code and with known vulnerabilities. But it is not possible to find Organic Maps, an open-source app without ads and tracking.

@organicmaps I don't know if that affects updates as well - logically, not. Thankfully, I have installed Organic Maps via Obtainium.

@fdroidorg what's up with that?

@organicmaps FDroid is going through a weird route lately.

@devil @organicmaps I like OM, but I don't want F-Droid to make exceptions just because it's a popular app. It does promote a proprietary network service. There has been a discussion about making this opt-in to avoid this anti-feature, but it never got implemented afaik. github.com/organicmaps/organic

GitHub[android][ios] Add "Details on KAYAK" button to hotels by rtsisyk · Pull Request #6523 · organicmaps/organicmapsBy rtsisyk

@vfosnar @devil @organicmaps Is it because TetheredNet anti-feature was separated into its own toggle with the default being to hide such apps? That should get resolved as users learn more about anti-features and review their settings?

More importantly, what are these examples @organicmaps is hinting at?

> It is possible to find apps with ads, with tracking, with non-free network services, dependencies and assets, apps without source code and with known vulnerabilities

@devrtz the kudos go to Jochen for doing most of the work!

@devrtz
I love organic maps on Android, but the Linux version is not there yet.
@organicmaps @federico3

Thanks for working on this @federico3

This will be particularly useful for 📱 🚀

@Braiden @chfkch @organicmaps

@organicmaps @chfkch @devrtz @federico3

Good to know! I assume it will then trickle down to stable apt repos in good time, looking forward to it!

@devrtz @organicmaps @federico3 How can we keep updated and be alerted when it finally lands in Debian Unstable/Sid?

@organicmaps
Is it because of the "hotel widget includes a link to kayak" thing ?

@chfkch @organicmaps No, it's even better. F-Droid folks took issue with the fact that you can't change the location of map download server easily.
AFAIK, Kayak links are disabled in F-Droid builds now.

@chfkch @organicmaps @RicoElectrico to me, this seems a very easy thing to fix from the OM team. It would be enough to add a pre-populated field in the settings to choose the server to download the maps from and respect that field during downloads...

@organicmaps
They don't even explain what the "other" mean. I read both blog posts, the GitLab issue, and the list of 48 affected apps, and no where they explain this !!!

@fdroidorg you really need to up your game be crystal clear about such moves and terminologies.
You want a feedback? Here you go: Roll back to previous state. As a client, this is nasty and vague, and I'm genuinely thinking of stopping my donation and supporting F-Droid if I cannot comprehend your bizarre actions and terms.

@Mehrad @organicmaps honestly @fdroidorg support seems to be a ridiculous burden on devs. Most of their policies sound like a good idea at first, but have silly consequences. Like forcing API keys to be stored in source code ;)

@organicmaps @fdroidorg "This app promotes or depends entirely on a non-free network service" anti-feature really makes no sense. Even having some defaults to services that are not completely free triggers this, even if the app can be fully used with completely free services.

"This app depends entirely on a non-free network service " would be acceptable criteria. But still hiding apps with anti-features by default just sucks.

@cos @organicmaps @fdroidorg
Non-free service?
Do we have free electricity?
Do sys admins need no food?
How do you know right now that Signal's server code is what they say it is?

Createria about server, i.e. not "my box", have to be different from local thingy.
In cases of Signal server, end to end encryption ensures that you don't need to care about posed question.

@organicmaps

I have to enable "other anti features" before it shows up.

What do they say is the anti feature?

@alanz @organicmaps
On the web view they say:
"This app promotes or depends entirely on a non-free network service
This app depends entirely on a certain instance of a network service"

If you know which mystery link to click on¹ it will tell you this: "AntiFeatures:
TetheredNet:
en-US: Map download service (cdn*.organicmaps.app).
NonFreeNet:
en-US: Hotel widget includes a link to kayak.com not contained in original map data."

1: Hint: not the initial warning text.

@InsertUser @alanz @organicmaps @fdroidorg And even if you manage to find the mystery link, there's often no useful information there. In any case, I think that "network" anti-features need to be reassessed. If an app is ostensibly a youtube client, then it *must* talk to youtube. To tag it with an anti-feature just because of this is confusing. I understand wanting to promote self-hosting etc. But I can't self-host my parcel delivery, and libretrack as non-free net doesn't change that.

@InsertUser @alanz @organicmaps is it hard to remove the kayak thing on only the f-droid build? I never used it and it's weird to me that a foss app has a kayak integration, unless if kayak were also foss.

@organicmaps hopefully this get resolved as Organic Maps is pretty good. It just need traffic info in it's routing (something Google own) and improved search (again, lots of things only registered in Google Maps). Bar that, it's better than Google Maps. You can live with it as your satnav.

@organicmaps yes, our communication about this change was not ideal.

We tried to cover it in f-droid.org/2024/07/25/twif.ht and f-droid.org/2024/04/04/twif.ht, but apparently it wasn't read by everybody (surprise, surprise 🙈).

Unfortunately, we didn't find any good technical solution to enable the new Anti-Feature automatically (but only for those, who didn't change their AFs manually).

Moreover, this new AF was designed to clearly differentiate, that apps like OM are NOT NonFreeNet, but only TetheredNet.

f-droid.orgThe anti-feature you've asked for | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App RepositoryThis Week in F-DroidTWIF curated on Thursday, 25 Jul 2024, Week 30F-Droid coreRecently, we rolled out a new AntiFeature - Tethered Network Services. It’s int...

@fdroidorg @organicmaps I'm not seeing tethered net as a separate option in the anti features setting, and organic maps only shows up when I allow "others", which is slightly concerning. I'm using fdroid basic 1.20.

@haskman @fdroidorg @organicmaps

f-droid.org/2024/07/25/twif.ht

>The new added TetheredNet is counted as Other Anti-features which is disabled by default.

Same happened to me with Wikipedia. I had to try and check several options until I realised that it was “Others” in order to find it, and thought “Others? Well, that’s weird”.

Maybe the new “Tethered Network Services” option should be out there below or above the “Non-Free Network Services”, instead of grouped into the ambiguous “Others” group? 🤔

f-droid.orgThe anti-feature you've asked for | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App RepositoryThis Week in F-DroidTWIF curated on Thursday, 25 Jul 2024, Week 30F-Droid coreRecently, we rolled out a new AntiFeature - Tethered Network Services. It’s int...

@haskman @fdroidorg @organicmaps

Checking “Other Anti-features” feels like “Bring it on, let’s open the gates of Hell”. 😅

@tagomago @haskman @organicmaps Repositories can add their own AFs, and "Other" is designed for them, whatever it is added in the future. F-Droid Client can't predict the future, hence this umbrella "AF" will contain them all.

@fdroidorg @haskman @organicmaps

I see. Given this newly devised anti-feature category, are you planning to display it on the list of categories, along with the other twelve, on the next F-Droid release? I feel people would be interested in allowing it, while keeping “Other Anti-features” unchecked...

@fdroidorg @organicmaps As far as I know, gitlab.com is running an unfree, proprietary version of Gitlab (to make it scale better). Would that not make the F-Droid client software which "promotes an unfree network service"?

@fdroidorg @organicmaps @PhotonQyv this just doesn't make any sense, if an app is designed to work with service XY, that's not an anti-feature, that's literally the whole premise of the app. It just makes using FDroid search more obtuse for most users

@piggo @fdroidorg @organicmaps @PhotonQyv Its not an anti-feature to you because your in a place of relative comfort, but the inability of someone being able to host their own map data and have the app download from that could be important to, say, people in conflict zones without persistant internet.

@Baggypants @piggo @fdroidorg @PhotonQyv@strangeobject.space That doesn’t make much sense with OM, because map data format is changed with almost every app update, so generated maps are tightly bound to the specific app version (and may crash otherwise). Generating map data is a very complex, time-consuming, and expensive process.

@organicmaps @fdroidorg I'm not saying you shouldn't do that but you're not thinking from the point of view of the user. It's a restriction they are entitled to know up front, it could be misused to track people with little effort, or disrupt them in the long term.

@organicmaps @fdroidorg
It doesn't matter a damn if you say "Well we wont do that" because you can't guarentee you wont be hacked, or enforced by law, and the user wouldn't be any wiser. You are focussed on features and functionality, which is fine, but F-Droid are focused on freedoms. Don't assume they have the same mission as you. As a paranoid person I can build and host my own maps if I use Navit, without having to rebuild anything.

@Baggypants @fdroidorg Please try to do it for OM and share your experience with others.

@organicmaps @fdroidorg You know you can fork F-Droid? It's open source. You can mirror their build server and create a repo, build all the apps F-Droid do and in doing so reemove any or all anti-features you care to. If you did this you might understand what a fucking stupid idea yours is to ask me to rebuild your app. If I did that it wouldn't be "Organic Maps". I'd need to distribute it under a different appid and change the name to avoid a trademark dispute.

@Baggypants @fdroidorg it is inappropriate to confuse our users by wrong labeling or by hiding OM in search in any third party repositories. We got questions and reports from our users, not someone else. And instead of focusing on the development, we should react.

@Baggypants @piggo @fdroidorg @PhotonQyv@strangeobject.space
In your example, if someone needs to generate maps locally and distribute them without the internet, then making a local build of OM with custom URLs and a specific version of map data bound to it is way better and more reliable solution.

@organicmaps @fdroidorg
"It's open source, you can fork it" is a great freedom and shouldn't be overlooked, I am thankful for it. But ultimately it is irrelevent to this discussion which is "How should the app be categorized as the developers intended it to be distributed"

@piggo @organicmaps @PhotonQyv True, then again this is not a secret or something new, no need to hide it, right? This matters though if one wants to understand how an app can be used, what freedoms does it grant or fence, eg. siloed app vs federated.

@fdroidorg @piggo @organicmaps @PhotonQyv

I totally agree with your reason for splitting the anti feature into two things, but there are two problems with the way this has been done:

1. It's not clear that the name "tethered network" is actually more freedom respecting, and

2. Something using an open network service should absolutely not be hidden by default, especially when much more proprietary anti-features aren't. That goes against the whole point of #FDroid to promote open alternatives.

@fdroidorg @organicmaps This is intended as constructive criticism.

I think @ck and @cy8aer have a point. For instance, Libretrack has the non-free network tag. I gather this is because the app talks to UPS servers etc.? But how else is it supposed to get the info about the package? Telepathy?

And if that's not the reason, the fact that I have to wonder, search through gitlab, read the code or do some mind reading shows that the "network" anti-features are now mostly confusing to users.

@fdroidorg @organicmaps please reconsider how to handle anti-features. They're super hostile to developers. And also they are very difficult to understand for most users. Using terms like NonFreeNet, TetheredNet.... c'mon nobody's gonna understand those therms with lengthy explanations.

@fdroidorg @organicmaps
Inform users about AF in search results - Yes.
Hide apps in search results - No.

I think we're adults and can make informed decisions ourselves which app to download.

Today I spent 15 minutes tinkering with AF options, refreshing search etc. and nothing. After 10 tries, OM suddenly appeared.
Not the optimal user experience.

@fdroidorg @organicmaps To be perfectly honest, I've read both of these blog posts several times now and I'm still not entirely sure what it means in practice... The example with the parcel tracking in this thread was not something I had considered at all.
The term "anti-feature" has always struck me as very peculiar. Besides, in an app store I would expect to get _search results_. If I then see an interesting app I'll comb through the specific page to find what I need to know in regards to features, permissions, cookies etc. etc.If you're going to heavily filter search results for me straight away there should be a banner of some sort clearly stating that. _Especially_ in an alternative app store where you very often will search for an app that's not available anywhere else than the Play Store. An empty result page is already 90% of the time spent in the F-Droid app for me at least. It does seem a bit counterintuitive to also filter out apps that actually are available _by default_ then...
Besides, how many F-Droid users know you even have a blog? I first noticed that when I decided to follow you here on Mastodon (which itself was a spur of the moment idea)...

@fdroidorg @organicmaps

The 'beware of the leopard' approach.

Yep, that sounds like F-Droid.

@organicmaps
And that unwanted features in OM are? Hey @fdroidorg is it intentional?

@wariat @organicmaps @fdroidorg
"Tethered Network Services - This Anti-Feature is applied to apps that depend entirely on a service which is impossible (or not easy) to replace. Replacement requires changes to the app or service."
Quite ridiculous to hide apps with that by default, if you ask me.