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Uncomfortable Questions About Android Developer Verification

(commonsware.com)
400 points ingve | 3 comments | 27 Aug 25 05:14 UTC | HN request time: 0.659s | source
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sschueller ◴[27 Aug 25 06:01 UTC] No.45035917[source]▶
The requirement of verification to side-load any app is fascist control. It is clear as night and day.

Shame on Google and Apple, it was always clear this was the end goal and next up is also your PC.

Right after will come the removal off apps they don't like and there is nothing you can do about it.

Stallman was right

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mettamage ◴[27 Aug 25 06:21 UTC] No.45036045[source]▶
I asked an LLM, so I think I get it but could you try to mention what is meant with "Stallman was right"? The reason I'm asking you and not posting the LLM answer is because it still feels a bit icky to post an LLM answer for everything I don't understand [1].

[1] Feel free to discuss this too, if you want. I'm developing my opinion on it.

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bigstrat2003 ◴[27 Aug 25 07:19 UTC] No.45036440[source]▶
Stallman has a long history of being very abrasive and ideological. He is the kind of guy who makes zero concessions for practicality, and he insists on prioritizing user freedom because he has always feared that otherwise users will be locked out of having the ability to truly control their computers. It's always been kind of easy to laugh at his crusade because of how zealous he is, and how absurd the scenarios he warns about seem to be. The thing is... he seems to have been right the whole time. Companies really do want to lock you out of controlling the devices you own, and do so at the first opportunity. So... Stallman was right.
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1. mrheosuper ◴[27 Aug 25 07:42 UTC] No.45036610[source]▶
> He is the kind of guy who makes zero concessions for practicality

Didn't he give some wiggle room in GPL license ?

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2. bigstrat2003 ◴[27 Aug 25 08:05 UTC] No.45036765[source]▶
Inasmuch as the GPL itself is not Stallman's preferred state of affairs (he would prefer to see copyright abolished altogether, at least for software, and copyleft is just a compromise for now), I suppose so. Otherwise I'm not aware of any wiggle room, was there something specific you had in mind?
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3. simoncion ◴[27 Aug 25 08:29 UTC] No.45036888[source]▶
> [H]e would prefer to see copyright abolished altogether, at least for software...

Oh? From the "Finding the right bargain" section of this 2002 essay [0]

> So perhaps novels, dictionaries, computer programs, songs, symphonies, and movies should have different durations of copyright, so that we can reduce the duration for each kind of work to what is necessary for many such works to be published. Perhaps movies over one hour long could have a twenty-year copyright, because of the expense of producing them. In my own field, computer programming, three years should suffice, because product cycles are even shorter than that.

Has his opinion changed since then?

[0] <https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/misinterpreting-copyright.htm...>