@fdroidorg this looks like the best place to ask this question.
Hypothetically, if a developer chooses not to register with gooooogle, but still writes apps and publishes their code on gitea or codeberg or some other repository, can they still have their apps on fdroid? Maybe not on play store, but in fdroid?

@fdroidorg Maybe we can get all of the F-Droid developers to walk away from the awful Java environment and put their energy into native apps running on Ubuntu Touch 🤪

@fdroidorg Signed!

Quibble: it's spelled "provenance", without the "i". 🙂

Thanks for doing this. It's not just the freedom to use our own gear the way we want it, it's the lack of desire to have American companies to tell us what to do.

@fdroidorg I'm confused, why people think using de-googled ROM flavors won't have this restriction? Chances are Google will poison the Android SDK directly.

@fdroidorg tbh I don’t exactly get how this affects F-Droid at all. Like, if you’re saying it does, I’m sure that’s true, but I don’t understand what Google is intending to do in that regard. Also obviously still incredibly evil of them regardless.

And what Google achieves with that for me (who was about to purchase a new not just Android but Google phone specifically) is making me delay that purchase and more seriously consider some sort of Linux phone instead 🙃

@fdroidorg

Reading the post, more or less at half of the page, you write:

«The F-Droid project cannot require that developers register their apps through Google, but at the same time, we cannot “take over” the application identifiers for the open-source apps we distribute, as that would effectively seize exclusive distribution rights to those applications.»

This passage is unclear to me, could you explain better? Anyway, i don't understand how google could prevent a software developer to just release their source code and builds without registering themselves and their apps with google, so i guess that the problem would be with developers who want to put their apps on google's store too. I also guess they are many, for obvious reasons; anyway, if google will act accordingly to its announcement, i think f-droid should, if possible, go on distributing apps by those developers who would not choose to comply to google's diktat (while i seem to understand there would be no possible technical solution for those who would choose to comply).

@fdroidorg

Ich würde mir auch vom @BMDS Beiträge dazu wünschen, wie die Einstellung zu dieser MonopolisierungsHandlung von Google ist, die faktisch dazu führt, dass die gesamte mobil digitale Alltagsnutzbarkeit von unverzichtbaren Diensten (Banking, Fahrkarten, NFC...) komplett von 2 US Konzernen abhängig gemacht wird.

Google hat damit faktisch komplette Kontrolle über 70+% des Handymarktes und dessen Software + Infrastruktur der EU.

Wohin kann man sich als Bürger wenden?

@fdroidorg

Question for understanding:

In case google isn't stopped by law:
Can in theory, users of custom rom degoogled Android versions in phones still use the F-Droid store like normal?

80% of my Apps now are open source anyways and the other ones ( as of now) work without google services or might be ok with microG.

I' d rather deal with not having Banking- Apps and nfc running on my phone ( not using both from phone anyways) than succumbing to googles world-domination fantasy.

@fdroidorg The likely scenario is that those of us who use F-droid will eventually be able to circumvent this restriction. Even if I had to stop using the banking app on my phone, I could still use the browser on my phone or computer for banking transactions.
The rest of the population that uses Android won't even notice anything and will continue to download from Google Play whatever the ads show them.

@fdroidorg done

@fdroidorg
"The life of righteous may be swallowed by deceit for a time — but in the end, righteous will prevail."

@fdroidorg Did they already announce if and how they want to force phone vendors to leave that requirement in *their* versions of Android?

If they only lose the title of “certified Android device” but everything else still works, it should be possible to demand from the vendors that they … just undo that for their flavours of Android.

Or is “certified Android device” the requirement imposed by *other* apps to be installable (the thing that makes a lot of banking apps not work on custom ROMs)?

Surely hope that @Fairphone (inactive on the fediverse?) will still allow me to run F-Droid irrespective if Google takes that plan back or not.

@fdroidorg While I fully agree with your assessment and hope that Google's plans are stopped, I don't see why F-Droid couldn't register identifiers for distributed apps. There's no need for them to be the same identifiers the developers chose, is there?

My own app is distributed exclusively via F-Droid. I wouldn't mind if the F-Droid builds used an identifier like `org.f-droid.<my-app-id>`.

@fdroidorg I remember microsoft doing everything in it's power to destroy open-source alternatives to windows...now it's google's turn!

@fdroidorg If we want #Android to be open, we need not permissive licensing, not #copyleft licensing, but a sense of “copyfarleft.”

@fdroidorg there's also the CMA which folks in the UK can report to. I documented my report here: https://danb.me/blog/google-developer-verification-cma/

@radasbona @fdroidorg

Short answer: It depends on the ROM, not any Google apps. If it's from a major manufacturer, probably.

Long answer: It's only on "certified Android" devices, and by that they mean on ROMs that are "certified" by Google, and installed on devices, but you can still replace that "certified" ROM with a non-certified one, such as GrapheneOS, LineageOS, etc, which wouldn't be under the restriction.

https://www.android.com/certified/partners/

They clarify in their blog.
https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/08/elevating-android-security.html?m=1

@radasbona@vivaldi.net @fdroidorg@floss.social nope
if you disable/remove GMS and GPlay, google cannot do shit to your android
if you root, you can force it to install/replace GMS/GPlay with microG

@radasbona @fdroidorg if i understood google's pitch of this walled garden concept correctly, then you wouldn't even be able to get into developer mode with the restriction.
(though it's been around a month since i've read it, so my memory could be off)