They’re already hiring engineers for the job: https://futo.org/jobs/
In my opinion, they should’ve just funded Accrescent or F-Droid, but maybe they will do something unique like they did with Grayjay, we will have to wait and see.
4 Likes
Maybe they will offer iphone apps in future in the same store 
inclinded to agree. Eventually we will need an app store for each app we want to download xd.
4 Likes
Grayjay will be available on Accrescent anyways, at least that’s what one of the engineers of Grayjay told me.
Well, if they keep (their version of) open source license, I expect it to be available in multiple places
Am I the only one that want to use just one Application Store instead of trusting multiple?
4 Likes
I know that what I’m going to ask is a bit of a drama or politics but I need to ask.
What is Accrescent project relation with GrapheneOS? And how it can supposedly affect FUTO’s apps presence?
I mean, from the FUTO side kinda sound a necessary move to explore an alternative to Accrescent if they can’t trust that the project will be agnostic.
Why not simply use a custom FDroid repository?
Just like with video games launchers - everyone wants to be new Steam Google Play Store
3 Likes
Accrescent intentionally does not support third-party repositories and has no plans to support them. There are a few technical reasons for this. For one, supporting third-party repositories breaks the Android security model. Android assumes one app (e.g. Accrescent) is a single app source. When this assumption is broken, bad things can happen. For example, say Accrescent supported third-party repos and is integrated into an Android-based OS as a first-party app source. If a given user or work profile is restricted from installing apps from third-party sources by an MDM or OS settings, they could trivially bypass said restrictions by adding a third-party repository.
Another reason Accrescent doesn’t support third-party repos is lack of available security features. The chain of trust between Accrescent and the signed repository metadata would be weakened since Accrescent can’t reasonably maintain a list of hardcoded keys for all third-party repos. TLS certificate pinning is also impractical to implement for third-party servers.
4 Likes
I don’t think we need a accrescent competitator not untill it is flooding with apps atleast.
We need to make a fdroid-accrescent migration tool that is supervised by a human.
I get the security reasons, but tbf to F-Droid, 3p repos must be added to (implicit trust) by the end user.
I see this as similar to plugins in Browsers. I’d rather the Browser be extensible (despite the fact that plugins literally have access to unencrypted user data) than have the Browser-maker preempt and impose all their decisions on me.
Interoperability has its warts but I’d not want to completely eliminate it. Ironically enough, Apple & Google have been locking things up in the name of security, too; some of it is warranted (ex: root) but some of it takes things too far (ex: Play Integrity).
2 Likes