[Android] Submit App to F-Droid

[emanuelb]

F-Droid URL: https://f-droid.org/
F-Droid Wikipedia: https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-Droid

Contribution/Submit Applications: https://f-droid.org/en/contribute/#submit-applications
Inclusion Policy: https://f-droid.org/en/docs/Inclusion_Policy
Request For Packaging Tickets: https://gitlab.com/fdroid/rfp/issues

F-Droid is application & app store for android apps (alternative to Google Play) that accepts only FLOSS (free/libre and open-source) apps and doesn't require any account creation/login in order to download apps.

The requirements for being included into f-droid are here: https://f-droid.org/en/docs/Inclusion_Policy/

The process for getting an app published to f-droid is outlined here: https://f-droid.org/en/docs/Inclusion_How-To/ https://gitlab.com/fdroid/rfp#submission-queue https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md

You can open a RFP (Request For Packaging) ticket here: https://gitlab.com/fdroid/rfp or an user can do so, provided you agree to include this app in F-droid (a comment to this issue is enough for it)

Some users don't have play-store on their devices as they are degoogled devices or don't create/use google account (using aurora store app https://auroraoss.com/ in anonymous mode (which is available on f-droid) is solution to still get apps from google-play) or using OS/custom ROMs that don't have it included, such as: (Some bundle f-droid by default)

https://grapheneos.org/ GrapheneOS
https://calyxos.org/ CalyxOS
https://lineageos.org/ LineageOS
https://lineage.microg.org/ LineageOS for microG
https://e.foundation/ /e/
https://www.replicant.us/ Replicant

Downloading APKs from official places like github releases or website, or from unofficial sources like APK downloading sites https://apk.support or https://apkpure.com/ etc... will avoid the play-store/google dependency but it's lack automatic update mechanism unless it's built in into the application, F-Droid solve this.

Once the app is published into f-droid add the below image code into
README.md to show that the app available on f-droid:

[<img src="https://fdroid.gitlab.io/artwork/badge/get-it-on.png" alt="Get it on F-Droid" height="80">](https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.fdroid.fdroid/)

[MissMonacoin]

I think those who use this app seldom use F-droid. I have no plans to do so for now.

[emanuelb]

People who download apk from github (issue: #126) or website would appreciate f-droid as it's have update mechanism & ensure the app downloaded is still open-source and built from existing tag, also very helpful in unlikely event that app "removed" temporarily from google-play (as happened to Element app for example) https://element.io/blog/element-on-google-play-store/

So tagging releases should be done, issue: #129

I can open RFP myself on f-droid, but it requires your approval here in comment first, is there other reason why not to work/approve on it (most tasks are done by F-Droid team), The inclusion process also include automatic checks by fdroid-scanner & human review which may detect additional issues in the app (or it's build process)

It will require to add fastlane structure to repo, see https://gitlab.com/snippets/1895688 (fastlane can also be used for publishing the app to google-play/apple-appstore but this is optional)

Reproducible builds, issue: #130 are needed for reusing your signature (the alternative is F-Droid build the app & sign it as they do for non-reproducible apps)

[MissMonacoin]

I thought it would take too long for submitting, and would be hard for me to maintain F-droid distribution even though most of Japanese customer don't think transparency as important as much as they say imo.
But I would submit gladly if the submission process is forever easy.
I'd appreciate it if you would help with me.