Hi, I came across this thread and it's something which has raised a lot of concerns for me since Google's announcement. There's a discussion of how it hurts the open-source ecosystem at https://www.reddit.com/r/selfh... and Google's announcement is at https://android-developers.goo...

I like the idea of writing free, open source utilities for others to use. Users having to jump through even more hoops to sideload, or me having to pay money and reveal my identity to Google, get in the way of this --- especially if one of the things I've thought about is e.g. writing a tool to help LGBTQ+ people find locations where they can be reasonably safe in the current US geopolitical climate. That is exactly the sort of utility where the DoJ would make claims I'm some sort of subversive "antifa threat" and demand Google release my identity to them for harassment. Plus, the time where that utility would be most useful -- if someone suddenly has to go someplace unfamiliar on short notice (e.g. getting a call that a relative who lives a few hundred miles away in MAGA territory is getting emergency surgery), having to wait 24 hours to sideload the app if you don't have sideloading currently unlocked, just to find out which rest stops are safe to stop at or not on your drive, would be incredibly unfortunate!

I'm not saying improving app security is a bad thing, and at least Google didn't pull a "We Own Everything And There Is No Way Out Of Our Grip" like they could have, but the options they provide are not nearly good enough. It seems like they only thought about (1) average uninformed users who install things randomly, (2) big commercial developers [who still can get compromised and end up pushing malware, or might even include malware intentionally: just look at LG's McAfee situation, the infamous Sony BMG CD rootkits, etc etc], (3) independent developers who have identity documents Google is willing to recognize [what about the identity document fiascos going on right now with Ukrainian towns Russia is occupying? what about areas occupied in the Middle East by various regimes? what about the way cops confiscate homeless peoples' belongings including ID cards, but you need an ID card to get your belongings back?] plus extra cash [and $25 USD is a lot in some impoverished places, limiting the ability of people in such places to help themselves by becoming app developers], (4) students and hobbyists who only need to share their app with a small group of testers [limiting your ability to test scalability!], and (5) power users who are patient. If you don't fit into the scenarios they planned for, you might be out of luck. And I recognize that the vast majority of legitimate use cases do fall into those above categories, but there are legitimate use cases which don't. They could have at least had a series of open community fora to get feedback on other use cases and plan additional options, but they did not.

It's great that they thought about a few different use cases, at least. But that's not nearly enough!

Could I find an ally to register as the "developer" and publish such an app? Sure, but is that how it *should* be? I would now be dependent on someone else to manage the Play Store listing, which limits my ability to build. Could I spread the word to people who might need such an app that they should unlock sideloading indefinitely just in case? Sure, but maybe that creates new risks for them (and -- what if the option to unlock sideloading indefinitely gets taken away at some future point? Google gets to dictate all the changes here, and users have little recourse if they disagree with the specifics of the implementation)

I just want the guaranteed ability to say "hey, what about XYZ situation, which I or a friend have personal experience with? can you provide a way to handle that?" but I don't. There's no form to fill out to request some sort of special accommodation for an unusual situation, and there probably should be. When you have billions of users, planning for the needs of 99.99% of them still hangs hundreds of thousands of users out to dry. I know trying to accommodate more edge cases isn't as profitable, and having a large enough support team to hear people out when they have an unusual need requires a ton of extra staffing, but smartphone usage has become a critical utility rather than a luxury in much of the world. Google has an immense amount of power over numerous aspects of the lives of all sorts of different people, and if they want to continue to make money from that situation, they need to be prepared to deal with the complexities of it all.

In South Africaâ(TM)s capital the building that contained all the property data burned down about 10 years ago. Since that was not digitized yet is was and still is a major problem

Nuke them. It is time to change Russia into a green glass surface

Yep. Open weights is closer to having precompiled binaries only (though you can do a little bit more with open weights). All training data with labeling, plus a detailed build log including any special fine-tuning logs, is needed, especially to help show how the final weights were arrived at (since there can be randomness involved). Unless someone else can both replicate your final output plus make their own changes to it, it's not fully open source.

We're entering the exciting age of AI-powered cybersecurity attacks. I imagine it won't be too long before something like a malware worm which polymorphs to evade detection and adapts itself as new CVEs get published, able to utilize tuned edge models, shows up. Wireless IoT could mean we end up with physical "e-quarantine" zones, wherein devices keep attacking anything in radio range...

Jesus Christ you are arrogant. Most people re better at their jobs than you are at yours.

My question is why the state is not actively deactivating Center 16. Nuke them if we must Just get them offline. Why is Russia still attached to the internet?

Yeah, my argument against deregulation is probably relevant here: big corporate is just big government by another name, except with even less transparency. Never fully trust any entity which has enormous power over your life; even the most well-intentioned mega-entity is still prone to accidentally ruining lives through bureaucratic oversight. So I would hope people protesting government intrusion would also realize that e.g. Facebook is a de facto global governing structure of sorts...

Though this might work for some things, unfortunately, I think it is susceptible to Nazism. "Does this video make society a better place" could get a "yes" from plenty of people who have just sat through a video telling them how $marginalized_group is the root of all evil and must be "dealt with" =/

"I am not in one of the niche areas that Photoshop serves and serves well so i dont give a damn. If I don't need it no-one does",

No, actually some of us do use some special features.

Like Spot colors for specialized metallic ink or packaging that saves load of money by using one pre-mixed ink plate.

Or bizarro file formats (If you think GIMP is going to open a file from an Ultrasound machine you think wrong)

Or very precise integration with the color profiles and mapping between your screens RGB and Indesign CMYK based printing workflow for accurate printing results. Hint: Printing, as in serious Printing, uses way different processes to render those nice colors than the RGB phosphors in you screen. they don't match. At all. Photoshop makes it work.

There ARE serious applications for photo software outside viewing and editing your porn in RGB out there.

Is PhotoShop a program for the average Joe? No.
Is a 25 Ton Semi-Truck a car for the average Joe? Neither.

But for some reason the Average Joe knows he does not need that truck but he only heard of Photoshop and then gets upset by the fact that he uses a hard-core high-end professional tool for professionals.

That does not make the tool garbage. That makes it an industry standard tool that needs all the bells and whistles used in real industry outside of you computer basement. I am pretty sure Adobe also thinks the thing is overloaded but they have a wide spectrum of clients.

Just like there are cars that suit your needs there are photo editing apps that suit your needs. Photoshop is almost surely not that tool.

Get out of your moms basement

She stabbed a guy who shot her dog? Is she related to John Wick? While we are on the subject of movies with body counts that piles up in the stratosphere for no reason at all.

Just clamp the phone between your knees while reading it and you can't get pregnant

⦠which form the basis of MacOS. A Neo with intern and bash is a very useful machine

Still is. The far majority of the core of Linux user space comes straight from there. You’re probably using it even as we speak

Profits have never been higher, and yet their offering continues to get worse. Remember when you could watch your total storage climb in real time? When was the last time you really felt like Google was innovating on their Gmail product? Enshittification continues unabated.