Publish app in F-Droid app store

[tachyons]

FDroid is a app store for open source applications. We should try to get the app listed there.

Documentation: https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md

[salmoneatenbybear]

Can I take up this task ?

[tachyons]

Sure

…

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[salmoneatenbybear]

I was looking at the pubspec.yaml and google_sign_in and flutter_facebook_auth connect to non-free services.

would this be a problem or create conflict...

F-Droid typically flags usage of Google Play Services or the Facebook SDK as “Promotes Non-Free Services.”

They don’t forbid from distributing the app in F-Droid, but it might show an “Anti-Feature” label or require to provide a flavor that doesn’t rely on these proprietary bits.

We can either :

1. If we want to avoid Anti-Features in F-Droid or to comply with strictly open setups, we would need to build a separate “fdroidRelease” flavor that excludes these sign-in methods.

2. Alternatively, we can keep them but accept an Anti-Feature label.

What should we be doing ?

I was verifying licensing, dependencies, and our build process to confirm this app can be published in F-Droid.

CC : @tachyons @hardik17771 @realaashil

[realaashil]

@salmoneatenbybear Hey, I looked into it as far I understand these libraries are directly making a request to the google/ facebook servers, It is not using any google proprietary “Play Services” or facebook sdk. Still I am not sure about it.

[salmoneatenbybear]

@realaashil Thanks for looking into this...

From F-Droid’s standpoint, even if we’re not bundling the official “Play Services” or Facebook SDK binaries, the fact that users must sign in via Google or Facebook can trigger the “Promotes Non-Free Services” anti-feature.

In other words, the policy isn’t just about shipping closed-source libraries—it’s also about relying on proprietary platforms (like Google or Facebook) for core app functionality. So even direct requests to those servers may cause the F-Droid listing to include a warning label.

We can still publish on F-Droid as-is, but we’d either:

Accept the “Non-Free Services” label and proceed, or
Provide a separate “fdroid” flavor that disables those login methods so there’s a completely open build.
Either approach is valid; it just depends on whether we want a label or prefer a “pure FOSS” flavor.

[salmoneatenbybear]

also @realaashil would you like to collaborate on this effort to get our Circuitverse mobile app listed ? would be happy to collaborate with you

[realaashil]

Sure @salmoneatenbybear , So there is no way possible to get oauth running in f-droid build basically. Read here So we need to disable oauth for f-droid builds as these are signed by f-droid.

[salmoneatenbybear]

Sure @salmoneatenbybear , So there is no way possible to get oauth running in f-droid build basically. Read here So we need to disable oauth for f-droid builds as these are signed by f-droid.

So we need to make a fdroid specific flavour right excluding these libs?

[realaashil]

Probably let the mentors confirm once.

[tachyons]

We can have fdroid specific build if needed.

[salmoneatenbybear]

Should I create a sub issue to create a flavour for fdroid ? @tachyons

[tachyons]

Only if that is essential, if we can ship with "Non free services", then that is preferable