Daniel Gultsch

8 months ago • •

Daniel Gultsch
8 months ago • •

Unpopular opinion on "minimum target SDK" (Re: This week in F-Droid¹)

The target SDK is often framed as a draconian requirement that poses unnecessary restrictions upon app developers. However they often improve security. For example target SDK 24 disallows sharing file URIs. If the developer of a chat app could rely on all apps that share files (Galleries, File Managers) to target >23 it would be easier to prevent security issues like the one just fixed in Element.

¹: floss.social/@fdroidorg/112018…

F-Droid (@fdroidorg@floss.social)

This week in F-Droid (TWIF) was published again :fdroid: We try to explain the "app was developed for an older version of android and can not be upgraded automatically" banner for some apps (including F-Droid itself).

^FLOSS.social

This entry was edited (8 months ago)

in reply to Daniel Gultsch

Joel

in reply to Daniel Gultsch • 8 months ago • •

I don't know, improving security by adding 3 locks instead of one makes it annoying for the house owner too.

I am no developer tho so yeah, I don't have to deal with that

in reply to Daniel Gultsch

Hans-Christoph Steiner

in reply to Daniel Gultsch • 8 months ago • •

of course sandboxes improve #security. It is important to remember that sandboxes by definition are sets of restrictions. If a sandbox only restricts things you don't use, you win. Sandbox restrictions often break features that users want. Since I'm focused on #UserFreedom and #FreeSoftware, I want community control over which restrictions are in place. #Android does not provide that unless you have the skills to hack and make your own ROM, even then its hard. #Debian does provide that.

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