F-Droid: Making Software Freedom Practical

Most people don't think very much about where the apps on their phone come from. They find an app, press install, and expect it to work.

F-Droid started from a simple idea: Android users should have a place to discover and use Free and Open Source Software.

Today, F-Droid is used by people around the world to discover applications that respect software freedom and, often, their privacy. But the interesting story is not just the apps. It is the community and infrastructure that makes those apps available to people who may never have heard of FOSS before.

This talk will look at F-Droid from the perspective of its users. Why do people choose it? What kinds of apps do they find there? How does F-Droid give people more information and choice about the software they use? And what does it take to maintain a community-run app repository?

We will look at some of the everyday applications people use through F-Droid, as well as the people and infrastructure behind them. We will also draw on experience from FLOSSbOxIN, which operates public FOSS services, to explore a related question: having good FOSS software is only the beginning. It also needs to be accessible, understandable and usable by people who are not developers.

This is ultimately a talk about making software freedom practical, and about the people who make that possible.

No programming or prior FOSS knowledge is required.

The main takeaway is simple:

Software freedom only matters if people can actually use it.

F-Droid is one example of what it takes to bridge that gap. It brings together software, developers, infrastructure and community to make FOSS something that ordinary people can discover and use every day.