If you really want reproducible builds, use Nix.

Yay, some success :D

The squabbling is, ugh, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Everyone agrees that the current duopoly of apple and google app stores is bad, but instead of supporting a variety of alternative options, they expect every option to offer a perfect solution for whatever they're a purist about.

They need $5800/month in recurring donations to fund a full time developer to be working on Accrescent, implementing new features, creating new tooling, etc. The blog post clearly says this.

Our income comes from two primary sources: 1) recurring and one-time GitHub Sponsors donations and 2) cryptocurrency donations.

https://accrescent.app/donate

1. Don't read the article
2. Be completely wrong
3. Look like an ass when someone calls you out

Looks like they accept monero and bitcoin among other crypto, did they not have that before?

Nothing wrong with it. It is just an alternative, for those who are more concerned about privacy and security than an average user.

F-Droid feels like an app store. Which it is and damn good at. Accressenct feels like a necessary toolbox that comes along with a fresh Graphene install. It doesn't feel the same as an app store.

A lot. Including significant security issues. https://privsec.dev/posts/android/f-droid-security-issues/

F-Droid is great for the FOSS market but not everyone only wants FOSS apps, Microg and the Aurora Store exist for a reason. Accrescent could theoretically (eventually) make it possible to wean more people completely off the play store.

If F-Droid meets your needs, then that's great, and this post is not for you :)

And fdroid is working very diligently on reproducible builds. Which is unique in the app distribution landscape.

I understand the premise that you don't want to trust a third party if you don't have to. But I also don't trust the developers to publish the source code correctly either. At least fdroid keeps everyone honest with the code being available.

I don't think they're aiming to replace F-Droid. Rather think of this as a tool to wean the masses off the play store. It's also an alternative for those people currently using microg and Aurora Store.

Personally I have some proprietary apps that I don't want to be without. If Accrescent could provide them, I could finally delete my google account. I literally just have an account to download apps.

Update: They've released a roadmap.

They have a fixed plan for the next 3 months, mostly back-end improvements for app developers.

Longer term plans are listed in order of priority but without a time line, it depends on how much of their funding goal they reach.

Current funding on Github shown at 10% of goal.