Fenix: F-Droid

[dimqua]

Would be nice to have this browser available in the F-Droid repository, when it'll be released (I hope soon). That's why I should ask, do you support this idea?

[Rudloff]

I think the main problem here will be that the app uses several Maven repositories we (F-Droid) don't trust: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/blob/92559622195f44d1f715ae002809cf6e00eacecf/build.gradle#L27

[sm4rk0]

How is that solved in Fennec build? No untrusted repos? Sorry, couldn't decipher its build.gradle...

[Rudloff]

I think Fennec includes the Gecko source in the repository (instead of fetching prebuilt JAR files like Fenix) so we build everything from source.

[okias]

Is considered meanwhile provide nightly f-droid repository (something similiar to unofficial Firefox Beta repository?)

[djc]

Apart from the Gradle repositories, there might also be an issue with the fonts used: #1365.

[sm4rk0]

That's really sad news from Mozilla. Can we try convincing them not to do so? It's also sad that there's no reply to cadeyrn's comment (please, at least give it a thumbs up if you agree).

[reinhart1010]

Duplicate: https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/fenix-nightly/99AQ456ZkoU

[rugk]

(FYI: That google group/mailing list is private as it seems. At least, I cannot access it without login.)

[reinhart1010]

That Google Group is intended for Google Play beta-testing (i.e. you must join that group to be eligible to obtain the pre-release Fenix in Google Play). Besides that, I let them know that their issues and suggestions have been listed here, including respective GitHub issue links.

Edit: Ah, sorry for those who prefer not to use any of Google products here.

[dector]

Can we make a list of issues that prevent releasing Fenix to F-Droid and attack them one-by-one?

[dector]

:arrow_up: @Rudloff @sm4rk0 I need your help with this.

Issues that prevents Fenix to be distributed via F-Droid:

• [ ] Proprietary font.
• [ ] Dependencies from maven.mozilla.org.
• [ ] Using non-free play services library.

anything else?

[Rudloff]

Some maven repositories (which?).

The problem here is that our policy only allows dependencies built from source or fetched from a trusted repository.
Fenix uses dependencies from https://maven.mozilla.org/, which is not in our whitelist.
We decided not to add Mozilla's repository to the list because they have included non-free dependencies like Play Services in their builds in the past.

So the solution to this would be for us to build these dependencies (mostly android-components) entirely from source, but this could be a lot of work. (And some of these components also use custom repositories and non-free dependencies...)

anything else?

Fenix uses the non-free play-services-ads-identifier library.

PS: Of course, Mozilla could also provide their own F-Droid repository with non-free builds.

[dector]

Thanks a lot for adding more details to this @Rudloff !

[dimqua]

@Rudloff could you use (and whitelist) the direct download links for all of those prebuilt dependences? GeckoView mainly.

You haven't to whitelist the whole maven repo in this case.

[Rudloff]

Fenix requires several dozen libraries hosted on https://maven.mozilla.org/, downloading all these manually would be very tedious (and against our policy).

[PopeRigby]

What's wrong with Maven, again?

[Rudloff]

The problem is not Maven itself but the fact that Fenix uses a Maven repository that is not trusted by the the F-Droid build server. (And the F-Droid contributors decided not to whitelist it.)
Basically, F-Droid only allows Maven/Gradle dependencies from these repositories.

To sum up, the situation is currently stuck unless one the following things happen:

• Mozilla publishes their libraries on Maven Central or jCenter (and releases a statement swearing that they don't contain any non-free code?).
• Someone convinces the F-Droid team to whitelist https://maven.mozilla.org/.
• Someone writes a recipe to build all the required libraries from source.
• Mozilla hosts their own F-Droid repository.

[dector]

Someone writes a recipe to build all the required libraries from source.

I suppose this requires some significant amount of work but doesn't seem unrealistic though. :sweat_smile:

[PopeRigby]

Can we get a Mozilla contributor here to talk about this? Seems we need their opinion.

[PopeRigby]

@bbinto added this to a milestone. I assume that means they're going to do it. Right?

[dector]

@PopeRigby I can't speak for Mozilla, but this issue seems solvable for me.

Fenix is in beta state for now so team is focusing on building (fast) high quality product but I believe that after releasing stable version this issue will have more attention. I think we need some to make some investigation to split this task onto smaller ones and make them easier to contribute to.

[okias]

@dector since Mozilla is percepted as company which focus on open-source and Fenix browser will go against this idea from beggining, it must be solved before releasing Fenix into wild.

Users should have choice to download Fenix from F-Droid and F-Droid requirements are adequate for free software, which Fenix should be.

I like reputation that Mozilla has and I'm not will settle with half-open product (aka M$ and Google style)

[cadeyrn]

since Mozilla is percepted as company which focus on open-source and Fenix browser will go against this idea from beggining, it must be solved before releasing Fenix into wild.

and

I like reputation that Mozilla has and I'm not will settle with half-open product (aka M$ and Google style)

With all due respect, Fenix is not a "half-open product (aka M$ and Google style)" only because it's not distributed via F-Droid. Please stay objective, such comments are not helpful at all. While I agree that it would be _nice_ to provide Fenix via more distribution channels, it can't be a release blocker, especially since most users use the Google Play Store. The current top priority is to launch the MVP and there were really more important tasks to solve before the launch date. And if you don't trust Google (but still use Android, well…) you can download Fenix via GitHub or Taskcluster, so it's not like there's no other source for downloading Fenix.

tl;dr: It's absolutely okay to bring Fenix to F-Droid in the next months, but not a MVP release blocker at all. That's my opinion as a Fenix user (I don't work for Mozilla).

[okias]

since Mozilla is percepted as company which focus on open-source and Fenix browser will go against this idea from beggining, it must be solved before releasing Fenix into wild.

and

I like reputation that Mozilla has and I'm not will settle with half-open product (aka M$ and Google style)

With all due respect, Fenix is not a "half-open product (aka M$ and Google style)" only because it's not distributed via F-Droid.

It's not only about F-Droid distribution channel, it's about not being able to distribute as free software.

Please stay objective, such comments are not helpful at all. While I agree that it would be _nice_ to provide Fenix via more distribution channels, it can't be a release blocker, especially since most users use the Google Play Store.The current top priority is to launch the MVP and there were really more important tasks to solve before the launch date. And if you don't trust Google (but still use Android, well…) you can download Fenix via GitHub or Taskcluster, so it's not like there's no other source for downloading Fenix.

Well, I don't use Android, I use AOSP platform (LineageOS), which is free and on top of it I use software as Firefox browser and other free software.

tl;dr: It's absolutely okay to bring Fenix to F-Droid in the next months, but not a MVP release blocker at all. That's my opinion as a Fenix user (I don't work for Mozilla).

My post is not about just bring Fenix to F-Droid. It's about make it free as it should be from start and then it can be easily put into F-Droid store without any pain.

I don't say I mind distributing non-completly-free version on PlayStore, but it's important to be able build it as pure free software :)

[HansCronau]

I'm surprised to find this is the only issue (kind of) mentioning the fact that the preview currently is listed as GSF (Google Services Framework) dependent. Given the focus on privacy I think it would make sense to follow Firefox Focus' example of being GSF independent.

To be sure: @Rudloff, is removing GSF dependency already included in one of the points on your list?
And do you think would it would make a good candidate for a separate, smaller issue to solve on a path to F-Droid publication?

[Rudloff]

To be sure: @Rudloff, is removing GSF dependency already included in one of the points on your list?

As mentioned in https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/162#issuecomment-502348681, Fenix uses one of the Play Services library.
(This does not necessarily means it requires Play Services, probably that it uses them if they are available.)

[st3fan]

@Rudloff how does this work for Fennec, which also depends on GPS and Firebase services?

[Rudloff]

Fennec builds distributed by F-Droid dont include Firebase libraries.

[st3fan]

@Rudloff do we just need more feature flags to support f-droid?

[Rudloff]

A build flag or a build variant allowing us to build the app without the proprietary dependencies would be great :slightly_smiling_face:

[PopeRigby]

Doesn't that give Fenix a non-free upstream anti-feature?

[Rudloff]

If it is an officially supported build variant and not something we patch on our end, I'm not sure the anti-feature applies. (And it is not a blocker anyway.)

[PopeRigby]

Can we get a custom repo we can add to the F-Droid client until we get an official F-Droid release? Riot X is doing that right now. It would be a good temporary solution until this is sorted out.

[sm4rk0]

@IzzySoft, could you please help?

[dimqua]

@thermatk (a f-droid contributor) working on this currently. He already managed to bring new Focus versions to F-Droid.

[IzzySoft]

@sm4rk0 if Pierre (@Rudloff) can't, I don't see how I can. And as you didn't give me context (at least saying help with what – as often as I get pinged, I cannot always catch up the entire threads), I don't know, sorry.

[dimqua]

@IzzySoft he probably asks for includion to your repo, but this app is too big I guess.

[IzzySoft]

@dimqua If that was the question, yours is the answer, yes. I don't even need to look to say that, as the size of Firefox builds is known to be far behind the limits of my repo…

[sm4rk0]

Sorry for brevity, @IzzySoft.
Yes, I hoped you could help by including the official binaries from this repo, but didn't know about the size limits. Thanks for everything you do!

[IzzySoft]

Gladly, @sm4rk0 – and be welcome to check at https://gitlab.com/IzzyOnDroid/repo as things might change (you also can use the issue tracker there to suggest new apps or report issues).

[esmoak]

Can we get a custom repo we can add to the F-Droid client until we get an official F-Droid release? Riot X is doing that right now. It would be a good temporary solution until this is sorted out.

@PopeRigby there is an unofficial Mozilla repo here:

https://gitlab.com/rfc2822/fdroid-firefox

I’m unsure how to contact the maintainer to find out if Fenix can/will be added. Posting in case you or anyone else is interested.

[genodeftest]

@PopeRigby there is an unofficial Mozilla repo here:

https://gitlab.com/rfc2822/fdroid-firefox

I’m unsure how to contact the maintainer to find out if Fenix can/will be added. Posting in case you or anyone else is interested.

Fenix builds have been added but something about the arch detection is wrong missing the arm/aarch64 builds: https://gitlab.com/rfc2822/fdroid-firefox/issues/1

[genodeftest]

Update: https://gitlab.com/rfc2822/fdroid-firefox provides a fully functional Firefox Preview which is regularly updated.

@PopeRigby: The maintainer has a website which is linked from his gitlab account: https://www.bitfire.at/

[ildar]

Wrong.
rfc2822's repo is just a copy of the Mozilla build. F-Droid builds all apks
from source

[Bubu]

@cadeyrn

With all due respect, Fenix is not a "half-open product (aka M$ and Google style)" only because it's not distributed via F-Droid.

No, as currently distributed Fenix is not half-open, it's actually proprietary software by nature of including proprietary libraries.

As long as there is no build variant without proprietary components Fenix cannot be included into F-Droid, thus distritribution via F-Droid serves as a kind of checkpoint for apps being fully FOSS which is far more important than the distribution channel itself.

Checking for com.google.android.gms or com.google.firebase classes in the final apk is a good sanity test usually, these are all part of proprietary libraries afaik.

$ unzip ./app/build/outputs/apk/geckoNightly/debug/app-geckoNightly-x86-debug.apk classes.dex
Archive:  ./app/build/outputs/apk/geckoNightly/debug/app-geckoNightly-x86-debug.apk
  inflating: classes.dex    
$ $ANDROID_HOME/build-tools/29.0.2/dexdump classes.dex | grep -E 'Class descriptor'.*('com/google/android/gms'|com/google/firebase) | wc -l
1184

:cry:

There may also be other non-google proprietary components in there as well.

A webbrowser being as complex as it is, we (F-Droid) cannot realistically maintain a foss build flavour/method ourself as we currently do for Firefox/Fennec and Focus Klar. So as long as that's not officially supported by Mozilla this cannot be included in F-Droid.

[cadeyrn]

You took a small part of my comment from last year out of the context…

[Bubu]

@cadeyrn I stumbled over your comment while reading up on this thread. I don't think I took it out of context though? But regardless my main points here are:

• Fenix cannot be build as free software currently and until that is the case it cannot distributed on the f-droid.org repo.

• A third party is very unlikely to archive this goal, so it's something that has to be solved at Mozilla.

• A commandline snippet with which anyone can check if we are even close to reaching a free Fenix yet.

[thermatk]

In my opinion, it makes no sense to invest any of the limited time people
have now into supporting a constantly changing unfinished product. When
this transition phase will be over, it won't be impossible to maintain
again :)

чт, 16 янв. 2020 г. в 16:31, Marcus [e-mail]:

@cadeyrn https://github.com/cadeyrn I stumbled over your comment while
reading up on this thread. I don't think I took it out of context though?
But regardless my main points here are:

-

Fenix cannot be build as free software currently and until that is the
case it cannot distributed on the f-droid.org repo.
-

A third party is very unlikely to archive this goal, so it's something
that has to be solved at Mozilla.
-

A commandline snippet with which anyone can check if we are even close
to reaching a free Fenix yet.

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[rootkea]

• Fenix cannot be build as free software currently and until that is the case it cannot distributed on the f-droid.org repo.

I hold Mozilla in pretty high esteem. I really hope they release Fenix as Free Software.

[grravity]

@rootkea This, it would make me essentially not use the application and would be very frustrating to say the least. I hope good decisions are made here.
I love Fennec, but it's kinda outdated and can be buggy, But I'd rather stay on it if Mozilla doesn't make good decisions towards a FOSS Fenix release.

[opusforlife2]

@st3fan What about them build flags, though? (You seem to be the only Mozilla employee who has replied here.)

[grravity]

12132 possibly related

[st3fan]

Same advice as https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/12809#issuecomment-663006957

That thread is more about the usage of (third-party) SDKs and Mozilla services, but the same applies.

That said, I don't know how to solve the "Mozilla Maven" problem. We take some really big dependencies from there like GeckoView and Android Components. You can definitely build those from source, but that is not a small job.

[xcffl]

That said, I don't know how to solve the "Mozilla Maven" problem.

Mozilla maven could be added into trusted repos just as Google Maven does, as long as there are only open source libs.

[opusforlife2]

@Rudloff @Bubu See https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/12809#issuecomment-663006957.

[opusforlife2]

How much additional space does the Firefox Account Sync functionality take? (I think it's App Services or 'AS', the third component after AC and GV in About Firefox?)

If it is of any benefit (like reduced app size), then maybe there could be a build variant which comes without this functionality for those (like me) who don't use a Firefox account.

[madb1lly]

Hi all,
I'd like to see Fenix in F-Droid but I don't want any functionality removed, like account syncing.
Cheers 🙂

[pocmo]

Hey all!

I wanted to look at the list of requirements to get Fenix into f-droid.

The problem here is that our policy only allows dependencies built from source or fetched from a trusted repository.
Fenix uses dependencies from https://maven.mozilla.org/, which is not in our whitelist.
We decided not to add Mozilla's repository to the list because they have included non-free dependencies like Play Services in their builds in the past.

I do not understand how this is different to other repositories in the whitelist. jcenter, maven central, they all contain artifacts that may link against google play services or others. We did publish our own artifacts to jcenter at some point, but that caused a ton of (technical) issues and that's why we've set up our own repository.

So the solution to this would be for us to build these dependencies (mostly android-components) entirely from source, but this could be a lot of work. (And some of these components also use custom repositories and non-free dependencies...)

We can probably entangle that at the Fenix level. However I still wonder why for Fenix everything needs to be build from source, while this doesn't seem to be the case for other apps on f-droid?

We should be able to provide build flags that lets f-droid (or anyone else) build Fenix without the mentioned libraries. But if building the whole tree from source is something that is required, then this would be up to f-droid.

[gilbsgilbs]

@pocmo Agreed with your statements.

Though, if whitelisting Mozilla's maven repository isn't an option for some reason, note that I've been able to build Fenix and its main dependencies from source this week-end, without relying on Mozilla's maven repository and removing any non-free requirement I found on the way. I made a tiny build script that automatically applies the required patches and runs the build in docker. I might share it if it's useful at some point or if it gets some interest.

Here are the main steps to follow to achieve this:

• Build geckoview for all ABIs
• Build geckoview "fat-aar" and publish it to local maven
• Build glean and publish it to local maven
• Patch all projects' "build.gradle" to add localMaven() to any repository{} declaration
• Build and publish to local maven the following android-components (there is a dependency cycle between application-services and android-components, that's why we need to build them first):
  
  
  
  • tooling-glean-gradle
  
  
  • concept-fetch
  
  
  • service-glean
  
  
  • support-ktx
  
  
  • support-base
  
  
  • support-utils
  
  
• Patch application-services to make it use the same version of android-components we just published to local maven
• Patch android-components project to make it build against the version of geckoview we just published to local maven (from the top of my head in Gecko.kt and lib/crash/build.gradle)
• Blacklist components we don't want to build (sample components, browser-engine-gecko-(beta|nightly), lib-nearby+feature-p2p which depends on Google Nearby library (but it isn't used by Fenix anyways), lib-push-firebase which depends on firebase and play services), build all other components and publish them to local maven
• Apply the following patches to fenix:
  
  
  
  • Replace FirebasePushService.kt with a stub implementation
  
  
  • Remove any mention of "OssLicensesMenuActivity" in AboutFragment.kt (although the play-services-oss-licenses plugin is itself open-source, the play-services-oss-licenses library isn't and includes dependencies to the play services)
  
  
  • Remove any mention of google ads in MetricsUtils.kt
  
  
  • Remove the following dependencies:
  
  
  • google_ads_id
  
  
  • mozilla_lib_push_firebase
  
  
  • osslicenses_library
  
  
• Finally, build fenix.

If we can't come to a simpler solution that would allow Fenix to be included in F-Droid's main repo, I'll probably create my own F-Droid repository that provides automated free builds of Fenix.

In any case, having a build variant of fenix that doesn't include play-services-oss-licenses, mozilla-lib-push-firebase and google-ads-id dependencies and therefore doesn't import them wouldn't be a waste of time. It would at very least prevent the maintainer (be it third-party or F-Droid team) from applying dirty patches manually that may often break the build.

[opusforlife2]

(although the play-services-oss-licenses plugin is itself open-source, the play-services-oss-licenses library isn't and includes dependencies to the play services)

There is an open source alternative to this that the developer of Tachiyomi recently used to replace it: https://github.com/ligi/ThirdPartyLicenseDisplay

[grravity]

@gilbsgilbs

If we can't come to a simpler solution that would allow Fenix to be included in F-Droid's main repo, I'll probably create my own F-Droid repository that provides automated free builds of Fenix.

This seems like the better solution, doesn't it? Slightly more work, yes, but getting all unessecary dependencies and anti-features completely out of the build would be ideal, no? As long as it could be maintained properly long term, I would be +1 for this.

[okias]

@gilbsgilbs I wonder - would be willing create bugs on bugzilla.mozilla.org or at https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/ for these issues and possibly for some low-hanging fruits, send them patches? It would be great if everyone could benefit, even GPLAY users..

[sysrqb]

In any case, having a build variant of fenix that doesn't include play-services-oss-licenses, mozilla-lib-push-firebase and google-ads-id dependencies and therefore doesn't import them wouldn't be a waste of time. It would at very least prevent the maintainer (be it third-party or F-Droid team) from applying dirty patches manually that may often break the build.

Tor will likely be working with Mozilla on getting some of these changes upstreamed into Fenix for Tor Browser, so hopefully there will be an official build variant like this in the future (of course, I can't make any guarantees about when/if this will actually happen, or to what extent it will be successful, but we'll see).

[pocmo]

note that I've been able to build Fenix and its main dependencies from source this week-end, without relying on Mozilla's maven repository and removing any non-free requirement I found on the way.

Nice, that must have been a lot of work - including building all the Rust code.

In any case, having a build variant of fenix that doesn't include play-services-oss-licenses, mozilla-lib-push-firebase and google-ads-id dependencies and therefore doesn't import them wouldn't be a waste of time. It would at very least prevent the maintainer (be it third-party or F-Droid team) from applying dirty patches manually that may often break the build.

Agree, I think that's something that makes sense to have at the Fenix level and land as build flags here.

[gilbsgilbs]

@pocmo

Agree, I think that's something that makes sense to have at the Fenix level and land as build flags here.

How do you think this should be done though? I'm not a gradle expert at all, but I feel like Fenix build configuration is quite complex already and relying on build flavors and/or build types to exclude these dependencies would induce a lot of rework on CI scripts, taskcluster and stuff isn't it? I don't feel like it's something somebody completely foreign to Mozilla could do (or some pointers would be appreciated :smiley: ). But it surely would be safer to have the OSS variant included in the CI process.

Or maybe what you meant with "build flag" is a project property that would exclude proprietary dependencies with basic ifs? This way, we would build the free variant of fenix like: gradle assembleGeckoProduction -Porg.mozilla.fenix.isOss=true and proprietary junk would just be "ignored"?

Lastly, setting up the build configuration is one thing, but how would it work in the code? I think F-Droid requires not only the final build artifact to only involve free software, but also the whole build process. How to deal with proprietary imports then? The only solutions I see involve using reflection which doesn't sound very safe (though it could be mitigated by working with gradle build sources and by using some reflection library like jOOR). I'm sure other F-Droid projects have already dealt with this in the past, I'm curious how they did and/or if anybody have better ideas than mine.

I have to say I'm a bit reassured that Mozilla is still open to have such variant of Fenix. I was (and still am) worried that Fenix includes and enables by default so many different spying libraries (and even proprietary ones) without collecting any form of user consent. At least making progress on this issue will provide a better alternative to users who really care about their privacy :+1: .

[grravity]

@gilbsgilbs Again, I personally would highly like to see a build with all the junk completely removed rather than just ignored, I think this would be the ideal option from a philosophy stance, even if a bit more work it would please many more users. It's a shame we even need an independent build like this when Firefox is supposed to be "privacy friendly" but this is simply not true. The amount of data reporting, phoning home, telemetry, etc is absurd where it would simply be amazing to be able to have an fdroid build with all this removed instead of just ignored.

I do understand this would be a bit more work, but if someone can do it that'd be amazing. As for how to best do it, I unfortunately am not knowledgable enough to help with that.

[opusforlife2]

@grravity "Ignored" here means ignoring the proprietary part of the code while building, so that it wouldn't be included in the apk.

[gilbsgilbs]

Yeah yeah, in case it wasn't clear, "ignored" means that you don't even fetch them to build fenix. That's why I talked about imports and reflection: if you don't have the libraries locally, you can't build any code that import those libraries.

To be clear, I already have a local, rebranded fork of fenix without the proprietary libraries, without the trademarked name and logo, and with tracking disabled by default. But having everything we can being officially supported would just be better for everyone. I want to see how things evolve before making it publicly available.

[madb1lly]

Hi all,

I would like to add that I don't subscribe to the conspiracy theory that Mozilla is secretly _tracking_ every one of it's users (telemetry and crash reporting is not tracking). Nor am I such a hardcore FLOSS fan that I can't stand any non-FLOSS code... after all, we're using GitHub here, which isn't FLOSS! However, I definitely would like to see Fenix available on F-Droid, ideally as an official Mozilla build, because that's one less app which I need to rely on Google Play for, and the less dependence I have on Google (or any other single "big tech" company) the better.

Cheers 🙂

[pocmo]

@gilbsgilbs Yes, I was thinking about gradle properties that can be used as flags on the command line or in local.properties.

Regarding the imports etc.: I was thinking we could use the same approach as Fennec. For example it hides "Leanplum" behind MmaDelegate. All Fennec code only calls methods on MmaDelegate. Internally MmaDelegate uses (based on build configuration) either MmaLeanplumImp or MmaStubImp.

[grravity]

@opusforlife2 Ah, I misinterpreted, understood. Sorry

[opusforlife2]

@gilbsgilbs Thank you so much for working on this! ❤️

[gilbsgilbs]

I've opened #13453 which implements an OSS build flag for fenix. I think this should be enough to close this issue (as the only real blocker to having fenix into F-Droid would be whitelisting Mozilla's maven repository which is mostly political at this point). Let me know what you think @pocmo .

[bbigam]

@gilbsgilbs

If we can't come to a simpler solution that would allow Fenix to be included in F-Droid's main repo, I'll probably create my own F-Droid repository that provides automated free builds of Fenix.

Thanks for all your work toward a FOSS build of Fenix! If you do host your own F-Droid repo with a "Fenix FOSS" or whatever you may call it... as a side note, could you also include support for about:config? Should be available in source since it is enabled in Fenix Beta and Nightly.

Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this. Again, thanks!

[gilbsgilbs]

As I closed the initial PR to split it into smaller chunks, I'll keep track of the progression of the different PRs in this comment:

• [x] Remove play-services-oss-licenses library:
  
  
  
  • [x] PR done #13767
  
  
  • [x] PR approved
  
  
  • [x] PR merged
  
  
• [ ] Build flag for mozilla-lib-push-firebase
  
  
  
  • [x] PR done #13857
  
  
  • [ ] PR approved
  
  
  • [ ] PR merged
  
  
• [ ] Build flag for leanplum
  
  
  
  • [ ] PR done
  
  
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• [ ] Build flag for google-ads-id
  
  
  
  • [ ] PR done
  
  
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[relan]

F-Droid dev here. I've been working on Fenix inclusion for the past couple of months. Here is a recipie and a set of scripts. In short, it eliminates Mozilla Maven repository and builds GeckoView, Glean, Android Components and Application Services from source (without proprietary components). Fenix itself is heavily patched to remove non-free stuff; the removal of play-services-oss-licenses and flags for other proprietary dependencies are very appreciated, @gilbsgilbs.

Fenix F-Droid is still a work-in-progress, but all the heavy lifting is done and it will eventually replace the old good Fennec F-Droid. Thanks to everyone working on this task!

[Anutrix]

* [ ]  Remove `play-services-oss-licenses` library:

  * [x]  PR done #13767
  * [x]  PR approved
  * [ ]  PR merged

@gilbsgilbs #13767 was merged.

[st3fan]

@relan sorry I probably missed this discussion - but what was the reason again that you can't depend on our Maven repo? Is there anything we can do?

[relan]

what was the reason again that you can't depend on our Maven repo?

Nothing specific to the Mozilla repo. F-Droid aims at building everything from source to make sure that binaries correspond to the source code. Currently we allow some widespread repositories like Maven Central, JCenter, JitPack, etc. but in the future we'd like to get rid of this legacy.

Is there anything we can do?

My wishlist :) to all upstream developers:

• Improve documentation about building components (and keep it up-to-date). For instance, there are mutual dependencies between Android Components and Application Services. Would be great to have the bootstrapping procedure described.
• Simplify build setup. For example, after some trial and error I had to set several variables and call 2 scripts to build Application Services. Would be nice if build.gradle could do this for us.
• Make builds reproducible. This would be a whole new level of transparancy.

[TheEvilSkeleton]

Just wanted come by here and say that there is a fork of Fenix, and the developer is trying to get it in F-Droid https://github.com/interfect/fenix/issues/26. @relan you might be interested

[relan]

Meanwhile, another proprietary library (com.google.android.play:core) was added in 365d1019f6ee7c28a2824a80506d74977983544b. :disappointed:

[opusforlife2]

Was it added with a build flag to exclude it?

If not, is this something the Fenix team could take care to keep in mind for the future? Proprietary dependencies should be added with a build flag so that it is easy to build a free flavour without them.

Edit: (at least, that's the impression I've got from the conversation above.)

[gilbsgilbs]

FYI, I'm not able to keep up with my work on the build flags just yet. If somebody wants to push #13857 forward, I'll happily give write access to my repo or they can open their own PR. If not, I'll probably come back to it at some point.

[TheEvilSkeleton]

Looks like there was an ongoing MR that got merged recently: https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/merge_requests/7448

@relan I thank you so much for the hard work.

[sideeffffect]

the F-Droid repo still offers the old version 68.12.0 https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid/
I've created a PR to update it https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/merge_requests/7462

[pwd-github]

I have no idea how to say this eloquently, but I believe Fennec should be archived and Fenix should be a new package.

[Dunexus]

@pwd-github If I am not mistaking, making Fenix a new package would disallow Mozilla to provide it as an update from fennec through Play Store.

[andreicristianpetcu]

F-Droid does not want to have it auto update for some reason.

"The app shares the appid with the official F-Droid Fennec build but is signed with a different key, so it won’t install as an update to any existing version and neither will the future official build install over this version."

https://forum.f-droid.org/t/welcome-a-new-fennec-f-droid/11113/16

[xcffl]

F-Droid does not want to have it auto update for some reason.

Well, to be clear, the Fennec will share the same signing key as the old one (and all F-droid apps). Only a temporary test key for the test version.

[Lion-box]

F-Droid does not want to have it auto update for some reason.

"The app shares the appid with the official F-Droid Fennec build but is signed with a different key, so it won’t install as an update to any existing version and neither will the future official build install over this version."

https://forum.f-droid.org/t/welcome-a-new-fennec-f-droid/11113/16

Non correct.
This only concerns the test build posted by bubu.
F-Droid will build and sign and the app will update as usual.
https://forum.f-droid.org/t/welcome-a-new-fennec-f-droid/11113/44

[pwd-github]

@pwd-github If I am not mistaking, making Fenix a new package would disallow Mozilla to provide it as an update from fennec through Play Store.

Surely creating a new package just makes all the sense. Especially given the drastic UI change the limited add-on support. Move Fennec to F-Droid Archive and support org.mozilla.fenix-fdroid in the main repo.

[Serkan-devel]

It would be great to keep the Fennec name as it is, due to the reputation that this build variant gained over the years and as mentioned here.

Adding fenix as a tag would be enough.

[reyis4402]

@relan Firefox does not allow turning off the google safe browsing feature on mobile. Will Fennec-Fenix allow this?

[andreicristianpetcu]

This should be closed https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid/

[opusforlife2]

This should be closed

I think this checklist is still important to achieve. https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/162#issuecomment-674378939

@relan seemed to appreciate the benefits.

[kbrosnan]

This shipped. Thanks to @relan and anyone else involved with the f-droid Fennec/Fenix project. It is better to track tasks about upstreaming any useful code in new issues. This one is far too messy to be of much use.