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BasicAirData / GPSLogger

A GPS logger for Android mobile devices
http://www.basicairdata.eu/projects/android/android-gps-logger/
GNU General Public License v3.0
403 stars 126 forks source link

README does not explain privacy policy or if this source and the resulting binary are Free Software #226

Open gdt opened 2 months ago

gdt commented 2 months ago

It sounds like the app does not transmit any information to anywhere, but the README doesn't say that. Please adjust it to make the strongest possible crisp statement about what it does. exodus privacy seems to give it good marks.

I see that the license of the source is GPL3, but it is common for Android apps to include non-free code (e.g. Google libraries, including for location and FCM) and end up with non-Free binary. Please adjust the README to explain this also, either what proprietary code is included, or a statement that the binary is 100% Free.

(I see it's already on izzyondroid.)

See also #8.

GrazianoCapelli commented 2 months ago

It sounds like the app does not transmit any information to anywhere, but the README doesn't say that. Please adjust it to make the strongest possible crisp statement about what it does. exodus privacy seems to give it good marks.

Right, the app doesn't transmit any information to anywhere. To understand well what you mean please give us a good example of README privacy policy (a link to another GPL3 app on GitHub should be fine), and we'll take it in consideration.

I see that the license of the source is GPL3, but it is common for Android apps to include non-free code (e.g. Google libraries, including for location and FCM) and end up with non-Free binary. Please adjust the README to explain this also, either what proprietary code is included, or a statement that the binary is 100% Free.

We don't use Fused Location and neither FCM, and we paid attention to not use proprietary libraries. The README already specifies that The app is 100% free and open source. Maybe could we improve the README file specifying the license of any included library? Did you check the inclusion list and did you find an included library in build.gradle that in your opinion could have problems?

gdt commented 2 months ago

Basically, if this sentence is true, just add it to the end of the description.

This app stores data locally, but does not ever, under any circumstances, transmit your location or any other data to anywhere else.

I see "100% free and open source", but there is a very long history of apps where that is true of the source code but the apk has bundled proprietary libs. Lots of people seem to think this is ok -- and I'm glad you don't! So given that you are being careful about libs (yay!), then how about changing that to

The app is 100% free and open source, both the source code and the resulting apk (meaning that no proprietary libraries are included by the build).