Offering F-Droid as install option in Fairphone Updater

[eighthave]

Now that F-Droid Privileged Extension is built into Fairphone Open, I think F-Droid itself should be easily installable on Fairphone Open. To make that easy, we’ve made an OTA update ZIP that installs F-Droid itself:

https://f-droid.org/packages/org.fdroid.fdroid.ota/

As far as I know, this is the same kind of package that was used to install Google Play on FP1. I’m thinking there could be a similar user experience for installing F-Droid: in Fairphone Updater, the user can choose Advanced, then from there, choose the option to install F-Droid.

[paulakreuzer]

I’m guessing this information is most relevant to the Open OS developers?
CC: @Teemu_Hukkanen

[Roboe]

Will it install F-Droid as a system app? If true, why?

I mean, one can easily install F-Droid as a user app fine while benefiting from the privileged extension, already integrated in the system. Installing F-Droid as a non-privileged system app will make it available to all device users, but the step will need to be reproduced with every Open OS update… AFAIK, Open OS doesn’t have any OTA-survival mechanism. It is worth it?

Of course, an easiest way to discover/install F-Droid should be available, IMO

[eighthave]

The idea is to install F-Droid to the regular data partition via an OTA
update, as if the user installed the APK directly. This means that
Fairphone Updater could run the install process, and the user will have
F-Droid installed in a way that survives system updates, but is also
uninstallable.

Right now, a Fairphone Open user needs to manually download F-Droid.apk,
enable Unknown Sources, install F-Droid, then disable Unknown Sources.
That’s easy for a techie, but for a regular user, that can be painful
and confusing.

[Roboe]

The idea is to install F-Droid to the regular data partition

That’s the piece of information I didn’t find in the F-Droid description, thus my question. Thank you for clarifying that,

enable Unknown Sources

I’m so used to left that enabled that I forgot about it. You’re right, it’s a confusing and painful process for a regular user.

I’m in. Having this in Fairphone Updater will be awesome!