this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2024
43 points (89.1% liked)
F-Droid
7418 readers
1 users here now
F-Droid is an installable catalogue of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) applications for the Android platform. The client makes it easy to browse, install, and keep track of updates on your device.
Matrix space | forum | IRC
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Android Studio is the primary toolkit for developing native android apps. If you have no background in programming, there are some more visual tools like Budibase (open source) or Softr (closed source), but you are likely to run into difficulty getting them to apply logic the way you'd like.
If you're a tinkerer, then honestly I'd look into learning more about Android Studio and Kotlin, the language most used these days for app development on Android.
To add onto this, a good starting point is to clone the repo of an app you like from GitHub, Codeberg, GitLab, etc, then work on open issues.
Android Studio is proprietary
Imo that's fine. It's also still the best tool for learning since it's the most widely supported one, and contains the greatest amount of documentation for working with android development. It costs nothing to use, and doesn't lock you into any kind of ecosystem you can't later migrate from.
Does that mean there is a free alternative?
Time to develop one, perhaps?
Vscodium
And vscode.
Vscodium is basically vscode but without the proprietary stuff
That's not Foss though
OP never asked for FOSS.
True, but this is F-droid. Not to mention there little reason to use vscode over vscodium.
You're spot on. I do want to make my app open source.
Command line tools plus fancy editor
You can use IntelliJ Community to develop Android apps with an Android plugin.
Android Studio is still free, while proprietary. And Intellij community is also proprietary, pretty much the same thing?
IntelliJ has source available here under Apache-2 license. AFAIK only Pro edition is proprietary.
Android Studio has no source but there is one for Android IntelliJ plugin here.
Maybe I'm missing something but to me these cases are pretty different.
Oh wow, i didn't know they opened those sources, that is nice.
Is there a place to sell Android apps that isn't owned by Google?
As far as I'm aware, Samsung or Amazon are the only other real app "marketplaces". Most developers using Fdroid otherwise rely on donations or patreon for active development, depending on the nature of the app
Visual does sound nice but I'd rather go with something well used and stable. Is Android studio and Kotlin "open source"? I know what open source is but don't know how to make it that way or not. I've got a lot of learning to do clearly so I appreciate your help!
Android Studio is just the work environment for code and app development. You could continue on to publish all your code/work as an open source application through whichever means you choose during or after the fact.
Good to know. Another comment thread was talking about how it wasn't open source
When people refer to a particular piece of development aoftware as closed or open source, they are referring to the license/availability of that software's code. You can use proprietary software to produce open source code, which is the case with Android Studio. The code that makes up Android Studio is not open source, but your own work made within it can be.
In general, "open source" is a broad term that just means "can I see the code that made this?". There are differing degrees of open source software as well. The MIT license, for example, opens up code to some modification/re-use but protects some libraries. Something like a BSD or GPL license is far less restrictive, usually allowing free modification and use of the code. Android Studio falls under the Apache license, one of the more restrictive licenses that still applies copyright, and may employ proprietary libraries that cannot be modified or copied for use. Again, this ultimately isn't likely to affect your own work or projects, but it does mean there's less transparency about the tools you are using to make it.
I apologise if this is overwhelming, but the distinction is important, and I think that as a beginner it makes sense to start with where there is the most documentation and ease of entry. Once done, it's definitely easier to move towards projects that more closely align with FOSS philosophies.