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Soon to be modern

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This Week in F-Droid

TWIF curated on Thursday, 04 Jul 2024, Week 27

F-Droid core

Reproducible builds are a new focus for F-Droid, we’re talking about 2 years new, versus all of our 14. And while it’s a harder path to take, about 9% of our hosted apps are signed by the upstream developers, we are sure it’s the best one forward and we insist on checking this on every new inclusion. That being said, we wish the hardest thing a developer needs to do when this status has been reached is to keep safe their keys but it’s not that easy, the list is long.

In the past week we’ve seen more apps failing to verify reproducibly not because our build and the developer’s one were different but because the signed packages have some “garbage added”. We’ve narrowed it to a specific setup: apps signed by apksigner from build-tools >= 35.0.0-rc1, based on developers that build on Github Actions CI using their latest Ubuntu image. For now we’ve asked developers to try and sign with apksigner from the older 34.0.0 version.

We’re tracking this issue in #3299 and in apksigcopier issue 105.

And some good news, F-Droid Client UI has been stuck in Material-land-circa-2016 for a while now. Even back then the newly modern design split the community in two. But time passed, user got accustomed, Material Design language evolved, and voices started to raise again and ask for a modernization.

F-Droid contributor @proletarius101 has been hacking away at bringing the Client into 2024 with the minimal changes needed, and it looks pretty fine so far. What’s missing to get it done? There’s a question of “shared aesthetic vocabulary before actualizing the colors 😎”, basically we’re in the “bike-shedding” stage, and we hope it won’t take long. You can see the new design at work and read the proposals so far in the actual merge request, and we’re open to your feedback via our usual contact channels.

Community News

We’re off to a new round of “seasonal cleaning”, the first casualty is Wikipedia, Official feature-rich viewer of the free online encyclopedia, which was downgraded to r/2.7.50324-?//r-2020-06-29. Many others will fall in the next week as we are perusing the output of a fresh F-Droid SUSS scan, armed with updated signatures based on the work of our past long time contributor @IzzyDroid.

Don’t be sad if you see your favorite app downgraded in the next TWIF, it’s all for a good cause, to get them all more free than before. Stay tuned for more info!

Not mentioned last week, but Standard Notes, An end-to-end encrypted note-taking app for digitalists and professionals, also got the “cleaning” treatment, old versions got purged, yet thanks to @linsui’s work the app is back and we didn’t miss a beat.

K-9 Mail was updated to beta 6.904, so if you’re living the dangerous live do update as many reported crashes in previous builds.

PiliPala was updated to 1.0.24 but its code is still based on older 1.0.22, as after this version the app developers did not release new versions as open-source.

Newly Added Apps

13 apps were newly added
  • APM – Third-party Bilibili music player
  • Amber – Nostr event signer for Android
  • BlastOff – Casual endless runner featuring vector graphics
  • blichess – Play lichess games over Bluetooth
  • Colemak Mod-DH Keyboard – Colemak Mod-DH layout for physical keyboards connected via USB
  • FocusMastodon – A bright and colourful Mastodon client
  • FocusPodcast – A quality podcast management and playback application
  • GPTMobile – Your all in one chat assistant – Chat with multiple LLMs at once!
  • Keysh – Volume buttons handler
  • MMRL – The ultimate manager for Magisk, KernelSU, and APatch
  • NFC Quick Settings – View NFC status, and quickly access NFC settings, from the Quick Settings menu
  • Parti – Help with partitioning into fractional parts (compute lcm)
  • ServerBox – A server status & toolbox app using Flutter

Updated Apps

122 more apps were updated

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David Rosenthal on the X Windowsing System’s 40th birthday

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David Rosenthal, one of the primary contributors to the X Windowing System, has published an awesome blog post about the recent 40 year anniversary of X, full of details about the early days of X development, as well as the limitations they had to deal with, the choices they had to make, and the environment in which they were constrained. Once at Sun I realized that it was more important for the company that the Unix world standardized on a single window system than that the standard be Sun’s NeWS system. At C-MU I had already looked into X as an alternative to the Andrew window system, so I knew it was the obvious alternative to NeWS. Although most of my time was spent developing NeWS, I rapidly ported X version 10 to the Sun/1, likely the second port to non-DEC hardware. It worked, but I had to kludge several areas that depended on DEC-specific hardware. The worst was the completely DEC-specific keyboard support. Because it was clear that a major redesign of X was needed to make it portable and in particular to make it work well on Sun hardware, Gosling and I worked with the teams at DEC SRC and WRL on the design of X version 11. Gosling provided significant input on the imaging model, and I designed the keyboard support. As the implementation evolved I maintained the Sun port and did a lot of testing and bug fixing. All of which led to my trip to Boston to pull all-nighters at MIT finalizing the release. ↫ David Rosenthal They were clearly right. During those days, the UNIX world was using a variety of windowing systems, all tied to various companies and platforms. Standardising virtually the entire UNIX world on X aided in keeping UNIX compatible-ish even in the then-new graphical era, and X’s enduring existence to this very day is evidence of the fact they made a lot of right choices early on. Rosenthal also explains why one of the main alternatives to X, Sun’s PostScript-based NeWS, which was also co-developed by Rosenthal, didn’t win out over X. It had several things working against its adoptions and popularisation, such as Sun requiring a license fee for the source code, its heftier system requirements, and the fact it was more difficult to program for. After trying to create what Rosenthal describes as a “ghastly kludge” by combining NeWS and X into Xnews, Sun eventually killed it altogether. Of course, this wouldn’t be restrospective of X without mentioning Wayland. We and Jobs were wrong about the imaging model, for at least two reasons. First, early on pixels were in short supply and applications needed to make the best use of the few they were assigned. They didn’t want to delegate control to the PostScript interpreter. Second, later on came GPUs with 3D imaging models. The idea of a one-size-fits-all model became obsolete. The reason that Wayland should replace X11 is that it is agnostic to the application’s choice of imaging model. ↫ David Rosenthal This is about as close to a blessing from the original X Windowing System developers you’re ever going to get, but Rosenthal does correctly note that XWayland is a thing, and since not every application is going to be rewritten to support Wayland, X will most likely be around for a long time to come. In fact, he looks towards the future, and predicts that we’ll definitely be celebrating 50 years of X, and that yes, people will still be using it by then.

New DJ Pickup Truck in Indian Game | Indian Cars Simulator 3D Android Gameplay#ybgameplaystv

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New Pickup Truck in Indian Game | Indian Cars Simulator 3D Android Gameplay#ybgameplaystv

In this video, I am playing the Indian Cars Simulator 3d (Indian Cars Simulator 3D 2024 New Pickup Truck driving gadi game || Car Game) Car Driving game. Indian Cars Simulator 3d is a game that simulates an interior camera view of a car. This game is very interesting and also gives you a real feel of driving a car. I really like this game and I want you to play and feel it. I just love this game(Indian Cars Simulator 3D), the 3d graphics and the camera view are just awesome. So what are you waiting for? Just download the game and feel the real driving experience. But STOP! First Watch Video Till The End , I hope you will like it.

Game Highlights
Play the Most Realistic Indian Cars Simulator Game

Drive the most famous cars and the world through challenging roads that will test all your skills as a driver

Indian Cars Simulator 3D
https://play.google.com/store/apps/de…

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Macaquinhos do Bosque: campanha alerta sobre os riscos de alimentar esses animais de forma…

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Ao passar no entorno do Jardim Zoobotânico Bosque Rodrigues Alves, no bairro do Marco, em Belém, é comum observar pedestres – e até mesmo visitantes do espaço – alimentando os animais que vivem ali, sobretudo os macaquinhos – macacos-de-cheiro. Entretanto, essa prática pode causar riscos à saúde dessas espécies. Pensando em conscientizar a população, a Secretaria Municipal de Meio Ambiente (Semma) realiza campanhas regularmente com orientações sobre a proibição de alimentar os animais que circulam pelos muros e grades do parque.

REPORTAGEM: GABRIEL PIRES
IMAGENS: WAGNER SANTANA
EDIÇÃO: LUCAS MELO

Free a battu ChatGPT ?

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Moshi est la première intelligence artificielle de Kyutai, le laboratoire de recherche lancé par Xavier Niel, Rodolphe Saadé et Eric Schmidt en novembre 2023. Il s’agit du premier modèle capable de répondre à des questions orales en temps réel, avec une rapidité digne d’un être humain. Kyutai devance OpenAI, qui a repoussé la sortie de son ChatGPT Voice à l’automne.
En mai 2024, avec la nouvelle version de ChatGPT Voice alimentée par le modèle GPT-4o, OpenAI présentait au monde la première intelligence artificielle capable d’analyser la voix en temps réel. Plus besoin de transformer un son en un texte écrit (c’est de cette façon que fonctionnent Siri ou Google Assistant), les modèles de demain seront capables de reconnaître directement des bruits et de deviner ce que vous allez dire ensuite, quitte à aller plus vite que le cerveau humain. Pris dans différentes polémiques (dont l’imitation de la voix de Scarlett Johansson), OpenAI a repoussé la sortie du nouveau ChatGPT Voice à l’automne.
Et puis, par surprise le 3 juillet, le laboratoire français Kyutai a dévoilé son propre modèle vocal, baptisé Moshi. Lui aussi peut répondre à la voix en temps réel, grâce à une capacité d’analyse native de la voix. Moshi, qui est un projet open source à but non commercial, est disponible en test sur le site de Kyutai. Pour rappel, il s’agit d’un laboratoire fondé notamment par Xavier Niel, qui rêve de rivaliser avec les géants américains et chinois.

How To Export And Import Your Entire List Of Users On A WordPress Site: Itay Verchik IVBS SEO / PPC

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Drupal Association blog: Introducing Ripple Makers: our revamped Individual Membership program!

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Drupal Association blog: Introducing Ripple Makers: our revamped Individual Membership program!

Fellow Drupalists!

We have exciting news. As a way to express our appreciation for our community, the Drupal Association is pleased to announce some changes to the Individual Membership program, now called Ripple Makers!

Our goal is to increase communication and transparency, and create more opportunities for engagement.

Drupal Association blog: Introducing Ripple Makers: our revamped Individual Membership program!

The Drupal Association is a United States incorporated 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. Donations to Ripple Makers are tax deductible, where applicable. We raise funding primarily through event registration, event sponsorship, the Drupal Certified Partner program, some grants, and individual contributions. We do not have a for profit parent corporation telling us what to do, nor do we ever charge to download Drupal. In fact, it is our mission to ensure that it will always be free. 

Drupal has given members of our community opportunities beyond just a career. The values adopted by open source communities create innovation, collaboration, and creation across the globe. Drupal itself is recognized as a Digital Public Good. Drupal is a lever for change and makes a difference preserving the integrity of the internet. 

At the heart of the Ripple Makers transformation is a commitment to fostering deeper connections with each and every member of our community, recognizing the invaluable role that sustaining donors play in advancing our shared mission and impact. By revamping our sustaining donors club to be more inclusive and communicative, we aim to create a culture of belonging where every donor feels valued, heard, and empowered to make a difference. 

Ripple Makers is your chance to give back—and to celebrate the Drupal community and the open source ecosystem that helps it thrive. We invite you to make a monthly donation in support of the Drupal Association.