The firebase-messaging library is supposed to provide developers with push notification capabilities. However, it includes many dependencies that add unwanted features like analytics and other "calling home" behaviors.

The recent vulnerability in Signal¹ reminded me to finally do something I've been planning for a while: removing that library and interfacing with Play Services directly.

https://codeberg.org/iNPUTmice/Conversations/commit/1abb22b542343642aacb4f7bd82f0bb2bc380ea4

1: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/14556

🇪🇺 The @EUCommission has launched a Call for Evidence on its future European Open Digital Ecosystem Strategy.

This will define how open source and open digital assets support:
🔹 EU tech sovereignty & security
🔹 Competitive, interoperable digital ecosystems
🔹 Sustainable open source communities & businesses

🗓 Open until 3 Feb 2026
👥 Developers, SMEs, public sector, researchers & civil society are invited to contribute.

Have you say: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/16213-European-Open-Digital-Ecosystems_en

🚨Breaking: Google will now only release Android source code twice a year

Google has announced that it will publish Android source code to AOSP in Q2 and Q4 of each year.

More details👇

🔗https://www.androidauthority.com/aosp-source-code-schedule-3630018/

Since there's CCC and FOSDEM coming up, the next #BoilingTheOcean is happening in February!

The weekend of February 14-15th we'll be hacking as usual, but on the 13th we'll also have an evening of talks and discussions on identity in peer-to-peer systems, with @bumbleblue and @shibacomputer ✨

More details TBA :)

#gnome #localfirst #p2panda #postmarketos #berlin

Hello world! We are Modal, a new collective born out of the local Berlin community around Linux infrastructure. We're involved in projects like GNOME, postmarketOS, p2panda, and systemd.

We organize the #BoilingTheOcean events, and work upstream on a number of difficult problems in emancipatory computing, including local-first networking, mainline Linux on phones, and platform security.

Our long-term goal: A free software platform that's competitive with the iPhone 🌈

https://modal.cx/blog/what-is-modal

I am currently researching at the FSFE for FreeYourAndroid on the topic of microG.

If you use microG, how have you installed it? Or was it already there?

(User app can come from F-Droid repo too)

---

Ich recherchiere gerade bei der #FSFE für #FreeYourAndroid zum Thema #microG.

Falls du es benutzt, wie hast du es installiert? Oder war es bereits da?

#Android #Google #Privacy #PlayServices #Whatsapp #Navigation #DBNavigator #LineageOS #iodeOS #eOS #CalyxOS #CrDroid #UnifiedPush #BeaconDB

Save the date! The next #BoilingTheOcean will be November 29 and 30, right after the @PrototypeFund demo day (November 28).

More details to follow, but probably we'll focus on Reflection / @p2panda / local-first since Sam and @jsparber will be in town :)

#gnome #localfirst #berlin

Day 2 of the Hackathon went great. Marvin (@larma) helped me implement an opt-in feature in #Conversations_im which routes all P2P sessions (calls and files transfers) via the users home server (similar to the feature found in Signal).

I went on a nice walk to a viewpoint on Mount Royal afterwards.

Now looking forward to Day 1 of #IETF124.

#XMPP #IETF #Jabber

The first day of the Hackathon at #IETF124 in Montreal is coming to an end.
We implemented the relatively niche feature of XEP-0444: Message Reactions that allows channels or group chats to restrict the type and number of emoji reactions users can do.¹

This brings us a step closer to advancing and stabilizing the XEP. We didn’t want to do that before, since we aim to have complete implementations before requesting a Last Call.

¹: https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0444.html#disco-restricted

#XMPP #Jabber #Conversations_im

We've hinted before how the #EU #DMA discussions take place, anyone can see them on video from home, but it's a different thing to be able to roam there.

#FDroid's @eighthave was on the floor and brings us the lowdown.

You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll say "lawyers!!!", but don't turn your eyes away, this is how the sausage is made, raw, straight from the pipe: https://f-droid.org/2025/09/18/ec-dma-compliance-workshops.html

Don't forget to submit the DMA form! 😄

/PS: Yes, the subtitles grow as you read, we're making a point here!