The App Fair Project

The European Commission has published its first review of the Digital Markets Act1, the landmark regulation that was supposed to break the stranglehold of Big Tech gatekeepers on app distribution.

I presented a talk on the FOSDEM main track in Brussels last weekend titled “Fear and Loathing in the App Stores” (abstract).

As 2025 draws to a close, it’s a good moment to pause and reflect on a year that proved to be both challenging and energizing for the App Fair Project.

This is a cross-posting of an article I wrote for the F-Droid blog at: https://f-droid.org/en/2025/10/28/sideloading.html.

I was honored to be invited as a panelist at the FSF 40-year celebration event in Boston this weekend.

This is a cross-posting of an article I wrote for the F-Droid blog at: https://f-droid.org/en/2025/09/29/google-developer-registration-decree.html.

The App Fair Project requires that all apps that it distributes be licensed under the GNU General Public License.

I was recently interviewed about the App Fair Project for the FSFE’s Software Freedom Podcast.

Last weekend I gave a talk at FOSDEM 2025 in Brussels titled: “A Free Software App Store for iOS: the App Fair Project’s perspective on the DMA”.

As 2024 draws to a close, we reflect on the activities and progress of the App Fair Project.

Update: The video for the workshop has been made available at https://webcast.ec.europa.eu/compliance-with-the-dma-apple-2024-03-18.

2023 was the first full year of the App Fair Project’s existence.

With the announcement of the official Gatekeeper designations under the Digital Markets Act, iPhone owners will soon regain the ability to install apps from outside the confines of a single App Store.