Most things like this are not the core mission of the XSF, but in this case I think this aligns with one of the aims of interoperable standards - that is, client choice.

Google requiring all app development to go through them exclusively feels to me as if it's a barrier to client choice, a barrier to people choosing to interact with their services in the manner of their choosing.

I don't see this as being an "open source thing", therefore, but an "open standards thing", and the XSF definitely Has Views on that.

So I'm behind this one, both personally and with an XSF Member hat on.

Dave.

On Wed, 25 Feb 2026 at 00:04, Travis Burtrum <travis@burtrum.org> wrote:

Hello,

As an open standards organization I think the XSF should sign https://keepandroidopen.org/open-letter/

There are many reasons but the most obvious is that Android is the most popular operating system in the world (wikipedia says). If you want XMPP adoption by users self hosting, or companies, or govts, they'll all need clients to run on android, and google has a long track record of blocking them. eg https://blog.jmp.chat/b/2026-google-wants-to-control-your-device it's also happened to Conversations and I believe Snikket.

Guus asked that I email here to guage support so please reply to let the board know. If you are like me and despise email drop your support in xmpp:xsf@muc.xmpp.org?join and I'll forward it here for you.

Thanks,
moparisthebest