[beeboobaa3]

Since you have such strong opinions on the matter, and experience, why don't you contribute to the SyncThing android app and implement this? Alternatively you could grab your time machine, travel back several years and let them know to anticipate this arbitrary change google would pull in the future.

[izacus]

I professionally contribute (and have contributed) to many projects to make them compatible with Play Store policies (that's my job after all), but I have limited time and generally the attitude of SyncThing developer kinda annoys me since it's an attitude of that developer in your PR that will spend weeks of time arguing over code implementation instead of fixing the comments in a day.

[refulgentis]

> (aggro question)

I think it's because he doesn't have a time machine and doesn't have time to donate to rewrite someone else's project that the owner expressly doesn't want rewritten.

n.b. it wasn't arbitrary

[beeboobaa3]

> (snarky response)

This is what we call "Put up or shut up". It's easy to bash someone for not wanting to spend many hours of their time to work they have no interest in, just because some third party is now demanding it. The change is absolutely arbitrary, also. There used to be no way to grant apps access to specific folders. This is when the app was written. This still works. Google's own apps work that way. But now Google has also implemented additional ways to access the filesystem, and they are demanding people who don't even work for them to rewrite their projects.

It would be understandable if they demanded new apps to adhere to these new policies. But blocking older apps, that were written when there literally wasn't an alternative available, to do a full rewrite or be banned from updating? Absurd.

[refulgentis]

> (snarky response)

If you are now claiming your question was rhetorical, it doesn't mean that when answered, it is snark.

> It's easy to bash someone

No one's being bashed. Lets put it in stark relief. Here's the bashing you replied to: "But that's really hard to do if you didn't begin with cross platform architecture that doesn't take into account having to modularize the filesystem layer for Android/iOS :/"

> The change is absolutely arbitrary

No, it isn't.

We can tell you know that, because you immediately say "There used to be no way to grant apps access to specific folders."

> But now

"Now" == "3 years ago"

> demanding people who don't even work for them to rewrite their projects

They're not demanding anything, other than Google demanding Google can't keep taking updates to an app they put on their store, with full filesystem access, 3 years later, unless they patch the filesystem access. As other comments note, there's plenty of storefronts for these situations.

n.b. it's dangerous to take updates with unpatched security flaws, because bad actors buy apps/browser extensions. This is roughly the minimal action Google needs to take to avoid being liable - it's been 3 years, it looks like complicity to claim its store is safe and secure, then repeatedly take updates to products on the store with known security vulnerabilities, for years.

> But blocking older apps, that were written when there literally wasn't an alternative available, to do a full rewrite or be banned from updating

Though interpretative charity, I'm guessing you mean Google won't put updates from the vendor on the store, unless the update includes stopping asking for full filesystem access with 0 alternatives.

> to do a full rewrite

No ones demanding this