Additionally from this, we are taking a look at how we can improve as an open-source platform. AltStore's categorization and use as an open-source project has mainly been about transparency and working in the open. We currently require that users enter their Apple ID information in order to use AltStore, and so being open-source is a good way for us to show that user data is never collected and used for any other purposes. Although we operate outside of Apple's iOS walls, everything is on the up and up. We have therefore also taken a very measured approach with releases, doing lots of personal testing and verification before ever telling people to download anything themselves. We feel a responsibility to protect users from harming themselves, and so any code that gets committed is something we are confident in.Â
We also come from the small indie iOS app mentality of creating complete, polished, and curated experiences. However, by being open-source, we are also part of community that wants to contribute code and build features fast. To use a Mastodon analogy, we are somewhere between
Ivory and
Ice Cubes, building a thoughtfully designed app that happens to be open-source. That all being said, we want to improve on the open-source part and open up development for those who wants to contribute. We want to start making better use of the tools that hosting a project on GitHub affords us, something the AltStore community has been asking for us to do. Currently the 'Issues' tab for the
AltStore repository is littered with an abundance of general support questions, and we don't have guidelines for submitting pull-requests. So to start, I have been going through the long list of GitHub Issues and marking posts so that everything is categorized between support and actual bug fixes/feature requests moving forward. The next phase now will be to move the AltStore repository from Riley's personal repo into a
GitHub Organization that has already been started by some of the community members. From there, a process for reviewing and accepting pull-requests is next, so I hope to have more to update on that next time.