With what Google is doing with Android sideloading, I'm not sure Google is a good partner for open source projects. As it says in the blog post, Zulip has a nice history with Google Summer of Code, but it might be good to let this be the last year. Zulip currently supports sideloading. https://zulip.com/apps/android https://github.com/zulip/zulip-flutter#get-the-app That could get awkward later on. Though I guess if Zulip wants to remain in the Google Play Store, interaction with Google is unavoidable.

We can and should advocate for preserving sideloading.

But boycotting a wonderful public-benefit program that Google has funded for 20 years over this sort of product policy issue seems crazy to me. Sure, GSoC does improve Google's brand.

But Google Summer of Code is one of the most effective charitable programs I've seen from any large corporation. And I think it's very telling that nobody else does anything like it.

Google is is the only company on the planet that cared about supporting the open-source community enough to invest, fund, and administer a program like this that has _no_ direct benefit to the company. (Many corporate grants/sponsorships to OSS projects are in exchange for something tangible).

The scale of GSoC is enormous, and the program has been very meaningful. A huge portion of our contributor community and about half the Kandra Labs team are people who I originally met via GSoC.