When w11 announced that they were adding native support for rar, 7z, etc, it occurred to me that android also doesn’t support these and I found it really weird

  • ByteMe@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
    21·
    4 months ago

    I’m using a Samsung tablet that doesn’t support rar for example.

    • 9point6@lemmy.worldEnglish
      19·
      4 months ago

      I suppose you’d fall into my “you’d install a file manager app if you actually needed it” category

        • 9point6@lemmy.worldEnglish
          14·
          4 months ago

          I think a big part of it for RAR specifically is that it’s a proprietary format that would technically require Google to license it, and for the tiny percentage of users that would benefit, they don’t bother.

          A seemingly random but relevant example is the Japanese travel card situation with Pixel phones—every pixel on the planet has the necessary hardware to support Japanese travel cards since the pixel 6, however only pixel phones bought in Japan can use the feature (locked by the OS) because it would mean Google would have to pay a per-device cost worldwide.

          This is kinda a similar situation I’d bet, they’ve proven they would rather not include the feature than pay for licensing

          • woelkchen@lemmy.worldEnglish
            33·
            4 months ago

            I think a big part of it for RAR specifically is that it’s a proprietary format that would technically require Google to license it

            Unrar is free enough.

            • 9point6@lemmy.worldEnglish
              4·
              4 months ago

              And there’s not really any money to be made charging licenses to open source projects—see ffmpeg/vlc

              Google including it in android though means they can charge licenses as a per unit fee because, basically, Google (or phone manufacturers) is a company with money.

              • woelkchen@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2·
                4 months ago

                Google including it in android though means they can charge licenses as a per unit fee because, basically, Google (or phone manufacturers) is a company with money.

                What? This has literally nothing to do with unrar’s license terms.

                • 9point6@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  4·
                  4 months ago

                  We’re talking about Android, unrar doesn’t have anything to do with this really.

                  RAR is and will continue to be a proprietary format with an owner who can seek royalties.

                  It’s like saying Google should stop licensing MPEG because ffmpeg exists—it simply doesn’t work like that

                  • woelkchen@lemmy.worldEnglish
                    2·
                    4 months ago

                    We’re talking about Android, unrar doesn’t have anything to do with this really.

                    The entire topic is about RAR archive support on Android, so of course the freely available source code of unrar, released by the RAR developer himself, has absolutely to do with everything here.

                    RAR is and will continue to be a proprietary format with an owner who can seek royalties.

                    Nope, unrar’s source code is free, released by RAR’s developer.

                    It’s like saying Google should stop licensing MPEG because ffmpeg exists—it simply doesn’t work like that

                    Nope, it absolutely isn’t like that. You just have no clue at all.

                       Unrar source may be used in any software to handle RAR archives
   without limitations free of charge, but cannot be used to re-create
   the RAR compression algorithm, which is proprietary. Distribution
   of modified Unrar source in separate form or as a part of other
   software is permitted, provided that it is clearly stated in
   the documentation and source comments that the code may not be used
   to develop a RAR (WinRAR) compatible archiver.

                    It’s not FOSS, given that it comes with the provision that no RAR compressor can be created based on unrar source code but for browsing and extracting RAR archives, the unrar source code as is is absolutely fine.