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He says the decision not to distribute prebuilt APKs is because:

> if you aren't able to build TextSecure from source, you probably aren't capable of managing the risks associated with 3rd party sources.

Which is a compelling argument from my perspective. I also think that people who can’t compile code should probably not root their phone.

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That seems like a great way to talk down to your end users, which seems like a security smell all by itself. Many users of F-Droid are technology professionals themselves and are quite aware of the security implications of the choices they make for the devices they own, and F-Droid is often a component of that outlook.

Further, I don't think it applies to the F-Droid maintainers, who routinely build hundreds of different Android apps for all our benefit. They even directly addressed his concerns about the signing key(s) and other issues by improving F-Droid and met with continued rejection.

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