463

Source.

Simple Mobile apps have been very popular among FOSS enthusiasts. I've personally been using the Gallery, Contacts and the Phone app since a few years now. It's a shame that it has come to this, will be on the lookout for their forks.

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[-] stifle867@programming.dev 39 points 8 months ago

All the code is GPLv3 so it will remain FOSS. There's no need to immediately switch to other apps. You can optionally fork then build the apps for yourself.

[-] csolisr@communities.azkware.net 5 points 8 months ago

Unless you use the Play Store version, in which case the tainted new versions will be coming any time soon.

[-] stifle867@programming.dev 3 points 8 months ago

I was talking about immediately switching. There is enough time to build the apps from source for yourself before they upload their shittified version.

[-] madcaesar@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago

I got it from fdroid. Am I safe?

[-] csolisr@communities.azkware.net 7 points 8 months ago

If the next version is close-sourced, that means that it won't be published in the repository that F-Droid follows to build their version. Yeah I think you're safe.

[-] stifle867@programming.dev 2 points 8 months ago

AFAIK the code is all GPLv3 so they won't be able to close-source it.

[-] csolisr@communities.azkware.net 2 points 8 months ago

I mean, a fork is indeed possible and in progress. But the main version on the Google Play Store will almost certainly be no longer open-source.

[-] stifle867@programming.dev 1 points 8 months ago

Why do you say that? Unless they completely rewrite the app from scratch it is not even possible to have a closed-source version of the app. That's what the GPLv3 does.

[-] csolisr@communities.azkware.net 1 points 8 months ago

If all the developers of the GPLv3 version agree to relicense their contributions, it's unfortunately possible to close-source further versions of the source code. Does somebody know if Simple Apps accepted external contributions?

[-] stifle867@programming.dev 2 points 8 months ago

There's like 100-200+ individual contributors to each of the apps. Practically impossible for everyone to agree to relicense especially considering the community reaction to the sale.

[-] csolisr@communities.azkware.net 1 points 8 months ago

Hopefully that's the case! And hopefully somebody steps in legally in case the new developers decide to just ignore the GPL terms.

this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2023
463 points (97.7% liked)

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