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.
this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2023
585 points (97.9% liked)
Android
27941 readers
177 users here now
DROID DOES
Welcome to the droidymcdroidface-iest, Lemmyest (Lemmiest), test, bestest, phoniest, pluckiest, snarkiest, and spiciest Android community on Lemmy (Do not respond)! Here you can participate in amazing discussions and events relating to all things Android.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rules
1. All posts must be relevant to Android devices/operating system.
2. Posts cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
3. No spam, self promotion, or upvote farming. Sources engaging in these behavior will be added to the Blacklist.
4. Non-whitelisted bots will be banned.
5. Engage respectfully: Harassment, flamebaiting, bad faith engagement, or agenda posting will result in your posts being removed. Excessive violations will result in temporary or permanent ban, depending on severity.
6. Memes are not allowed to be posts, but are allowed in the comments.
7. Posts from clickbait sources are heavily discouraged. Please de-clickbait titles if it needs to be submitted.
8. Submission statements of any length composed of your own thoughts inside the post text field are mandatory for any microblog posts, and are optional but recommended for article/image/video posts.
Community Resources:
We are Android girls*,
In our Lemmy.world.
The back is plastic,
It's fantastic.
*Well, not just girls: people of all gender identities are welcomed here.
Our Partner Communities:
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
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.
Unless you use the Play Store version, in which case the tainted new versions will be coming any time soon.
I got it from fdroid. Am I safe?
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.
AFAIK the code is all GPLv3 so they won't be able to close-source it.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Hopefully that's the case! And hopefully somebody steps in legally in case the new developers decide to just ignore the GPL terms.