Could anyone explain to me how it works for a company to buy an open source app? Are they just buying the name and brand recognition? Is there anything to stop original developers to use the old source code and continue developing their own fork under a different name? Couldn't anyone else do the same? Do companies just buy the apps and pull the code from everywhere they can and make it closed source? Couldn't the company have just modified the freely available code without paying the original devs anything?
They get the play store account that published the apps, likely also some support from the original developer for a while.
The original play store account has all the downloads and reputation associated with the project. It also has the revenue from adds and new purchases. The developer can modify the apps and send these out as updates. This could include things like more ads and tracking to generate additional revenue.
Pretty sure that the latest version on FDroid is not yet full of ads and trackers for each app, so turning off auto updates should suffice.
If you honestly think that the F-Droid releases will ever contain ads and trackers, you have absolutely no clue what F-Droid is and how it works and you quickly need to educate yourself on the F-Droid website.
While I think it's more likely the apps will just never be updated on F-droid, ads and trackers are allowed on f-droid so that doesn't preclude them putting updated versions on F-droid.
F-Droid audits apps and usually removes ads and trackers unless they are required for the app to function. For example an app that records GPS tracks and uploads them, is GPS tracking the user. Technically F-Droid permits them if they are implemented solely via FOSS means, but I'm not aware of a single app on F-Droid that displays ad banners or so. There are these Facebook etc replacement apps that are specialized web browsers but ads on Facebook are not ads by the app.
Fdroid has a specific antifeature for ads. Is it possible to search the repo by antifeature to see what kinds of ad implementations have made it in?
Is there an announcement post or something? Where's the link to the info on the purchase?
ETA: In addition to the links below, I have also found the apps have all been forked under a new github organisation: https://github.com/FossifyX Edit: it seems to have been renamed: https://github.com/FossifyOrg
Found this: https://www.androidauthority.com/simple-mobile-tools-acquisition-3391041/
https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools/General-Discussion/issues/241
This sucks... I hope people forked the repos before they switched ownership and will maintain the apps.
They have!
github.com/FossifyXEdit: the name of the repo changed, now it's https://github.com/FossifyOrg
Currently 404 Not found on GitHub.
Yeah dang what happened Edit: this is a better link: https://github.com/FossifyOrg
Apologies if this is a stupid question, but are there APKs to download from GitHub? I can see lots of code, but not a simple download option.
Maybe that's not how it works, I've never really understood GitHub tbh.
They're usually in the "releases" tab, but they might not be ready yet. I assume they'll soon set it up with fdroid like before
Oh ok, thanks 👍
I'm getting a 404 error. Did the repo get taken down or something?
Nope, the name just changed: https://github.com/FossifyOrg
Damn, is this a bad news?
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/12/05/warning-simple-mobile-tools-sold-to-controversial-zipoapps-publisher/
End of a eara. Long lives to forks.
Could anyone explain to me how it works for a company to buy an open source app? Are they just buying the name and brand recognition? Is there anything to stop original developers to use the old source code and continue developing their own fork under a different name? Couldn't anyone else do the same? Do companies just buy the apps and pull the code from everywhere they can and make it closed source? Couldn't the company have just modified the freely available code without paying the original devs anything?
They get the play store account that published the apps, likely also some support from the original developer for a while.
The original play store account has all the downloads and reputation associated with the project. It also has the revenue from adds and new purchases. The developer can modify the apps and send these out as updates. This could include things like more ads and tracking to generate additional revenue.
Pretty sure that the latest version on FDroid is not yet full of ads and trackers for each app, so turning off auto updates should suffice.
If you honestly think that the F-Droid releases will ever contain ads and trackers, you have absolutely no clue what F-Droid is and how it works and you quickly need to educate yourself on the F-Droid website.
While I think it's more likely the apps will just never be updated on F-droid, ads and trackers are allowed on f-droid so that doesn't preclude them putting updated versions on F-droid.
F-Droid audits apps and usually removes ads and trackers unless they are required for the app to function. For example an app that records GPS tracks and uploads them, is GPS tracking the user. Technically F-Droid permits them if they are implemented solely via FOSS means, but I'm not aware of a single app on F-Droid that displays ad banners or so. There are these Facebook etc replacement apps that are specialized web browsers but ads on Facebook are not ads by the app.
Fdroid has a specific antifeature for ads. Is it possible to search the repo by antifeature to see what kinds of ad implementations have made it in?