Simple Mobile Tools is being sold to a for-profit firm ZipoApps
Simple Mobile Tools is being sold to a for-profit firm ZipoApps
cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/6710937
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.
Not necessarily Linux related, but figured this was important information to pass along, given the popularity of these FOSS apps on Android.
Very disappointing. Moreover I'm not even sure if they're allowed to do this with GPL and other contributors. If they sell I think it would need to stay GPL? Regardless I'm removing these either way.
You can sell GPL software as long as you include the licence (and follow through with sending the source code to any customer who asks for it).
Yeah GPL doesn't mean 'no profit allowed'
But it DOES mean that, as pointed out in the thread, even if they do modify the code to put ads or whatever - Ultimately people can still fork the code and make their own 'clean' versions.
As for myself I have those apps from F-Droid. Something tells me any evil modifications (if any at all happen) will happen to the Google Play version, and worst case scenario the F-Droid versions get abandoned.
Yeah, it has to stay GPL. So Simple Mobile Tools selling to a for-profit company doesn't really change all that much. Worst case scenario, the original apps get screwed over but someone releases forks of them. Best case scenario, ZipoApps doesn't actually change anything and just acts as a host for the projects.