- cross-posted to:
- linuxfurs@pawb.social
- cross-posted to:
- linuxfurs@pawb.social
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.
For posterity, but also for forks if the repos go down, I have created https://github.com/SimplerMobileTools and downloaded all the original repos, branches, and tags which will soon be uploaded there.
I have already got SM Gallery compiling, so thats a start, and will upload all the repos tomorrow when its not so late.
Note: Any former maintainer of SMT will be added on to SrMT upon request.
EDIT: All forks updated with notice of rationale and link to this discussion.
EDIT2: https://github.com/FossifyOrg is a soft fork created by one of the current maintainers. I will keep the hard fork up just in case.
Not all heroes wear capes. Thank you for your service. A hero among thieves. The hero we didn’t know we needed and didn’t deserve. Insert other hero quips.
Na but thanks. What a legend.
Now you need to change the names and make these new names famous, since that’s the thing that the company has really bought. The brand.
Not my intent. I’ll do this, but don’t have the time to fully maintain or distribute. Maybe I’ll organize releases for Obtainium, where FOSS elites will grab them, but I’m not in it to “promote”, just to “save”.
Hopefully someone with more motivation comes along and does what you are saying, though.
Thank you!
fossify link is a 404
Thank you, they changed the org name. Updated.
Terrible news. These apps are really great. Reminds me of what happened to Quick Pick and ES file explorer and u could also add Nova Launcher. More apps assigned to the graveyard. Hopefully they get forked quickly and updated when needed.
Is there something in the making with Nova Launcher? I love it and didn’t hear any bad news
https://www.androidpolice.com/nova-launcher-acquired-by-branch/
Kind of old article, but yea, they were sold.
Darnit… Thanks
So the owner claimed in the article that any data tracking added would be opt in. I looked at the settings and found error and usage tracking hidden under an advanced button at the bottom of the settings. It was enabled and I don’t remember ever being asked about it (or else it would have already been disabled because I never opt in to that shit).
ES File Explorer, those were the peak days of the XDA rom and root scene
My god you really nailed that on the head - I’d forgotten about quickpic (rip) but I’ll never forget about ES file explorer.
Aren’t the Simple Apps open source?
@MonkderZweite @AbeFroman
Probably not after the sale! It will certainly no longer be available in F-Droid!
Wtf. I paid for the apps to avoid exactly this…
Too many people think the “free” in free software means “without monetary cost”. Development costs money. If nobody pays, it gets sold
Well, you paid and still got sold.
Yeah… Fuck me, for trying to compensate someone for their work so that they dont have to sell it to a spyware company… I’m the moron here
/s
Yeah I also paid for it.
I would rather let the project die than my data being sold out to a gang of parasites like it has been
Wtf. I paid for the apps to avoid exactly this…
And this is why I never pay for apps. You never know what changes (external or internal) are going to enshittify it next.
If you dont pay for apps, they will 100% be enshittified
Hilarious that you read enough cory doctorow to know the term “enshittification” but don’t know what “free” software really means
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Incoming, “We don’t plan to change anything you love about these apps!”
Narrator: “They were planning to change EVERYTHING you love about these apps.”
They will do what every other buy-happy tech company does and strip all the charm from those apps and turn them into the same horrible, corporate, enshitified apps that they were originally supposed to be an alternative to.
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Looks like one of the maintainers/contributors has already setup a fork!
Thank fuck.
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you know, I’d really love to get a good app that i pay for and that in turn doesn’t collect or sell my data and has no ads, but there’s so many but’s.
- one time payment is not sustainable for development
- i can’t have a subscription for each and every app
- with free and fairly decent apps from big Corp like Google photos, most people won’t bother
just to say: I’m not sure there is a good solution where everyone wins :/
In ye old days the reigning model was a pseudo subscription where you paid for a version of a program and that’s all you got, if you wanted the next version of that program you had to buy it again. This made developing updates profitable and people who didn’t care to pay for the update could still use the outdated program. It wasn’t perfect by any means but I feel like it was one of the better compromises compared to everything else.
Sadly with the advent of mobile apps such a model is heavily discouraged.
Then you just try to avoid updating for as long as you can, untill something breaks or a feature you want is added, so you spend little as possible on updates. Imagine the security holes.
Yeah it’s not the perfect model for sure. Usually you did get updates to fix vulnerabilities and bugs, but any major version release would require a new purchase/license.
But any software that requires connecting to a server anywhere just doesn’t work in this model.
In the end there’s not much of a choice. Either you pay more for apps to compensate for the time spent on them, subscribe to reduce your costs and assure continuous revenue, or ads.
Anything that’s perpetually free, unless it has massive communities willing to maintain it, typically ends up like the tools we see here: abandoned/sold.
Well to be fair, for most software it was the major releases that were paid, and the minor ones were given free, on the understanding that these ~never contained functionality changes, additions or reworks.
So 3.1 was purely a bugfix for 3.0, for example. Hence you got it free. Often when 4.0 came out (which you had to pay to get) there’s also a be a 3.2 update that served as the “final” rleease of that branch. Any bugs in it now are there to stay.
And yeah. Although, I feel in a way that’s what we got here, no? If I paid for these I can turn updates off and use the version I bought, so to speak.
What could be more sustainable for the development is to make updates with new features paid. People have a one time payment for the app and then pay for new features.
It’s absolutely ot perfect. But, it’s not a subscription and the dev still earn something.
This would cause a maintenance nightmare for the devs though. And from what I hear, the app stores discourage multiple versions of the same app these days.
I donated to them directly once and then again opted for the PlayStore versions to buy these apps. Sadly, I will have to move to the FDroid version now because the PlayStore one, the ones I paid for, can get infected with adware any day now.
Yea, fair point
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 was talking about immediately switching. There is enough time to build the apps from source for yourself before they upload their shittified version.
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?
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For Contacts and Clock, use YOU apps. I don’t think anything can replace the Gallery, I’ll continue using the current version for as long as there’s a new community-maintained fork. It’s quite stable really, doesn’t really need changing this very moment.
I’m not finding them. Link?
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Contact YOU app has SMS inbuilt. The SMS support is in very early stage so buggy but the dev is going on at an amazing pace. Just give it a few more months.
For dialer, I’d keep using the simple app for now. There’s Koler with material you theme but it hasn’t seen dev in 5 months and doesn’t have all the feature like regex-based call blocking.
Downside is that it does not support MMS and they don’t plan to add it. SMS will always cut off at 160 characters, making you send multiple SMS to send it all, instead of sending a big MMS. Also means you can’t send pictures.
Thanks will check Aves out: https://f-droid.org/packages/deckers.thibault.aves.libre/
I’ve been using Material Files and am happy with it.
+1 for Material Files
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I think that functionality should be separate from a gallery app. Check out Image Toolbox for mobile photo editing.
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https://f-droid.org/en/packages/protect.videoeditor/
Simple, but closest we have for now.
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Yeah, that’s true. But it’s not a problem for me because I rarely edit photos on mobile. When I have to, I just use the stock app.
Amaze can’t handle WebDAV :(
For WebDAV, you can use DAVx⁵ or Round Sync
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The hardest one for me to replace with be the file manager. I had already tried Amaze and Material and didn’t like either before settling on Simple. sigh
Not sure how it is for editing but I like Aves as a gallery app.
To be fair something like the dialer or the gallery or the notes, you can just sticky the current version you have. It’s unlikely to ever see major / important changes, I mean all the dialer has to do is to dial numbers, right=
Ugh.
I migrated to Simple Gallery after QuickPic was similarly sold to a sketchy buyer. Been using it for so many years, supported the dev(s) by purchasing some of the apps and the “Thank You” app they have.
Time to look for yet another gallery app.
We can’t have this happening every time. There needs to be a better way to support and sustain such apps.
I mean, GPL guarantees code remains open and free. If they release an app based on the source code licensed under GPL, they have to give a source code along with essential build instructions to anyone who is using it, and then you can do anything with that code, including sharing, compiling, and distributing that app, provided it’s under GPL license.
Edit: I see it’s licensed under GPL 3.0, so no worries.
Yeah thankfully the code’s GPL 3.0, but I’d imagine there’s a good chunk of people using the app from the Play Store who may not be aware or may not want to compile the app themselves, who might be affected with whatever future updates come out.
Aves Libre is pretty nice.
Isn’t offline though and doesn’t have a feature-rich video editor like Simple Gallery had :(
Isn’t offline though […]
How do you mean? I was of the impression it was.
Wait the Libre version also has full network access.
Ah sorry, I didn’t know there was a Libre flavor of Aves, had just checked the regular Aves on FDroid. Thanks for this!
I’m in the exact same boat
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I’m not a lawyer either, but the GPL doesn’t say anything about commercial use. Zipo can sell the code in the apps without having to ask permission from contributors. The only restriction is that they have to keep their modifications open source (which that Github response says).
But the main point is that the Zipo people bought out the Google Play listing, giving them access to the millions of users who have those apps installed on their phones. They likely don’t give a shit about features/keeping the apps closed source. It’s just a purchase of the userbase, likely for shady reasons.
This also means that forking the Simple Mobile repos isn’t even likely to accomplish much. Sure, it’ll put control of the repo in the hands of a more trusted party (which is significant), but since it’s open source anyways, it’d be easy to catch any attempts to sneak malware into the apps. And if all development effort moves to the fork, Zipo can still take that fork and redistribute it under the “Simple Mobile Tools” name.
Ultimately, the fucked up thing here is that the original developer, Tibor Kaputa, sold out millions of users. Forking isn’t going fix that. Fuck him. The only thing that will fix this situation is if Google takes down their store listing, but that’s not going to happen. Hopefully F-droid does.
The only restriction is that they have to keep their modifications open source
And since it’s GPL that any additions are compatible with the GPL, which the ad / tracking stuff they’re likely to add likely isn’t.
And if all development effort moves to the fork, Zipo can still take that fork and redistribute it under the “Simple Mobile Tools” name.
Only if they don’t add their own proprietary shit, and if they don’t, how would their “bully users to pay for features” business model work?
According to https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools/General-Discussion/issues/241#issuecomment-1837837729 “like 99% of the current code has been written by me and other paid devs, so no need to overreact the licensing thing” it seems like the remaining 1% is going to be ignored or possibly even removed if they think that leaving that in might open them up to DMCA claims by disgruntled contributors - which taking code from an open source fork would definitely do.
And since it’s GPL that any additions are compatible with the GPL, which the ad / tracking stuff they’re likely to add likely isn’t.
That’s a good point, although I wonder if there are any ad SDKs that are GPL compatible? There’s no reason that couldn’t exist AFAIK.
However, there’s also the much simpler scenario where they straight up replace the apps with something completely different. This company buys apps all the time, so I’m sure they have at least a few calendar, gallery, file browser, etc apps lying around that they can reuse.
"we specialize in acquiring under-optimized apps in an industry that is highly fragmented. We use our optimizing operations, deploy its technology, and generate cash flow from the apps. "
“we developed an AI technology that knows how” “to monetize the right user at the right stage of their app experience”
(https://everything-pr.com/zipoapps-tech-talk-with-the-entrepreneur-co-founder-and-ceo-gal-avidor/)
Sounds like they just keep the apps around and try to squeeze as much money out of the users they have bought.
Why? I hate this another loss for us. This year is pain in ass for me.
Self entitlement. They did a great job for us and probably werent paid enough.
Well, that sucks.
Guess I’ll just stop updating and keep an eye out for forks that are maintained.
Everyone has a price.
Living is expensive.
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