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Simple Mobile Tools suite to be acquired by Israeli adware company

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Re: Simple Mobile Tools suite to be acquired by Israeli adware company

#61

Post by juunpp »

mcpackieh wrote: post #58
juunpp wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't the GPL protect third-party contributions in ways that liberal licences do not? I think the author might have trouble re-licensing third-party GPL contributions under a proprietary licence, but IANAL.

From what I gather, the author isn't re-licensing the code but is selling their copyright and brand (trademark?) to Zipo, who in turn will probably try to re-license it (without permission from other contributors) or will simply choose to violate the license.

The latter part is not legal as far as I know, which then makes the first part moot. Unfortunately, I cannot find a good reference for this from the FSF's website, I am going off of memory. But I believe this matter is precisely one of the reasons not to use a liberal licence, or be wary of contributing to liberally-licensed projects.

Re: Simple Mobile Tools suite to be acquired by Israeli adware company

#62

Post by mcpackieh »

whatevaa wrote: post #42
matkoniecz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no idea: I uninstalled them and installed from F-droid.

Careful, Play Store might decide to update them anyway if the have same package name.

The packages from F-Droid are signed with F-Droid's keys, so AFAIK the Play Store can't overwrite them without prompting the user to remove and replace the F-Droid versions. Please correct me if I'm wrong on this point.

Re: Simple Mobile Tools suite to be acquired by Israeli adware company

#63

Post by dessant »

dun44 wrote: post #37
dessant wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Exactly what kind of funding does it need? I assume your time also has value. Open source software does not have to be shared free of charge, especially not when you need to invest your time and money to package and distribute the software and offer support for the project. The kind of puritan definition of open source that you're alluding to is only playing into the hands of the megacorps that are exploiting their…

So again, how many man-hours does it take, monthly, to maintain those apps? Note that I’m a programmer myself and so I’m not asking about the usual enterprise-level fake numbers. Also, while open source definitely needs some funding, it can become badly harmed by too much of it, when code becomes developed purely for money and not for the usual ESR’s open source incentives.

Maybe it's not your intention, but from your comments it comes across like you're putting very little value on other people's work. It was probably a substantial effort that took years to bring these projects to the usability and popularity that they achieved. Again, i'm not sure why did the user above find it problematic to have a paid version of the app on Google Play, and the same version with the same features distributed for free on F-Droid.

Re: Simple Mobile Tools suite to be acquired by Israeli adware company

#64

Post by JeremyNT »

Chatting wrote: post #45

This is unethical. I don't necessarily blame the developer for selling: I understand that some offers are difficult to refuse. But I absolutely do blame him for being dishonest to his users and contributors. No one was told about this. People only found out about the sale by chance, because someone noticed that the Play Store listing details were changed and made a post on Reddit. When confronted on GitHub, the devel…

I once found a nice open source ambient noise generator on F-Droid. Fully local, offline.

One day the developer decided to switch to a pay SaaS model. They updated the open source app to be a thin client for their web service.

Surely many existing users on the play store found quite a surprise when they updated!

F-Droid at least provides a little protection here, with the independent builds and easy downgrades, and if the community is big enough you see forks appear. But sadly this kind of cashing in is always going to be a risk with open source software in app stores.

Re: Simple Mobile Tools suite to be acquired by Israeli adware company

#65

Post by mcpackieh »

juunpp wrote: post #61
mcpackieh wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I gather, the author isn't re-licensing the code but is selling their copyright and brand (trademark?) to Zipo, who in turn will probably try to re-license it (without permission from other contributors) or will simply choose to violate the license.

The latter part is not legal as far as I know, which then makes the first part moot. Unfortunately, I cannot find a good reference for this from the FSF's website, I am going off of memory. But I believe this matter is precisely one of the reasons not to use a liberal licence, or be wary of contributing to liberally-licensed projects.

If all the other contributors had signed over their copyright to the original author, then the author or whoever he sells the copyright to could release future versions under a different license. Copyright assignment is often done (for instance, with official GNU projects) because it makes license enforcement easier. However it also makes re-licensing easier. As far as I know, other contributors to these projects never signed over their copyright, so the original authors can't sell that code to this company in the first place. Since the company doesn't own that code, they can only use it under the terms of the GPL.

With liberal licenses (BSD, etc), the license permits distributing binaries without releasing the code so re-licensing isn't even necessary. Any corp can take the code and make it proprietary in full compliance with the original license.

Re: Simple Mobile Tools suite to be acquired by Israeli adware company

#66

Post by dun44 »

dessant wrote: post #63
dun44 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So again, how many man-hours does it take, monthly, to maintain those apps? Note that I’m a programmer myself and so I’m not asking about the usual enterprise-level fake numbers. Also, while open source definitely needs some funding, it can become badly harmed by too much of it, when code becomes developed purely for money and not for the usual ESR’s open source incentives.

Maybe it's not your intention, but from your comments it comes across like you're putting very little value on other people's work. It was probably a substantial effort that took years to bring these projects to the usability and popularity that they achieved. Again, i'm not sure why did the user above find it problematic to have a paid version of the app on Google Play, and the same version with the same features di…

Oh, I'm sure writing those apps was an effort. But I was asking about something quite different - the cost of maintaining them. You do need time or money or people to keep an Open Source project alive; but you don't need to pay the authors for the work they've done previously.

As for the problem with a paid version - it's because when it happens, shortly afterwards the free version starts to rot. Monetisation might be good for the owner, but it's almost always terrible to user experience.

Re: Simple Mobile Tools suite to be acquired by Israeli adware company

#67

Post by danelski »

rchaud wrote: post #49
aorth wrote: post #47

Ouch. I sponsored the developer on GitHub for a few months precisely because I realized that we need to support independent developers who are in the trenches building un-sexy software like SMS, Gallery, Calendar, etc. I don't blame them for selling, but it does leave a bad taste in my mouth...

We need a Mozilla-type organization that is a nonprofit and focuses on open-source computing tools and apps. Operating system, file managers, galleries, email clients, the works. The sad reality is that Mozilla once did all these things, but lack of funding meant that many efforts were eventually discontinued. As great as Mozilla is, they too are effectively 'captured' due to their reliance on Google funding. Firefox…

How would you create a Mozilla-type (and presumably size) organisation, without getting into the same funding-related issues? From my perspective, the FOSS funding does not scale with the effort required, unless a for-profit funds it. Government grants are also used, but they cannot be viewed as a steady source of income.

Re: Simple Mobile Tools suite to be acquired by Israeli adware company

#68

Post by dessant »

dun44 wrote: post #66
dessant wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's not your intention, but from your comments it comes across like you're putting very little value on other people's work. It was probably a substantial effort that took years to bring these projects to the usability and popularity that they achieved. Again, i'm not sure why did the user above find it problematic to have a paid version of the app on Google Play, and the same version with the same features di…

Oh, I'm sure writing those apps was an effort. But I was asking about something quite different - the cost of maintaining them. You do need time or money or people to keep an Open Source project alive; but you don't need to pay the authors for the work they've done previously. As for the problem with a paid version - it's because when it happens, shortly afterwards the free version starts to rot. Monetisation might b…

From a quick look on GitHub the projects were not just an initial effort with little time invested in after release, but were actively developed for years. This year alone there are several releases which contain new features.

If I'm not mistaken, they were publishing the exact same version on both app stores, and the apps could be purchased or some of the features were put behind in-app purchases on Google Play. This is a reasonable funding model that has allowed many open source apps to thrive, though in this developer's case maybe it did not meet their needs.

Re: Simple Mobile Tools suite to be acquired by Israeli adware company

#69

Post by brightlancer »

OfSanguineFire wrote: post #25
dessant wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oh, no. I liked those tools, but I don't let them update since they started having "premium versions". Expecting project maintainers to solely fund the development of open source projects used by millions of people is the leopard that keeps eating our faces.

I wonder how much universal basic income, or at least a stronger economy, could spur FOSS development. I feel like the 2008 crisis and the rise of the precariat put a permanent dent in the phenomenon of non-professional devs maintaining free-software projects as a hobby.

A universal basic income, that is an income which is _universal_ and _fixed_ in its amount, will only create inflation: everyone gets equal additional money, everyone gets additional purchasing power, everyone creates more demand, prices go up.

A stronger economy is always better, but politicians usually manage to screw that one up, also.

But I don't think all of that is a major issue here. Microsoft and IBM are taking open-source projects and closing them up. Google is offering FLOSS projects to get users, then poisoning the well. I don't know what's happened to Mozilla, but it's destroying itself.

Lots of individuals are still writing FLOSS projects, but hobbies get picked up and dropped often -- for something to last, you usually need an organization (even if it's just 3 people) and it can easily become a _job_, even if it's a non-paying job. Even if their finances are fine and they still have spare time, most folks don't want a second job with a second source of deadlines and stress etc. And if a for-profit giant sees their project and offers them a LOT of money to stop working on it, most folks will say yes -- even if they were making decent money already.

Re: Simple Mobile Tools suite to be acquired by Israeli adware company

#70

Post by Animats »

dessant wrote: post #10
Animats wrote: post #2

Oh, no. I liked those tools, but I don't let them update since they started having "premium versions". The web site still says "A group of simple, open source Android apps without ads and unnecessary permissions, with customizable colors." They're on F-Droid.

> Oh, no. I liked those tools, but I don't let them update since they started having "premium versions". Expecting project maintainers to solely fund the development of open source projects used by millions of people is the leopard that keeps eating our faces.

I want the maintainers to stop "enhancing" them. These tools don't do much, and they don't need to do more. That's the whole point.
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