What should have happened is to hand off development and/or ownership of the app to another dev team. Sofa, the team that made Versions and Kaleidoscope, did just that when they were acquired by Facebook. The apps still live on, thanks to Black Pixel, and everyone is happy.
The real reason we’re upset about Sparrow’s acquisition
61–70 of 202 posts
Re: The real reason we’re upset about Sparrow’s acquisition
#62Perhaps we should only pay for development of open-source software, so we actually own what we're paying for.
I don't believe that changes the situation at all. An example of this is Quicksilver on the Mac. It's considered to be one of the best Mac apps ever and the developer who made it, decided to open source it after he decided to take a job at Google. Quicksilver development fell apart afterwards. My point is that people who used the app did so because of the talent of the developer. A community can't always make up for…
After a long hiatus Quicksilver was taken over by a dedicated team of contributors who resumed active development[1]. Open-source worked after all, as this wouldn't be possible otherwise.
Re: The real reason we’re upset about Sparrow’s acquisition
#63Perhaps we should only pay for development of open-source software, so we actually own what we're paying for.
This makes me wonder if you could open source a project like this and still sell it through the App Store. Then there would be a paid version (that's easy to acquire and pay for) as well as the code being shared with the community. Anyone could still get the app for free, but I'd be willing to bet most people would financially support the project if given such an easy and integrated means to do so.
Isnt GPL banned on iOS AppStore?
Re: The real reason we’re upset about Sparrow’s acquisition
#64Was Sparrow profitable?
http://www.businessinsider.com/dom-leca-interview-sparrow-20...
>In terms of numbers we've made more than half a million dollars in the past six months since Sparrow was introduced in February.
That quote is from August last year.
Re: The real reason we’re upset about Sparrow’s acquisition
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the Gmail app becomes good enough thanks to the Sparrow team, then I don't see any loss for the user.
How about any user not using Google email?
Althogh Sparrow supports non-GMail protocols, it really is primarily for GMail. I use a standard IMAP-mail provider (folders, not tags), and to me Sparrow added very little over what I had with Apple Mail.
(Conversly, when I used GMail, it didn’t work that well with Apple Mail.)
Re: The real reason we’re upset about Sparrow’s acquisition
#66Sparrow is never independent OK?
They depend on GMail.
They cannot even deliver push-notification for their iOS apps because they don't want to save your credentials on their servers.
The argument around Instapaper still stands as long as it's an independent, complete product.
Re: The real reason we’re upset about Sparrow’s acquisition
#67This feels to me very much like the argument that "it's not worth voting unless my vote is specifically the one that changes the outcome". You are but one little person. You can do all the right things in the world and the universe can still stomp on your face. The right things are not "the right things" because they guarantee success, but because they maximize the odds of it. There are no actions that guarantee success.
This isn't a disproof of the "don't be a free user" philosophy; it's a disproof of the idea that it's a guarantee of success, which it never was, and never could be. The argument still holds.
Re: The real reason we’re upset about Sparrow’s acquisition
#68I think that's why you need to put your money into open source software, not closed source software. Mozilla thunderbird could be the next Sparrow. If the people with the vision and with the proper backing are willing to put the effort into it.
Re: The real reason we’re upset about Sparrow’s acquisition
#69This feels to me very much like the argument that "it's not worth voting unless my vote is specifically the one that changes the outcome". You are but one little person. You can do all the right things in the world and the universe can still stomp on your face. The right things are not "the right things" because they guarantee success, but because they maximize the odds of it. There are no actions that guarantee succ…
> "it's not worth voting unless my vote is specifically the one that changes the outcome"
I think that's a bad comparison - it implies the outcome would have been different if everyone voted with their wallets. Yet a saturated market would increase the odds of an acquihire.
Re: The real reason we’re upset about Sparrow’s acquisition
#70Unfortunately, this is what you get when you pay $10 for an app. There is a huge disparity when it comes to the cost of apps these days vs the salaries required to sustain the engineers who make those apps. Even at $10/pop, you need to sell a lot of apps just to sustain the salaries of very good engineers, and THIS is what makes great products vulnerable to acqui-hires. The problem is that the $0.99 model of the App…
This is spot on. Thanks to the App Store, the days of paying $30+ for boxed software and paying again every year or so for version n+1 (assuming it comes out at all) are pretty far back in the rear view mirror now.
I paid $10 for Sparrow and got far more than $10 in value from it. So while I am disappointed that the best email app I have seen is EOL'd now I did get a decent value and I can't complain a whole lot. I am no worse off than had I bought a boxed copy of software with no promise for updates ever.
I would have paid $30 up front for Sparrow and purchased a large feature release for that price later down the line. Happily. That is a price far more in line with the value delivered.
How do we recalibrate people's expectations about the value of software back to pre-2008 levels? Not everything can or should cost a buck.