Simple Mobile Tools bought by ZipoApps?

[inson1]

https://www.reddit.com/r/SimpleMobileTools/comments/187w64x/simple_mobile_tools_bought_by_zipoapps/

[Aga-C]

What's going with this @tibbi @naveensingh ?

[naveensingh]

I can confirm it's true, but I don't have details on who, when, or where.

[tibbi]

ye, the sale is in process

[Aga-C]

As a regular contributor I'm very disappointed.

[mijorus]

Understandable, I'm sorry you couldn't find a suitable business model for this project. Thanks for your work in these years

[0verEngineer]

I hope ZipoApps understands that they cannot simply make the apps closed source and suck out the userbase because these apps are used by people that value the FOSS principles. Otherwise the users will switch to real FOSS alternatives and/or the apps will be forked.

[tswistak]

I hope ZipoApps understands that they cannot simply make the apps closed source

That would violate the current license of all the apps. GPLv3 forbids it.

[moneytoo]

That would violate the current license of all the apps. GPLv3 forbids it.

The owner of the code still owns the copyright and can relicense the code under whatever license he/she wishes.

[tswistak]

The owner of the code still owns the copyright and can relicense the code under whatever license he/she wishes.

That's not as easy. There are a few things:

• https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html.en#Consider
• https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html.en#GPLInProprietarySystem (if apps use any external GPL libraries)
• https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/270/is-it-possible-to-close-an-open-source-project

[ColorfulRhino]

Like many others, I am very disappointed about this move 😞

Not directly because of a sale, I can understand that you want money for your work. But because of who the apps are sold to. This company ZipoApps seems to be mainly about quantity instead of quality, has lots of ad-ridden crapware in the PlayStore and does not adhere to privacy standards. All in all, most values of this company seem to completely contradict the values of SimpleMobile apps.

[cyrneko]

Another app lost to ZipoApps. They will add advertisements, trackers and more as they have done for other well-made apps that they've purchased in the past.

[afarah1]

Thank you for maintaining it thus far.

Since it's GPL I suppose anyone interested in maintaining it can simply fork and republish.

Until then, I disabled auto-update on PlayStore for the SimpleMobileTools apps I have.

[naveensingh]

Of course, the license allows the project to be forked and maintained and I would be happy to do so in my free time but I believe it's essential to honor @tibbi's decision. He's been tirelessly maintaining this project since it was created, it would only be fair if he gets to determine its future direction. I'll proceed with maintaining a fork only upon receiving a green light from @tibbi.

[BuZZ-dEE]

@naveensingh What do you mean by: "it would only be fair if he gets to determine its future direction."? The direction of the fork?

Why do you need green light from @tibbi ?

[naveensingh]

When I mentioned 'it would only be fair if he gets to determine its future direction' I was referring to the direction of the current project, not some forked version. As for seeking a green light from @tibbi, it's a courtesy to ensure that he's comfortable with the idea of someone else taking on the maintenance. Given his experience and commitment to the project, I want to make sure he approves before proceeding with the fork.

[M00NJ]

The owner of the code still owns the copyright and can relicense the code under whatever license he/she wishes.

No, relicencing is very complicated. It requires the consent of everyone who ever contributed, which will not be given I believe. So the owner can sell, but the licence has to stay the same. They are allowed to relicense everything they have contributed though, so they could change the licence of some parts of the code, but relicensing everything is a violation of the terms.

[inson1]

@naveensingh I think he lost the right when he sold it and killed it. And he already showed what he wants.

[BuZZ-dEE]

https://github.com/you-apps

https://www.reddit.com/r/SimpleMobileTools/comments/18929pq/simplemobiletools_was_sold_alternatives/

[kslcsdalsadg]

Is time to move to another project. Unfortunately is the life cycle of all apps: sell or die when the devels move to other projects or centers their hearts in the real life.

[MarsQQ]

I'm sorry, I get that you would have to sell Simple Mobile Tools, but to ZipoApps? Hell no, hell to the back no.

They're notorious for buying apps from developers like TreyDev and then packing the apps with ads, putting a "no-ads" subscription to remove it for $15usd a week.

^^ An example of an app published by ZipoApps, (This app should only have one $2-10 lifetime purchase to remove ads, not a weekly subscription model more expensive than a month of Spotify)

As far as I know, they go directly against the ethos of Simple Mobile Tools, and they're going to alienate your user base in their pursuit to make as much money as possible. What they're going to do with your set of apps is going to be so predictable that it's almoat comical, and I would never use an app published by them.

[Acters]

I hate the fact that these people think 15/week, ~65/month, is a great price for removal of ads and "premium support" when they suck at making updates and their apps need little to no support at all. Its all subterfuge to pretend that its a great service when its literally a nothing burger with gold shavings sprinkled on top. Jerks and a giant waste of space on the internet, and the developers not announcing the fact they are selling the apps are just as big of jerks for being non-transparent.

Time to edit all my posts to boycott these apps and stop them from hurting our communities.

[0verEngineer]

If someone will fork it i will definetly help and contribute.

@naveensingh I think you should just do it if you really want, you should not push the dev into "allowing" it because this is a shady company..

I have no experience in Kotlin but i want to learn it anyway so...

[inson1]

I dont think we should also fork everything

• its too much work
• there are better (for some simple apps) alternatives anyway

(for example the calculator)

[musq]

It's always a controversial step and even though I too hate this sale, I support the original author for this decision.

On a personal level, it's hard to maintain open source software without any significant financial support. Even if everything goes right, there could be lots of nuances going on in his life at a personal level which we don't need to know, that could be driving this decision.

Since Simple Mobile Tools is a Gold Sponsor of Linux Mint, I feel the situation must be dire for him to take such a step now.

The beauty of FOSS software lies in the fact that anybody can fork and continue the maintenance. We don't need to expect or rely on the original author to support the software in perpetuity 🙂.

I believe the best we can do here is to tell him we are unhappy about this, but we still respect his decision and his personal space. Thank you @tibbi for creating and maintaining these awesome apps all these years!

[TXort]

So, your typical user that is currently using google play simple mobile apps will just randomly one day get ads on apps they installed and possibly some personal data mined via telemetry? Am I missing something?

[inson1]

@musq

It's always a controversial step and even though I too hate this sale, I support the original author for this decision.

On a personal level, it's hard to maintain open source software without any significant financial support. Even if everything goes right, there could be lots of nuances going on in his life at a personal level which we don't need to know, that could be driving this decision.

Since Simple Mobile Tools is a Gold Sponsor of Linux Mint, I feel the situation must be dire for him to take such a step now.

I dont respect that decision. If he said what was happening and some good reason for that, before this happened then I could and would respect that decision. Maybe he would even get that money from us if we knew what would happened without that.

[shuvashish76]

The official website PlayStore dev ID linked to : https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=9070296388022589266 (Simple Mobile Tools) with 0 apps. [archives]

While all apps repository badges linked to : https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=8214346176194980263 (Simple Mobile Tool). Here no "developer website" provided in Additional Information. [archives] What's going on?

[jmtwelfth]

The official website PlayStore dev ID linked to : https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=9070296388022589266 (Simple Mobile Tools) with 0 apps. [archives]

While all apps repository badges linked to : https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=8214346176194980263 (Simple Mobile Tool). Here no "developer website" provided in Additional Information. [archives] What's going on?

The Developer (tibbi) renamed his 'developer/business' name for his apps pending sale to ZipoApps.

I presume he renamed the developer account that holds the suite of apps so he can retain the name "Simple Mobile Tools" on another as he owns the domain name.

Going through all the apps on his developer page on Google Play, SMS Messenger, Calendar, Flashlight, Contacts, Gallery, Draw, File Manager, Camera, Calculator, Keyboard, Notes now all have the "contains ads" warning.

A major breach of trust considering his own website says, and I quote:

"A group of simple, open source Android apps without ads and unnecessary permissions, with customizable colors."

In other words: He sold his installed userbase to another company.

[ch3thanhs]

So, will the people using these apps get a notification or any prompt inside that app informing them of the sale/ads/telemetry?

[DeltaTangoLima]

Well, I've already forked and mirrored all the repos to my own Forgejo server, plus grabbed the latest APKs. If enough people do that same, we can rebuild from here.

[shuvashish76]

So, will the people using these apps get a notification or any prompt inside that app informing them of the sale/ads/telemetry?

Good luck to those who think ZipoApps care their users.

"A group of simple, open source Android apps without ads and unnecessary permissions, with customizable colors."

[TOGLK]

Wow, you sold out your user base and fed them all to the lions, even bringing them into the lions enclosure.

I'll be actively avoiding anything you develop going forwards, thanks for your deception, you've ruined my trust in you for life, good bye, good riddance.

[naveensingh]

Alright, I have decided I'll maintain a fork.

[x0apr]

I'm just a noob, but has anyone else noticed the growing trend where some entities begin projects as open source only to later close them?

Yes, the maintainers and project owners dedicate a significantly greater amount of time compared to other contributors but still, I think it's not appropriate Nevertheless, I appreciate SimpleMobileTools; it was wonderful while it lasted.

[HaneulCheong]

I see people trying to defend or at least understand this decision, and I would probably do the same thing in normal situations, cuz your project, your choice.

However, I also strongly believe that this could have been communicated better in advance, especially before someone opens an issue specifically questioning what is going on regarding third parties.

Regardless of whether they were about to announce this soon, let alone announce it at all, the fact that we are realizing this through a user submitted issue makes the whole practice very shady, which is why I believe the user base right now has every right to complain about it.

[HaneulCheong]

@inson1

I dont respect that decision. If he said what was happening and some good reason for that, before this happened then I could and would respect that decision. Maybe he would even get that money from us if we knew what would happened without that.

Exactly, well said.

[shuvashish76]

https://zipoapps.com/ ; "Better apps for a better world"

We are ZipoApps, we acquire the best apps and take them to the next level.

So they acquire "best" apps & then make them "better", interesting.

[matkoniecz]

Note that F-droid has known safe versions that will not become ad infested. In general, F-droid is a good place for filtered apps. Even if no maintained fork will appear then at least app will not start showing porn/scam or pornscam ads.

[matkoniecz]

So they acquire "best" apps & then make them "better", interesting.

noone said that "take them to the next level" needs to be better. Especially without saying next level of what :(

[Vendicated]

this is really sad to hear. i guess this essentially means the death of SimpleMobileTools

however it is also understandable. maintaining all these apps is a crazy effort and im sure the donations were way too low for how much effort was spent (as is the case for most of free software sadly 😓)

thank you a lot for making and maintaining these apps for all this time ❤️ i really hope someone continues these projects via fork

[pvagner]

Now reading this blog post feels really very very ironic https://www.simplemobiletools.com/blog/how-much-does-your-data-cost-we-know-the-price

[C8opmBM]

Now reading this blog post feels really very very ironic https://www.simplemobiletools.com/blog/how-much-does-your-data-cost-we-know-the-price

Wow, just wow! Written in Aug/Sept current year.

[shuvashish76]

It goes against their all memes, blog posts & principles for which SMT known for.

Selling your app takes three easy steps:

1. Initial talk and negotiation within 10 days of first contact
2. Evaluation of your app within 25 days
3. Offer-to-buy received within 10 days However.... Most of our deals are closed within 14 days!

Source: https://zipoapps.com/

It takes only 14days to change your core principles.

[its-me-ct]

While the current version of the code will keep working, this is not the most important part of the sale. I'd assume ZipoApps cares more about the brand recognition and the millions of auto-updating installs on unsuspecting users' devices.

While Simple Mobile Tools were pretty good apps, the only thing that made them great was the independence from large corpos and the reassurance that personal data will not be harvested and sold. On my devices it's not a big deal, I'm exclusively using apps from f-droid anyway, but I also installed these apps on less tech-savy relatives' devices for the above stated reasons.

I hope Zipo paid you enough to make it all worth it. My condolences to all the voluntary contributors whose work was sold against their best interest.

[Cyanic76]

I'm just a noob, but has anyone else noticed the growing trend where some entities begin projects as open source only to later close them?

Isn't that just Microsoft's EEE principle?

[x011]

Fork and start a new project, this one is dead.

[tibbi]

Right, I know that it is a really controversial step that upset many users, sadly the quality of the whole Android ecosystem is dropping really quickly recently and I wanted to avoid slow death. Thanks a lot for the support that me and the apps received over the years, it means a lot to me :)

Anyway, @naveensingh has been a developer for a long time so Im sure he will be able to take the project further.

[M-Reimer]

Seems reasonable. To avoid slow death, just kill the apps right away 🫣

[dengste]

Hi @tibbi, first off: Thank you for all the hard work over the years you put into these apps. I've used them for a long time, and I'm grateful for that. And yes, I donated in the past, but make no mistake: I'm not thinking I'm entitled to anything I get basically for free.

That being said, your lack of communication is troubling. I think a few question need to be answered, best in a public blog post from you.

• Will the apps remain FOSS, or is a change of license planned?
• Which releases will be affected? What about the Pro-versions people paid for, and what about the versions on F-Droid?
• Will apps be silently updated for people and suddenly contain trackers/adware/etc., or will the old apps be discarded and published under a new name?

[tibbi]

Not sure about the future plans, they likely wont be open source. But that means that the f-droid variants will stay the same as now.