Simple Mobile Tools bought by ZipoApps?

[inson1]

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

[dengste]

Are you aware that anyone who contributed to your apps need to agree to a change of license?

[tibbi]

not really, thats not how it works

[dengste]

I'm afraid that's exactly how copyright works. Unless you had people sign a CLA and have copyright over all the contributed code, you cannot unilaterally change the license, unless either everyone agrees to a license change, or you remove/rewrite all the contributed code. I strongly recommend you get a lawyer before you sign something with promises you cannot actually keep.

[x011]

I have cloned all repositories and downloaded all applications. After today, any apps created using these repos will be profit-oriented. FOSS died here. I would advise everyone not to update any of these app from now on.

[x011]

Are you aware that anyone who contributed to your apps need to agree to a change of license?

You're absolutely right. I don't think @tibbi is aware of this, but I also think, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that any licence change that happens after the sale is complete, isn't his problem/responsability.

[vyashole]

@naveensingh I think @tibbi 's last comment points to the fact that they are OK with you forking it.

I have cloned all the smt repos and if @naveensingh decides not to fork it, I'll try. I'm not sure if I can stand up to @tibbi and @naveensingh

[tibbi]

discuss any future changes with @naveensingh , I wont be around it anymore.

[x011]

discuss any future changes with @naveensingh , I wont be around it anymore.

Please don't spoil all the good work you've done so far with this kind of irresponsible attitude. You owe the community an explanation.

[tibbi]

well, as I wrote, I just dont like where Android is heading anymore. Android 14 is the worst version so far (Ive been around since Android 1.6), but the newly redesigned Dev console app is also just too bad now and it would take me a lot more extra time to maintain the apps, reviews etc. The general UX is getting worse for both users and devs for quite a few years now.

[zentada]

You still haven't addressed your complete lack of communication leading up to this, and your comments replying to this issue have missed the mark entirely.

This situation would have been much better for everyone had you been transparent from the beginning. As it is now, you've gone completely against your principles, blog posts, social media posts etc posted just a few weeks ago and sold to the most infamous company on the app store. You've lost all your dignity. Hopefully this will be a learning experience for you.

[naveensingh]

For those who are interested:

New Github organization: https://github.com/FossifyX

I'll be transferring all existing forks on my account to this new organization. To stay updated, either star/watch the repositories you are interested in (currently on my account) or follow the organization I linked above which will ultimately be the new home for all simple apps (I'm optimistic).

General project discussions, questions, ideas, etc. can be continued here: https://github.com/FossifyX/General-Discussion

Also, now that all is said and done, can we please move forward? For those of you who are interested and would like to continue the discussion related to the forked project, please visit the link above. For those of you who don't want to do anything with simple apps anymore, please look for alternatives (check the Reddit thread by @inson1) or disable updates and you'll be able to use the apps until future Android updates break them completely.

[marek22k]

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

Don't forget the contributors' changes (multiple owners). All contributors must also agree.

[LambdAurora]

not really, thats not how it works

First of all, lemme prepend this by saying that I Am Not A Lawyer, meaning I may miss a detail and be wrong.

I have looked around and I was not able to find a CLA or similar, meaning that any contributions to this project has not resulted in any of the contributors waving their rights to the legal owner of the project. Though, if there was indeed a CLA to sign before contributing and it stated that you waved your rights, then the following paragraphs won't be true.

Once the sale is complete, if zipoapps decides to go closed source and keep the external contributions, any contributors will have the ability to claim license infringement and ask zipoapps to comply under the terms of the license: either by removing every of your contributions (depending on how big of a contributor you are this might be a big blow to them), or by forcing them to keep the project open-source as defined by the GPLv3 license.

If zipoapps do make those apps closed source, and you're a contributor for whom it is uncomfortable, I'd recommend to consult a lawyer first to inform yourself of what you can do and the proper steps to take. Though, there's also the question of is it worth it to go after them? Maybe energy is better spent working on the fork, given who this project panders to, I don't think zipoapps will inherit much of the userbase if they go down the bad road.

While I am mostly an external observer in this story, I wish a good continuation to the original author of this project, I can see how bailing out can become a desirable option when things get bad. I do find it weird it has been chosen to sell the project instead of giving it to another maintainer who could have continued the project's legacy. I guess there's some personal things that pushed to the sale, so I wouldn't hold it too much against the author. I also wish a good continuation to the fork as well.

[VishalNehra]

So sad to see the decision by the dev here. But indirectly this is the result of users, just taking open source apps for granted, thinking if it's open source it should be free. I've personally dealt with the heat of adding a trial period in one of our open source apps at team amaze. I'm personally not doing it for money, but I expect if anyone is contributing to one of our projects, I should be able to reward them with some sort of monetary benefit. I've also been getting dozens of offers for aquisition for so many years but that goes against the spirit of open source. Anyways, like everyone has mentioned previously. Selling this isn't going to be as simple, you'll have to get waiver from anyone who's even contributed a single line of code, or rewrite the whole thing. Applause to @naveensingh for taking this further 👏👏

[Ponchale]

@tibbi Hello, a pleasure Alfonso, we are in charge of the Midori browser oriented towards privacy, security and before selling, please let's talk.

[mvmike]

I don't care about the reasons why the app was sold, if Zipo will keep anything open source (they won't) or if it's legal to re-license (it isn't), the thing is what's been sold is not the app but its google play users.

Most of us here know how to stick to old versions or use f-droid, but the vast majority of others don't, what will happen is that they will start using an ad-infested piece of crap after unknowingly updating the app, even though they installed something that was open source and with complete opposite core principles. The way this has (not) been communicated also says a lot about how shady this move is.

You should feel ashamed, @tibbi, and honestly fuck companies like Zipo that use these kind of predatory practices.

[Handrail9]

Rest in Piss to the people who bought the Simple Phone. https://simplephone.tech/eu/

[esjarc]

@mvmike Even worse, people who recommended these apps to family and friends now look stupid.

They have to tell everyone to uninstall these apps as soon as possible and need to assist with migrations. Even worse if someone used in-app storage to save their contacts, like some privacy-oriented websites and communities recommend.

It's beyond disrespectful to anyone who supported the project – e. g. by contributing code or translations, donating, recommending these apps to others – to sell the user base without telling them in advance (blog post, in-app notification, etc.).

[LearningAsIGo71]

It looks like tibbi was between a rock and hard place: Hating the direction Android is going and unable/unwilling to spend the increasing time required to properly maintain all the apps, but prior to abandoning the project, needing a way to be reimbursed for some of the thousands of hours devoted to the project without compensation (yes I know there was certainly some compensation in the form of donations, but I doubt anywhere near minimum wage for all the hours devoted).

So what would you do in suh a situation? While the apps are in a decent stage of maintenance I would approach some potential buyers known for respecting users' privacy and see what type of offers I get without before disclosing anything publicly, for fear a bunch of people start bashing the product, one star reviewing it, and/or uploading various forks (competitors) of it to Google Play, thus diminishing the value of the SMT apps to potential buyers.

With that said, if the highest bidder was a notoriously bad, greedy, anti-FOSS, data harvesting company, I would certainly NOT go with the highest bidder, first on principal, and second to protect my userbase from the predatory, data-harvesting practices of the company.

Ah well, live and learn tibbi. Hopefully your next venture will prove to be more satisfying, rewarding, while maintaining utmost integrity and moral principals.

[CryptGoat]

Just wanted to drop by to say thanks to @tibbi for putting all the hard work you have put into developing these apps.

And shame on you @tibbi for selling out your users and customers to the opposite site of what have always promised. I absolutely understand that you might want to earn a living and selling the apps to another entity (while complying to the GPLv3) is totally fine but this is just a huge disappointment.

[dengste]

@tibbi I really mean this with the best intentions when I tell you: from a purely legal standpoint, you most probably cannot sell these apps. Please, go ask a lawyer who knows about copyright and FLOSS (these are hard to come by, but if you are genuinely interested, I can recommend people you can talk to, as I have worked quite a bit in FLOSS license compliance). In a nutshell: the day you accepted your first pull request that added copyrightable code (which usually means roughly more than 10 lines), you lost single ownership of the code for these apps. Just go in one of your repos and run

git ls-files | xargs -n1 git blame --line-porcelain | sed -n 's/^author //p' | sort -f | uniq -ic | sort -nr

Most of the names you see there with more than 10 lines still have copyright on the code they have contributed. You cannot sell this code, it is simply not yours. You would need explicit permission to do that from all contributors, or you need to remove their contributions.

[roomnoom]

You don't owe anyone anything, you are just trying to make a living without being miserable like the rest of us. Thank you for your work so far, I'll simply migrate to another app and not insult you for not working on something you don't enjoy anymore just for my own benefit like a narcissistic manchild. Wishing you the best in your future endeavors.

[CryptGoat]

You don't owe anyone anything [...]

He absolutely DOES owe to pay attention who has contributed code to his apps. I would't mind the sale too much if he would comply to the GPL and if he hadn't chosen to sell out the privacy of his customers and users.

[dengste]

You're absolutely right. I don't think @tibbi is aware of this, but I also think, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that any licence change that happens after the sale is complete, isn't his problem/responsability.

It is absolutely his responsibility if he signed a contract which claims that he has sole ownership of these apps, because in that case, ZipoApps can rightfully say that they assumed they completely own the code and hence can change the license.

[roomnoom]

He absolutely DOES owe to pay attention who has contributed code to his apps. I would't mind the sale too much if he would comply to the GPL and if he hadn't chosen to sell out the privacy of his customers and users.

Sounds like an easy court case win then, let me know how it goes

[M00NJ]

not really, thats not how it works

I'm kinda shocked that you are not aware of the terms of the licence your projects are protected by. No matter how they are going to relicence parts of the codebase or fork them, making the projects closed source is a clear violation of the terms. The whole point of this licence is to prevent that from happening. But I guess it's not your problem after all. It's the buyers problem and I'm sure they are aware of it, don't care and will do it anyways. But If someone is willing to spent time and resources on this, they could let the whole transaction fail because it's not quite legal what they seem to be planing and if they can't make them closed source, they might not want to buy them after all. Just making you aware...

[ch3thanhs]

You don't owe anyone anything, you are just trying to make a living without being miserable like the rest of us. Thank you for your work so far, I'll simply migrate to another app and not insult you for not working on something you don't enjoy anymore just for my own benefit like a narcissistic manchild. Wishing you the best in your future endeavors.

[freshgum-bubbles]

Is there any resolution as to the GPL issues raised in the thread? If there isn't a CLA, you're not legally allowed to relicense GPL code.

This is quite a pressing issue, as it means that the new owner can't just move the apps into a private repository and add their usual array of bloatware, adtech, etc. Instead, it would need to be open-source.

[roomnoom]

![thats-bait.gif]

You're right he owes you everything, let me know how the court case goes since this is illegal and he's not just hurting your feelings by not maintaining your favourite apps until death

[CryptGoat]

You're right he owes you everything, let me know how the court case goes since this is illegal and he's not just hurting your feelings by not maintaining your favourite apps until death

You know exactly that this is not what this is about.

[roomnoom]

You know exactly that this is not what this is about.

So sue him then, or is complaining in github comments until you get bored all you're capable of?

[freshgum-bubbles]

It would be great if we could avoid (ego-driven) flamebait and focus on the actual issues :/

[cybersphinx]

not really, thats not how it works

I'm kinda shocked that you are not aware of the terms of the licence your projects are protected by. No matter how they are going to relicence parts of the codebase or fork them, making the projects closed source is a clear violation of the terms. The whole point of this licence is to prevent that from happening. But I guess it's not your problem after all.

It might be, if he signs a contract than contains a "I own all necessary rights to sell this code" clause and that isn't true.

[M00NJ]

It might be, if he signs a contract than contains a "I own all necessary rights to sell this code" clause and that isn't true.

You're totally right. That would mean all sorts of trouble.

[ghost]

Does this potentially open up Tibor Kaputa to lawsuits from other contributors of code to the SimpleMobileTools suite, assuming he sells their code without their consent, and if he does not have a license agreement allowing him the rights to do so?

Without these rights, he would only be able to legally sell his own self-written code to ZipoApps?

This is a massive disrespect to everyone who has ever donated or contributed.

[topcaser]

Hope you are getting rich with this move @tibbi

[Quackdoc]

Does this potentially open up Tibor Kaputa to lawsuits from other contributors of code to the SimpleMobileTools suite, assuming he sells their code without their consent, and if he does not have a license agreement allowing him the rights to do so?

Without these rights, he would only be able to legally sell his own self-written code to ZipoApps?

This is a massive disrespect to everyone who has ever donated or contributed.

He is allowed to sell the management and his code. which benefit of doubt lets assume he has done, Zipo has two options, either keep everything open source and just develop in house with code releases, Or remove all code that 3rd parties have contributed.

IF all of the code was sold as if he had the right to it, then yes, that opens up copyright violations and whatnot. IF zipo modified and distributes the code as is, that opens them up to the same can of worms. Any contributor who has code in the distributed apps can file a DMCA if the code is not opensource

[Ponchale]

Astian has forked all the tools with the firm promise to always keep the source open source and without selling the products, we also promise not to place advertising or sell user data. https://github.com/goastian.

We invite everyone to join the Astian Suite project

[tswistak]

I have my hopes in @naveensingh's fork (https://github.com/FossifyX) as he was a long-time contributor to SMT, so I can be sure that he will continue the apps with old principles.

[jeannekamikaze]

Hi @tibbi, respect for your work and SimpleMobileTools, but I think (IANAL) you're getting into murky water here and risking yourself and ZipoApps an interesting lawsuit.

The GPL protects source code more than liberal licences do. In particular, unless contributors have transferred copyright ownership of their contributions to you, you cannot unilaterally decide to re-license the source code and make it proprietary. This may be different for liberal licences, but the GPL specifically protects source code to a greater extent. Also, whatever proprietary adware ZipoApps wants to add is not compatible with the GPL. Therefore, unless you go and strip out every single third-party contribution to the source, the legal basis for re-licensing looks bleak.

I think the real question is what do you think should change to make future development of the apps sustainable. Are you simply looking for more funding, or have you given up altogether? These apps are great and used by every single GrapheneOS user that I know. I think everyone here wants their development to continue.

[vijay-prema]

@naveensingh and other contributors, if you are unhappy about your copyrighted code being closed source and abused by the new owner, you could try sending a copyright infringement notice to Google Play store to take the app down. Easy way to do something if you want to, rather than wasting effort with lawyers.

IMO the only real value to the new owner is the Google Play Store account as it allows them to make a quick return by pushing ads/spyware to millions of unsuspecting users.

I have seen this before where a FOSS owner will sell control of the FF/Chrome extension store account or Google Play store account and the sketchy owner just push ads out on the store. If anything, by taking down, you save the community of users.

Anyway, onwards and upwards. Put a donation link once the new fork stabilizes.

[floopered]

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.

Translation: "gpl violations inbound but thats not my problem any more" Its funny to see how little you care about a detail that (hopefully) will sink the entire sale, leaving you with no acquisition and a completely tanked reputation

[LearningAsIGo71]

@floopered "Its funny to see how little you care about a detail that (hopefully) will sink the entire sale, leaving you with no acquisition and a completely tanked reputation"

Unless you contributed large sums of money to SMT, I don't see how you can justify such a harsh response. Tibbi has likely devoted thousands of hours for years on these apps and you hope he gets a completely tanked rep? Furthermore, the apps have been open-source from the beginning and they are still available for no charge on F-Droid. Not only that, but Naveem, one of the project's contributors has forked all the apps (see above) and has committed to maintaining them. How about you? [Edit: confusing sentence]

[ghost]

@floopered "Its funny to see how little you care about a detail that (hopefully) will sink the entire sale, leaving you with no acquisition and a completely tanked reputation"

Unless you contributed large sums of money to SMT, I don't see how you can justify such a harsh response. Tibbi has likely devoted thousands of hours for years on these apps and you hope he gets a completely tanked rep? Furthermore, the apps have been open-source from the beginning and they are still available for no charge on F-Droid. Not only that, but Naveem, one of the project's contributors has forked all the apps (see above) and has committed to maintaining them. How about you? [Edit: confusing sentence]

The reason there is such a harsh response isn't because we don't appreciate the hours they have put in, it is because the community was bait-and-switched with no warning, if this was just discussed beforehand, it wouldn't have been as huge of a deal as it is.

At current, it appears to be a sellout because of the way that it was done, with 0 input from the community or contributors.

[LearningAsIGo71]

@tibbi Hello, a pleasure Alfonso, we are in charge of the Midori browser oriented towards privacy, security and before selling, please let's talk.

You are in charge of an abandoned app? Midori hasn't been updated on F-Droid in 2 years! To maintain proper security browsers typically receive weekly updates, and sometimes more. If you took over SMT apps what's to say you wouldn't abandon them as well?

[LearningAsIGo71]

The general UX is getting worse for both users and devs for quite a few years now.

In what way is Android getting worse for users? I see nothing but improvements using GrapheneOS.

[Ponchale]

@tibbi Hello, a pleasure Alfonso, we are in charge of the Midori browser oriented towards privacy, security and before selling, please let's talk.

You are in charge of an abandoned app? Midori hasn't been updated on F-Droid in 2 years! To maintain proper security browsers typically receive weekly updates, and sometimes more. If you took over SMT apps what's to say you wouldn't abandon them as well?

Friend Midori has never been abandoned, the project is more alive than ever, we have been working on the migration to Gecko y Geckoview

https://news.itsfoss.com/midori-11/

https://ubunlog.com/midori-11-ya-fue-liberado-y-estas-son-sus-novedades/

https://alternativeto.net/news/2023/11/midori-11-0-released-with-improved-performance-and-integration-with-other-astian-services/

Midori, a project that was left for dead years ago, we achieved that and much more, the fact that in F-droid there is no update does not mean that it has been abandoned, the last update on Google Play is recent and we have not released anything because we are working now on Geckoview, and to the Midori community on Telegram we promised to return to F-droid but it has never been abandoned.

Please avoid uninformed comments or hateful messages or destructive criticism because we know what we're doing.

[tibbi]

While I appreciate everyones contribution, you should know that like 99% of the current code has been written by me and other paid devs, so no need to overreact the licensing thing...

[tibbi]

Anyway, thanks for the support, but Im locking the conversation as it doesnt really lead anywhere. Wishing you all the best :)