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.
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.
ES File Explorer, those were the peak days of the XDA rom and root scene
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
Same here. Donated not only to cover my installs, but also for everyone I recommended it to. I hope the f-droid version wont be affected, otherwise I have to uninstall the upcomming bloat- and spyware ridden versions manually from a bunch of devices smh.
I mean I am fine with apps not being maintained and eventually break, but selling out and breaching trust like this is exactly how regular companies would treat me and why I chose FOSS in the first place.
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.
The death of Quik Pic was when it was sold
I swapped the Simple after that, so this blows fucking ass.
Looks like one of the maintainers/contributors has already setup a fork!
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.
Fucking hell now I need alternatives to my dialer, my gallery (this will be the hardest one to replace because the editing for simple gallery was amazing), contacts, and clock. Does anyone have any suggestions?
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.
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.
Well, that sucks.
Guess I'll just stop updating and keep an eye out for forks that are maintained.
Why? I hate this another loss for us. This year is pain in ass for me.
I guess I don't need a gallery app..
Thankfully I only have them via Obtainium. Flip the "track only" option to on and wait and see. Like someone else said, I'm hopeful there'll be forks for these soon enough. I'm off to fork the repos for myself anyway, just in case.
Edit: for those that are self-hosting some form of git, is would be great if more people did this, for archival purposes. I've simply left the public fork of all 19 repos in my Github account, but have mirrored those to my private Forgejo instance.
At any point I can sync the GH forks then mirror those down to my local instance. Until the original repos get dismantled, of course.
Damn it. There was a big extension that did this too. The first thing the guys did? implement a credentials stealer.
Time to disable auto update for these apps in the stores
This is why you should always install the F-Droid version whenever possible. They won't update just because upstream did without vetting it first.
Damn I actually paid for a few of these apps. What does this mean for purchase on Android?
If you paid for it on Play Store and the app gets pulled from there, you won't be able to download it again.
This is terrible news! I am going to struggle to find a replacement for the gallery app.
I paid for the apps to avois this...
Big F, they had some good apps.
Damn, I recently donated to them, and this is how it turned out.
Terrible to see.
For anyone looking for an alternative to Gallery, Gallery by Iacoblonut looks better, and you can use Amaze to edit images.
Noooooo! I love their gallery app. Guess it's time to turn off auto-update on it.
Thank you for sharing this!
Finally, Kissinger is dead — but for the karmic balance, even SMT gets enshittified.
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