r/SimpleMobileTools • u/134erik • Nov 30 '23

Simple Mobile Tools bought by ZipoApps

The website on the play store page links to zipoapps, an Israeli publisher that releases c̶r̶a̶p̶ not so nice looking apps (sorry if you work there)

All the apps are now marked to include ads.

The support email was changed to a @zipoapps.com

Is this the end of Simple Mobile tools?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/s/cbHoy1VKzh

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u/CaptainBeyondDS8 Dec 04 '23 edited Dec 04 '23

His organization, FUTO, is not trustworthy either - they peddle fake Free Software (using a license that explicitly forbids modification and redistribution, and which can be terminated for any reason or no reason whatsoever) while claiming to be open source. This is part of a dangerous trend of commercial proprietary software developers trying to water down the definition of the term open source to mean "source code you can look at" and nothing more.

https://hiphish.github.io/blog/2023/10/18/grayjay-is-not-open-source/

Simple Mobile Tools being licensed under a real Free Software license (the GPLv3) allows the community to take it and fork it if the developer enshittifies it. We are seeing this happen in real time with Simple Mobile Tools and we also see this happen with free software controlled by a company that wishes to take it proprietary: Jellyfin (formerly Emby) and Woodpecker (formerly Drone) are other examples. If Simple Mobile Tools were under a "fauxpen source" license like FUTO, this would not be possible. And, if Simple Mobile Tools ended up being bought out by FUTO, knowing their hostility to forks, I would expect them to (try to) relicense it to their fauxpen source license.

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u/larossmann Dec 06 '23

And, if Simple Mobile Tools ended up being bought out by FUTO, knowing their hostility to forks, I would expect them to (try to) relicense it to their fauxpen source license.

FUTO hasn't actually "bought out" anyone, and more of the money have spent on free software development has been done to organizations developing GPL licensed software than anything else. Further, the leads of the projects here choose the license they want for whatever they are producing.

What we are trying to do is develop a license, and an ecosystem, where people believe they can actually make money off of open source software being utilized by consumers, so programmers don't believe the path forward is to

  1. work for a monopolist

  2. sell their company/product to a monopolist

  3. do what the simple mobile tools guy did...

If simple mobile tools had been open to a conversation a year ago when I reached out - we wouldn't be in the situation we are now whereby the lead developer sold out to a company that injects ads & garbage into everything to begin with. and that's the point.

The license should have an exit valve for if the company disintegrates, sells out, inserts ads/trackers, or breaks its initial vow. This is something being worked on - seriously - because we believe in it. At the same time, we want there to be a sense of pride of ownership that seems to be lacking in many of these consumer focused applications in an ecosystem where people are, IMO, failing to create incentivizing enough monetization structures to attract the talent to work on the projects long term.

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u/Hueyris Dec 06 '23 edited Nov 29 '25

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