Fossify – Open-source fork of Simple Mobile Tools | Hacker News Reader

Fossify – Open-source fork of Simple Mobile Tools

github.com

225 pointsvanous47 comments

After Simple Mobile Tools have been lost to an adware company [1], the FossifyOrg forked and modified apps started slowly coming via Fdroid.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38505229

Naveen Singh is leading Fossify and these projects. If you admire open source and volunteer projects, and if you're able to donate or sponsor, here's a way: https://github.com/naveensingh

More options are here: https://github.com/FossifyOrg?#support-fossify-heart

I am happy about this fork. Simple Mobile Tools were some of the better non spying free android apps.

I didn't know SMT had been lost to an adware company… That's really sad. I'm a big time user of most of the apps in this project! Many of them are very good Android apps even compared to paid alternatives.

I'm especially pissed by this move because I used this project quite a lot in the free software development course that I teach. Many students want to gain experience in mobile development, and helping them make their first open source contribution to this project was a great way for them to learn mobile development and at the same time learn to contribute to an open source project (which requires many skills that are not all related to programming, hence having a specific course). I think we collectively made a dozen of PR last year for reported bugs or requested features in SMT apps.

Now it's like I made my students work for free for a shit company and to be honest I feel disgusted by that.

I'm really glad this fork is a thing, I hope it will work, and I hope the maintainers will be able to continue to publish seamlessly on F-Droid so that the switch is automatic, but I'm not sure that's even possible.

Automatic switch is not possible due to different signatures, which is in fact a good thing. If the Fossify project keeps it running, contribution of your students is not lost at all.

Doesn't F-Droid sign with their key instead of the developers key? (More like the Linux distribution model)

At least I thought that was the reason Signal doesn't like F-Droid, but now we see how this can actually be better. It's a matter of who you trust more.

Yes, but the initial content is signed by the developers key. In fact it's a frequent issue because developers lose, misplace or forget their keys and some manual intervention has to be made (that's where you appreciate a process where humans can talk to each other, something that would be impossible with a store the size of any other commercial store)

Glad to see it got forked by a long time contributor [0].

Naveen, are you on HN?

[0] https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools/Simple-Music-Player/com...

Just wanted to say thank you for doing this. I was just looking for some replacements for Simple Mobile Tools replacements the other day.

I wish you the best and hope you get enough community financial support to continue the project indefinitely.

A friendly reminder: it would be better to duplicate a repository instead of forking it.

GitHub does not show forked repositories in search results, and I recall reading an article that forked repositories got deleted when the user gets blocked by the original author (though I can't find the exact article).

I have been using eOS for years without any of the Simple Mobile apps. I have checked them out on occasion and I wouldn't call them "bad" but I have always been able to find more capable open source apps that fit my needs better.

Just one example, I've used Material Files for years and it has quite a few features not found in Simple File Manager.

There are so many file managers:), but not enough quality, functioning dialers and messaging apps. Many "simple" ones exist with lack of essential features. Even SMT lacks some essentials, like for example to be able to reply with a message to a call (when busy).

What did you find for a gallery? I never found an open one I liked other than simple gallery.

I love Aves, I switched to it from simple gallery https://github.com/deckerst/aves

Note that the fork Fossify Gallery is already available on F-Droid. The rest of the apps aren't yet.

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.fossify.gallery/

Thanks to this debacle, I'll actually be trying it out.

What I have used out of Simple Mobile Tools is the Dialer. It allowed me to make my old phone usable for calls again. The phone, which runs an outdated release of LineageOS and doesn't receive updates, developed a problem. The screen would turn off when dialing or on a call. This prevented one from even hanging up. I experimentally installed Simple Dialer to see if the dialer app was the cause. (Because Simple Dialer was on F-Droid, and I had heard about Simple Mobile Tools.) It didn't help on its own. Then I went through the settings and saw one that disabled the proximity sensor during calls. I tried turning on the setting, and that did it.

This apparently used to be an option in the AOSP phone app: https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/80227/phone.... Simple Dialer has been forked as https://github.com/FossifyOrg/Phone.

Aaah that does it, thanks. My phone started having the exact same issue the other day. Finding a fix was on my to do list, and you saved me some time, thanks!

Wow, my phone does this sometimes, like once every 5 or 10 calls.

There's now liberated version of the SMT gallery up in Fdroid. I already switched Calendar, Gallery and File Manager.

I stopped looking when I installed e/OS.

Their default Gallery app is adequate for my needs and integrates well with the camera and messaging app and has never nagged me to upgrade to the "pro" version.

I'm pretty sure it is a modified version from Android open source/Lineage.

Gallery [0] and Glimpse (byLineageOS) [1] are some good choices, both designed with Material You.

I use the first one on a daily basis.

[0]: https://github.com/IacobIonut01/Gallery

[1]: https://github.com/lineage-next/android_packages_apps_Glimps...

Finally, thank you for Gallery. This is exactly how I want my Gallery to be.

Scrolling is a bit choppy unfortunately, though.

Yep, that and the calendar app are the ones I use. I've been experimenting with Aves as a replacement for the gallery app, but not sure what I think about it yet.

> Why? […] I have always been able to find more capable open source apps…

Because a lot of people use those apps and are familiar with them. While it isn't difficult to replace them it could be quite faffy evaluating alternatives, making sure they work the same (or better), are reliable, aren't hiding gotchas like also being stalk-ware, etc.

Latest version in F-Droid of Calendar is dated 2023-10-08. I haven't checked whether that version exfiltrates user's data. I'd be more concerned about any subsequent versions.

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.simplemobiletools.calend...

It's highly unlikely that any F-Droid versions are going to be released by the ad-ware company. This company doesn't publish code as open source, and tibbi (original creator of SMT) is of the opinion that relicensing the code isn't a big deal because they wrote almost all of it.

https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools/General-Discussion/issu...

Unless the predatory-inclined buyer decided to also try to harvest some value of the open source user base, given the unusual situation of these particular acquired apps being open source?

I doubt that F-Droid would accept their code, also the Adware Toolkits would all need to be also GPL Licensed, otherwise it would be a license violation

I should've been more clear: they don't necessarily do the same thing for squeezing value out of open source users that they do out of Play Store users.

F-Droid makes sure they can build the code themselves, but I don't think they vet everything the code does. And Android permission model doesn't control network use well.

Fdroid already blocked possible updates for the original apps.

> tibbi (original creator of SMT) is of the opinion that relicensing the code isn't a big deal because they wrote almost all of it.

The fact remains that the sale wasn't announced and many users found it inadvertently. Many more may still be unaware that the apps they believe to be open source have turned into spyware/deceptiveware. The author seems to have sold the privacy of unsuspecting users to a spyware company. The situation isn't as simple or innocent as 'I wrote most of the code so I have the right to do it.

It's extremely annoying when open source software terms are changed and the authors downplay the impact like this. It also applies to other cases like browser extensions and cloud software. Besides privacy, they also disregard the contributions and promotions others make.

I agree. I am on the author's telegram channel where he continuously "bragged" about how he didn't use ads for support and said everyone should run away from ad supported app. And then suddenly he sold his work to an ad supporting company? It is his work, his choice but he lost all my respect and trust after this episode. At the least he could have warned on his telegram channel, but it has been crickets there since Oct 30th.

Anyway, donations coming for Naveen Singh!

I was sad to see this as a long-time used of SMT. Kudos to Naveen for taking the initiative in forking. I hope it doesn't turn out to be too much work for him (+ other contributors who help out). I imagine it's a big endeavour trying to fork all of the apps.

What I don't understand is that the Play store are still receiving updates like yesterday. Where is that code? Who is the developer? They still advertise as OSS applications.

That's the problem. On Fdroid, the repository maintainers block any further updates but on Play Store if the Google team behind it can and would do such a thing.

I see that fossify gallery is already on fdroid. Thanks!

Yes! The Phone app seems to have been released today. I am just an ordinary user, no affiliation with the project. I used pretty much all the SMT apps, so now I am slowly migrating to these new alternatives as they come out. I just hope that the project is based on better foundation and on a community, rather than an individual.

Between “fork” and “floss” (typo?) in the title I read this as being about something else entirely when scanning headlines.

FLOSS = Free / Libre Open Source Software. It's meant to be a more specific version of FOSS, making the point that it's using a properly "libre" license, and not just free of charge and source-available.

Good job! Some of these apps have been pure pleasure to use.

Everyone has a price...

Yes. The positive is that the code is left behind. I am sympathetic with (and sorry for) those who will not learn fast enough about the acquisition and will have their private data sucked out. That's why I posted it here, after I learned about it only today.

I am more concerned about the licensing issues.

Seems that the original author recieved some external contribution in GPLv3.

He thinks that he doesn't need to care about external contributions since he wrote over 90% of the code lol

he claims it's 99% by him and paid contributors. to verify you'd have to ask any major contributors if they have been paid.

There are many contributors in the GitHub Issue that claim that they never signed a CLA nor received any compensation

Well, to a point that's true: there is a not-clearly-defined line about what's copyrightable when it comes to the amount of text that's reproduced without explicit permission (as a matter of fact, that might be the same thing OpenAI is using as a loophole to consider their model immune to copyright claims).

Basically, I can't copyright an "article" which only says "This is an article." — there is high probability of someone coming up with the exact same wording, so you can't get protections for it. How much is too much is definitely left up to the interpretation.

Finally, unless one of those contributors takes him to court (external party like EFF or FSF can't protect your rights, you have to do it yourself), it's unlikely he should care. If one or two people do, there's also a relatively cheap option of rewriting just those parts too: court won't try to challenge other possible license issues.

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