cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/10796117

Fossify Gallery (fork of Simple Gallery), Fossify File Manager (fork of Simple File Manager) and Fossify Calendar (fork of Simple Calendar) are now available for download on F-Droid.

(Simple Mobile Tools suite was acquired by an Israeli adware company)

About Fossify: Fossify is all about community-backed, open-source, and ad-free mobile apps. A fork of the SimpleMobileTools, which is no longer maintained, and we’re here to continue the legacy, bringing simple and private tech to everyone.

  • AtmaJnana@lemmy.worldEnglish
    25·
    10 months ago

    A few weeks ago, I was reinstalling my phone and stumbled across Fossify Gallery while looking for Simple Gallery Pro. I assumed they were a shady copycat because their app listing (on F-Droid) makes no mention of Simple Mobile Tools, yet it appears to be a fork. Consequently, I avoided it because it seemed shady. Turns out, SMT was bought.

    I would have trusted this a lot more easily if the f-droid listing made it clear what is going on here. Maybe the (contributor to SMT) Dev who forked to Fossify was trying to avoid legal entanglements or something, but it made Fossify seem sketchy if you dont know the backstory, which I had no way of knowing.

    Anyway, here is the corrected link to Fossify’s github: https://github.com/FossifyOrg

      • AtmaJnana@lemmy.worldEnglish
        8·
        10 months ago

        Well sure, I know that now (much later, only after seeing it on Lemmy.) My point is that a single brief line of text in the app listing could make it clear without the need to google it.

  • gedaliyah@lemmy.worldEnglish
    111·
    10 months ago

    I’m not sure why companies constantly try to buy up open source software. It’s already open source. If they want to develop on top of it, in most cases they already can. They’re not going to win any points with the open source community. The project will just be immediately forked and people will use the new FOSS version.

    • naught@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      16·
      10 months ago

      except the current user base, that doesn’t care about FOSS as you or I do, will continue using the original app which will net them a non-insignificant amount of ad revenue, which is their entire purpose for existing. Makes sense to me

      • gedaliyah@lemmy.worldEnglish
        71·
        10 months ago

        I suppose it’s silly of me to assume that anyone using a FOSS app is automatically not an idiot lol

        • davidgro@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          10 months ago

          They (like myself) mostly downloaded SMT apps from the Play Store, and of course just update them without looking at it since then.

          The store page doesn’t have anything suspicious looking about it even now (who’s going to notice the missing ‘s’ at the end of “Offered by Simple Mobile Tool”) and it still says it’s open source.

    • gian @lemmy.grys.itEnglish
      4·
      10 months ago

      Because there is no way that adding adware in a FOSS version of any software has any chance of success.