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this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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Technology
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Why's it free on F-droid but $3.49 on Google Play? Or is the dev on Play just shamelessly profiting off an open source app? Edit: My bad. As everyone pointed out, purchasing on Google Play is how you can donate to the project. Sorry to jump to conclusions.
Because Play Store is the "voluntary donation" option.
Or think of it as "convenience fee" for the people who can't use F-Droid.
If my friend, who thinks I'm IT support since I majored computer science, asks me which tracker they should use - I would just tell them to pay the $4 for OpenTracks.
I have no problem with FOSS having a monetary cost. Devs have to eat too. The dev on Google Play store does seem to be on the core team for the app. (https://github.com/OpenTracksApp) I would hope the money is going to the project and not just that one guy but I don't see anything transparent about it. That being said it would really not be hard for any of that team to notice that the app is on the g play store and for money with that person's name attached to it. So it's most likely on the up and up.
Edit: Other people have noted that the play store version is essentially the donate to project option. I need more coffee since I didn't find that link lol
It is great to see support for the devs here though!
Also, publishing on F Droid is free while publishing on Play Store requires a developer account which costs money. Charging for the Play Store version makes sense if the dev even wants to offer it on a paid storefront. The free and FOSS option is free so I'm happy with that. I dislike when ALL options to acquire binaries of a FOSS app are paid but charging for the version on the pay2play store is understandable.
Nothing wrong with that? Loads of devs do that and point to fdroid for a free alternative. Just view it as a donation for the devs work.
In the Fdroid page there is a link to the google play store version next to their donate button so they're using it as a way to make it easier to donate to them.