I don’t have any reason right now to suspect this happening, but I can’t get it out of my mind that the Meshtastic project may at some point paywall the app or otherwise enshittify it as it gains popularity.

This sudden fear came at the heels of another open source project I had been using (PicoKey) deciding to pull some enshittification. The dev pulled down all the tools that let you configure the keys, left them down for several months, and finally released a paywalled app which is now the only way to configure them. Thankfully I am still using my Yubikey for most things and the PicoKey was just for some internal test stuff.

I know MeshCore does similar; you pay for the app but the firmware is free.

So, is this fear misplaced, justified, and does anyone see the project forking if this were to happen?

Edit: I’m aware of a few desktop apps such as an AIM-like messenger and a TUI-based one). I’m talking more for Android or iOS for sake of portability.

Edit 2: I’m not at all opposed to paying for things like this to support the developers. Far from it. But the paid version has to provide a benefit that does not come at the expense of intentionally making the existing/free version worse or just pulling it altogether (looking at you, PicoKey guy). I also won’t subscribe. Ever. lol.

  • Semperverus@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    3 days ago

    Both the android app and the firmware are released under GPLv3, so if something does eventually happen and they somehow change the license, you or anyone else is allowed to hard-fork the last GPL-licensed commit from their git repo and put a new name on it. It’ll be the same thing but it might go by LibreMesh or something. See OpenOffice->LibreOffice, Emby->Jellyfin, OwnCloud->NextCloud, SimpleApps->Fossify, etc.

    • Iced Raktajino@startrek.websiteOP
      1·
      2 days ago

      Oh, right. Like I said in another comment, I was mostly just knee-jerk reacting from what happened with a different project. The catch there was that they didn’t just change the license, they completely pulled down the repos for the open source version.

      Meshtastic is a bit bigger than that project, so there are very likely active forks out and about if only for the purpose of contributors submitting PRs. In the case of the other project, there seemingly are none.

      • Semperverus@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        2 days ago

        Do you know if Internet Archive has the old code available still? If so and if the license permits, you could technically reupload it to codeberg, gitlab, or any of the other git hosting sites with the name changed and a note in the readme saying its a picokey fork.

        • Iced Raktajino@startrek.websiteOP
          1·
          2 days ago

          I don’t recall the exact repo URL for the commissioner, but I made a guess based off the rest of the repos for the other components. Wayback doesn’t show anything for it.

          Honestly, I’m just done with that project. I was only testing it with my Authelia setup internally but was going to start using it in “prod” for my homelab stuff when the original tool went missing. I just don’t want to deal with a dev who would enshittify their own project before they’re bought by a big player.