Conversations developer Daniel Gultsch says the open-source XMPP client is now free on Google Play, ending the paid-binary model that has funded the project since 2014. He writes that Google’s 15 percent cut cost him more than EUR 1,000 a year, that review delays now stretch to weeks and hold up security updates because the store does not separate feature releases from security fixes, and that the app has been pulled twice; with NLnet and European Commission grants securing funding through 2029, he is steering users to the reproducibly built F-Droid release and declaring an end to his economic dependence on the gatekeeper.
Conversations Goes Free as Its Developer Breaks Up With Google Play
Conversations developer Daniel Gultsch says the open-source XMPP client is now free on Google Play, ending the paid-binary model that has funded the project since 2014. He writes that Google's 15 percent cut cost him more than EUR 1,000 a year, that review delays now stretch to weeks and hold up security updates because the store does not separate feature releases from security fixes, and that the app has been pulled twice; with NLnet and European Commission grants securing funding through 2029, he is steering users to the reproducibly built F-Droid release and declaring an end to his economic dependence on the gatekeeper.
Source: Gultsch