The official lemmy community for Voyager, an open source, mobile-first client for lemmy.
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by the screenshots it looks like I've done plenty
Voyager is a copy of the Apollo UI. He's entirely right when he says he's already contributed significantly.
I don't blame him for being grumpy, but I also think it's legit to clone a decent UI. As Voyager matures the UIs will diverge.
He is becoming a bit stuck on the whole Reddit situation. He keeps sharing nostalgic posts about Apollo. It sucks what happened, but it’s time for him to find a new gig… I know he likes pixel pals, but that isn’t for me. I did pay for his mobile html inspector, but it’s buggy and not well supported.
Honestly does response really mean he’s mad or anything about it? Voyager is obviously inspired by Apollo, but any developer who does UX on iOS should inspired by good iOS UX. I think people may be reading into it to much. He already indicated that he was not going to port Apollo. If anything I’d be irritated that people keep asking him more than anything.
Is this guy still posting on Reddit!?
Well he is not here...
On the one hand, nice jab. Unfair since he wasn’t interested, but get his jollies where he can, I guess.
On the other, he knew longer than most that Reddit was done. He can pivot to Lemmy at any time.
Based on this https://reddthat.com/post/8711097 I don’t think he has any interest in Lemmy
Thanks for the link. I didn’t think he’s in the least interested in Lemmy. Unsure why he’s upset that someone else took the ball that he wasn’t interested in and ran with it.
Think about it. If you’d given so much of yourself over to crafting and honing an app like Apollo over the years and all that happened, happened… would you not be a tad deflated and exasperated?
I don’t blame him. Let him cool off for about 5 years. He’ll see it as a tribute one day.
You're right on all counts. It really is a tribute to Apollo's design, and I hope he sees it that way someday.
While I'd be exasperated, I'd like to think that I'd also be mature enough to realize that Voyager simply does what I didn't want to do. I'd like to think that I wouldn't be pissy about it. I might be wrong, but I'd like to think it.
100% this
He was also the voice of the fight against the API changes, which I’m sure took a toll too. His reputation was dragged through the mud and wild accusations thrown his way. He probably wants nothing to do with app dev, let alone app dev for a Reddit clone.
What makes you think he's upset?
Also this comment.
I don’t think he is planning on making a big deal out of it or anything, but he does clearly not really like it.
Interesting. I could see him getting upset if it was monetized but I agree that it makes no sense when he has expressed zero interest in doing it himself.
Wow, pretty clear how he feels about it. But also he made plenty of money of Apollo and then just shut it down and refused to open source it. So I don’t feel particularly inclined to change my behavior here.
Edit: All these people white knighting a dev that made millions off his app.
Why would he have any obligation to open source a project he was shutting down? If he made the code open, that would be a kind and generous gesture. Not an expected and assumed action.
and then just shut it down
He "shut it down" because Reddit intentionally made it impossible to continue. He had no control over that.
refused to open source it.
Why is he obligated to open source it?
I didn’t say he was obligated to open source it. He gains nothing by keeping it closed. If he had open sourced it I could still use it because I have a Reddit API key. If he open sourced it, it could be converted to work with Lemmy. But he effectively burned it down.
He doesn’t owe it to me to open source it but I can still think it was a shitty selfish decision.
exactly, infinity for reddit became eternity for Lemmy
because open source
He also gains nothing from open sourcing it
People need to stop having the expectation that everything should be open source. It shouldn’t, nor will it ever be
It costs him nothing and makes thousands of people happy. It contributes to the open source landscape which he built on heavily. Search his Reddit profile for open source mentions and see for yourself.
And?
Why does he owe his work to you and anyone else who wants to take it and use it as their own?
I don’t open source anything I intend to actually do anything with, and I’d assume he has a similar policy.
Welp, glad everyone isn’t like you. The world would be much worse.
He is not obligated in anything but it shouldn't suprise him or be sour about other devs stepping in to do what he doesn't want to do. It doesn't help that he acts like this is done out of malice even though it's not.
I mean, he provided a great app for free for years. Why should he open source it, just because he also earned cash with it? As far as I know he was also in talks with premium members so that they could get their money back but I’m not updated on that. And of course he shut it down, the app essentially became useless.
@christianselig@mastodon.social Can you share some clarification on your thoughts on the Voyager app?
Mods removing a lot of comments. No reason given.
Interestingly I can see them all on my instance with Voyager. Is this a new feature? They show as removed in red but still visible.
Hm, does Voyager have his blessing for being so similar to Apollo I wonder?
I believe he does not like it
I don’t believe there is fuck-all he can do about it, unless it’s somehow directly lifting code.
Voyager is built from the ground up as a web app, not even possible to directly lift code from Apollo
Thats probably why he hasnt done fuck all, that doesnt mean he has to like it.
Seems like it does not, but it also seems like Christian isn't really taking action against it.
Does it need it? AFAIK, you can’t copyright a design.
You can’t copyright the underlying idea. You can copyright the specific expression of that idea.
Wait, is that an Apollo’s screenshot? How?
Isn't he on Mastodon? Maybe the app UI is similar, in which case, irony...
Here are my takeaway. Christian does sound slightly miffed at the fact that Voyager has copied much of the look and feel of Apollo. Even though he has not contributed any code directly to the Voyager app, he has indeed "contributed" to it indirectly. I highly doubt Christian will go after Voyager app in a legal manner. He definitely would have a legal standing to do so but that would alienate his support from the past Apollo community that has moved onto Voyager. There is just no reason for him to do so. I suppose I can imagine a crazy scenario where Apollo IP switches hands to another company and that company decides to take legal action against Voyager but that seems highly unlikely. In retrospect it would have been nice if developer of Voyager basically got permission or just simply asked Christian if it's okay to use the look and feel of Apollo in writing. That would have avoided any awkwardness or ambiguity.
Copyright has not been violated, and so he has no standing for legal action.
Narwhal