The same opensource app, downloadable on both stores but paid on playstore and free on fdroid. Is it legal and is it ethical? Why?
Sure , indeed there are some foss app that are the same as you described
True, but I think typically the Playstore version isn’t always from the official maintainers and I’d consider it less trustworthy, even if free (unless the devs link to the playstore page on github/gitlab/codeberg/whatever).
the play store version isn’t as trustworthy even if the original devs published it there, since google forced all developers a few years ago to hand over their signing keys. the signature is how you know the app wasn’t modified by anyone, and that actually the developer released the apk
Conversations, an XMPP chat app, does exactly this.
It’s perfectly legal but personally, I would not find this really ethical: a lot of people don’t know F-Droid and if they find your application directly in the Play Store, they won’t know they can have it, the exact same application, for free but elsewhere.
I prefere one of those solutions:
- The ability to send a donation, it’s a very common thing.
- Having the same application twice on the Play Store, one for free and one with a fixed price (I don’t remember which app do this but I saw it once).
Of course this is my point of view, everyone has its own vision of what is ethical or not. Do not take my comment as the absolute truth!
Is this your app? If yes then sure, it’s your app you can do whatever you want with it. If you are still morally troubled then just offer a free apk for those who don’t want to pay but also don’t want fdroid (for whatever reason there is, I don’t know of any).
Some just do it to make some extra money and save for convenience. Krita is free to download and install yourself. It’s 10 bucks if you want to get it on Steam. It’s perfectly within their right. Especially in KDE’s instance.
Free and Open Source developers have often a hard time to earn money for their work. Having it for 10 Euros/Dollars on Steam is an easy way for them to earn money and for users to support the software they like. I honestly wish more Free Software would come to Steam for little support money. I like the universal simple account to pay through Steam with Steam cards and don’t need another account or bank transfer for each project. It’s a small one time fee.
