Installed it from Github, it wanted me to pay for putting a colour on my account(??) and it will remind me of something something.
Nah man...don't do that if you actually want to sell a pro version. Just state it upfront and I will consider it. putting it in while I'm already adding an account and letting me read some long list of features I won't have if I continue right in the middle of the configuration is a dark pattern to me.
Developers get very little say in what version F-Droid builds and ships [1]. I think there are some very minor differences between the F-Droid build and the regular (open source) build when it comes to OAuth API keys - centralised mail providers often don't agree to the keys being used in those builds made by third parties.
> Nah man...don't do that if you actually want to sell a pro version. Just state it upfront and I will consider it.
Not really sure how much more the developer could do here to make it clear - the app description [2] states it contains in-app purchases (at the top). The 5th line of the description says "Almost all features are free to use, but to maintain and support the app in the long term, not every feature can be for free. See below for a list of pro features.", and there's a full list of pro feaatures lower down the description.
Not really sure if I would agree this is a dark pattern as such - I've seen far worse store listings that don't call out "pro" features until you start using the app, and discover 90% of the advertised features are paid.
Maybe I have more sympathy for open source developers, but I think it's getting increasingly difficult for them to compete with the commercial apps that are "free" (with data mining), or are paid. Looking at how regularly updated FE is, and how responsive the developer is, I imagine it could be a monthly paid subscription, based on how much time many people spend using email, and it would probably be more than worth it. Certainly looking at SV SaaS pricing, it feels that FairEmail is probably very much under-priced. And open-source too, so people really are just paying for convenience.
Comparing it with hey's email service + client at 99 USD/year, it's not easy for open source apps to compete, but it's in our collective interest for there to be good, credible open source options available.
I've moved to SimpleEmail, which is a fork of FairEmail. Donated to both though. SimpleEmail ripped out the donation part in their fork, which is their right under GPL, but not a nice move IMO. Main reason for me is the fast pace with which FairEmail was iterating. Often with breaking changes. I like my email app to be boring. Which FairEmail is, thanks.
K9, to me, is just too much options and features. A lot of which needed tweaking and tuning, and were not something one could simply ignore.
FairEmail has (at least for me) reached a point of relative stability now - it's mostly iterative improvements and minor edge case/bug fixes.
Good example, a recent release [1] fixes a couple of bugs that look to have originated from upstream Android projects, and added some new support for removal of "tracking" parameters from Facebook URLs.
I'd agree with your comment that stripping out donations is "allowed", but "not nice" - I can only sympathize with the developer of FairEmail - it is clear he puts a huge amount of time into an app that has no "covert monetisation" like most apps.
I was never particularly happy with other email apps and privacy (especially not the commercial closed source ones which receive your emails on their own server back-end, but keep this part quiet in their description, just to make push easier) - for me, at least, FairEmail delivers the same or better, but all entirely on-device. There's even some basic learning-based on-device support for sorting mail automatically into folders (spam, FYI stuff, etc). That's for me the spirit of FairEmail - doing what others do server-side, on-device, without spying.
But it is clearly a challenge to make money from this, and I think (based on FAQs) that the developer has a struggle with those who think that everything should be free.
No relation to the app, just a happy user that likes to pay for open source apps rather than become the "product".
Installed it from Github, it wanted me to pay for putting a colour on my account(??) and it will remind me of something something.
Nah man...don't do that if you actually want to sell a pro version. Just state it upfront and I will consider it. putting it in while I'm already adding an account and letting me read some long list of features I won't have if I continue right in the middle of the configuration is a dark pattern to me.
They lost a potential customer here.