How long after a public sale will Bitwarden clients keep compatible with Vaultwarden? The new owners could put a check in all clients on the first day of ownership if they wanted, and Vaultwarden would immediately be obselete and useless.
I wonder if Bitwarden shit on everyone, how long it would take for Vaultwarden specific clients to appear. A browser extension would be pretty simple, app store apps are a bit more complicated because of the pay-to-play aspects.
The problem is once Vaultwarden clients appear, then Vaultwarden becomes its own complete system and is no longer able to rely on the good reputation of Bitwarden. Plus developing clients for multiple browsers and OSes is a lot more difficult than just keeping a back end up to date.
If they went this path I think I would jump ship to a paid service.
As soon as they break compatibility with the official clients, it becomes much tougher. Even though the current versions can be forked, the whole system is set up to work against any kind of grassroots effort to maintain an open source version.
Apple and Google being the gatekeepers for all mobile app distribution is a real pain point. Without the clout of a big brand name the risk of being unable to distribute apps goes up.