Three years ago, the incredibly popular Android launcher Nova Launcher was acquired by Branch, a mobile links and analytics company. Understandably, people were worried this would spell the end of the launcher, as it would certainly become a vessel for tracking and mobile advertising. Weirdly enough, this never actually happened – instead, Nova just kind of fizzled out. First, virtually the entire Nova team was laid off two years after the acquisition, save for Nova’s original founder, Kevin Barry, who was not let go. Development had come to a halt already at that point, and ever since, it’s been quiet.
Until this weekend. Barry posted on his blog that he left Branch, and thus is no longer working on Nova Launcher. You’d think this would be the final nail in the coffin for this once rather ubiquitous launcher, but that’s actually not the case, as Barry explains.
For the past several months I have been preparing the Open Source release of Nova Launcher. This work included cleaning up the codebase, reviewing licenses, removing or replacing proprietary code, and coordinating with legal to ensure a proper release. When Branch acquired Nova in 2022, Branch then-CEO and founder Alex Austin made several public commitments to the community about Nova’s future, including statements about open sourcing:
[…]However I was ultimately asked to stop working on Nova Launcher and the open sourcing effort.
↫ Kevin Barry
Basically, one of the reasons Barry felt comfortable selling Nova to Branch was a contractual agreement – backed up by public statements from then-CEO of Branch, Alex Austin – that if Barry were to leave Branch, he would be allowed to release Nova as open source. It seems that this promise is not being honoured by the new CEO, for unclear reasons, leaving what was arguably one of the best launchers for Android in limbo. Nobody’s working on it anymore, and a contractual agreement is not being honoured, for whatever reason.
One of the people who used to work on Nova but was part of that first round of layoffs, Cliff Wade, is now trying to raise awareness of this stalemate. He’s trying to talk to former colleagues at Branch, and trying to put some pressure on Branch to honour their contractual obligations and public promises. I’m fully behind this effort, because up until the institutional neglect set in, Nova was one of the very best Android applications, clearly made by people who truly understood what Android enthusiasts wanted out of a highly configurable launcher.
Branch needs to honour its word, and allow Barry to continue preparing the release of Nova as open source. Head on over to Branch’s contact page, and let them know they need to release Nova as open source – in a polite, constructive manner, of course. The people working at Branch are just ordinary folk like you and I, and I will not stand for anyone being aggressive, insulting, or otherwise committing harassment towards Branch and its employees.
Damn. It would have been real nice to have a feature rich open source launcher, I still use one the decendent of one i bought years ago simply because the default ones in every ROM and the ones you can install from fdroid are all so basic
I had shed a few bucks back in the day to have this launcher on my LineageOS (or was it still CyanogenMod ?) phone. It was really good and I kept using it until the transaction with Branch. With it being closed source, my confidence in the news leadership was not enough to keep me using it, but I was never again fully satisfied with my launcher, even though the missing pieces were never critical. I’d love to believe in the happy unfolding of this story, but I guess I’m too disillusioned 🙁
What a bummer… I love Nova and use it to this day. I do hope it will get realesed as OpenSource though I don’t hold my breath over change.org petition…
This quote is attributed to late president Andrew Jackson when a court ruled against their favor. Basically the courts can do any ruling they would like, however if there is no enforcement mechanism, it means nothing more then intellectual exercise
(A common thing in financial judgements and small claims)
Here… what mechanism does exist to enforce the previous contract? They need to take the CEO to court, which would cost them a lot personally, while the CEO will be shielded as the company will be paying for the costs. It is a very lopsided, and unfair situation.
And they know this is not big enough to be taken on by the state or even the media. If this was Microsoft or some other big fish, yes, the situation would be different.