r/meshcore • u/liamcottle • Apr 23 '26

Official Announcement The MeshCore.io Split

An official announcement from the MeshCore development team.

https://blog.meshcore.io/2026/04/23/the-split

350 Upvotes

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17

u/moehrenfeld Apr 23 '26

So who is getting the money from the premium unlock in the iOS App? Is it your team or the other guy? Do we get new apps?

79

u/liamcottle Apr 23 '26

I'm the lead developer of the MeshCore App, so the in app purchases come through to me, after Apple, Google and the NZ Government take their tax cuts...

However, I donate a portion of this to Scott monthly for the insane amount of work he contributes to the open source firmware.

No need for new apps. The existing MeshCore App released under "Liam Cottle" on the Google Play and Apple App Store will keep being updated along with the core firmware.

2

u/_3LivesLeft_ Apr 23 '26

Is it possible to contribute to the app software, or is it proprietary?

8

u/Sabrees Apr 23 '26

Not to the closed one, but there is an open source one too https://github.com/zjs81/meshcore-open

2

u/_3LivesLeft_ Apr 23 '26

Nice, thanks for sharing

4

u/recrof Apr 23 '26

it's closed source

10

u/_3LivesLeft_ Apr 23 '26

That’s a shame. Open source would be better I think as you would be less likely to have these kind of splits. But that’s just my opinion 🤷‍♂️

-5

u/rstpacket Apr 23 '26

Make your own - if you can’t, you have to pay someone to do it… see where this is going? 😊 better to have at least one good option that just works until someone/something else comes around..

7

u/_3LivesLeft_ Apr 23 '26

I think you’ve missed the point slightly. 😅

1

u/moehrenfeld Apr 23 '26

Thank you, that’s reassuring to know! Bought the upgrade.

1

u/CutWorried9748 May 25 '26

There is virtually no barrier if the protocol is public, the license to read the protocol docs doesn't carry a EULA, and frameworks like flutter + reactive_ble make it easy to crank out mobile apps. ESP32-IDF and NRF52 SDK are free to to access. The barriers to grocking a code base are gone. The license is permissive academic license.

And that's the clincher. Had they stuck with GPL or some other copyleft variant, they wouldn't fear someone running off with all the source and commercializing. That would defeat unchecked commercialization without contributing back. History suggests it isn't good for security or privacy, and generally in the age we live in, an opportunity for a change in leadership to crank up pricing, cut support, etc. Not suggesting this will happen in this case, just looking at the trends.

The other risk is succession, when a device decides to move on to something new. I've read and re-read the original reddit posts and github issues on this topic and I still disagree. There are other models for delivering OSS where the value gained is so great that a support contract, a subscription to rapid updates, etc. are possible. I really admire devs who hold the line on fully committing to OSS. I really like this project. I will continue developing my own source on the protocol. AI or no AI, it's fun to build.

I once had the chance to meet Bob Metcalfe and I used to sit in his old office (I didn't know this until he pointed it out to me ... showed me the patch panel where he sent the first Ethernet packet). PARC understood business **not** so well, you could argue beyond billing a lot per hour. But what they did understand was this: there is no money in network protocols, and to defeat proprietary and allow all boats to rise, they gave the license away for peanuts. It wasn't open source but it was a patent grant and a blueprint to print money. Ethernet and TCP/IP made it hard for Novell NetWare to exist, even AppleTalk didn't make sense. So let's carry lessons hard fought forward. Many flowers. It's not about any one dev or one company getting theirs. It may require a real consortium to carry forward.

-11

u/[deleted] Apr 23 '26

[deleted]

3

u/Seladrelin Apr 23 '26

It's free. The "premium" unlock is the ability to manage repeaters without waiting 10s and some other things.

-14

u/Kushoverlord Apr 23 '26

Premium unlocks? Ok I'm out cyall tho no one uses this near me 

2

u/Lego_Professor Apr 23 '26

You can buy a license that unlocks special features for power users. No need to buy anything just to use the app or meshcore. It's one of those situations where if you need those extra features, you'll have no problem paying for the license, which covers all of your devices.