Simple Mobile apps have been very popular among FOSS enthusiasts. I've personally been using the Gallery, Contacts and the Phone app since a few years now. It's a shame that it has come to this, will be on the lookout for their forks.
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AFAIK the code is all GPLv3 so they won't be able to close-source it.
I mean, a fork is indeed possible and in progress. But the main version on the Google Play Store will almost certainly be no longer open-source.
Why do you say that? Unless they completely rewrite the app from scratch it is not even possible to have a closed-source version of the app. That's what the GPLv3 does.
If all the developers of the GPLv3 version agree to relicense their contributions, it's unfortunately possible to close-source further versions of the source code. Does somebody know if Simple Apps accepted external contributions?
There's like 100-200+ individual contributors to each of the apps. Practically impossible for everyone to agree to relicense especially considering the community reaction to the sale.
Hopefully that's the case! And hopefully somebody steps in legally in case the new developers decide to just ignore the GPL terms.