16-Year-Old RSS Reader App NetNewsWire Returns To Founder Brent Simmons, Who Promises To Keep It Free and Open Source and Release v5.0 Soon

Black Pixel, which acquired popular Mac RSS reader app NetNewsWire in 2011, announced this week that the brand name is returning to the founder Brent Simmons. From the announcement: Since acquiring NetNewsWire from Newsgator in 2011, we’ve invested a great deal in the continued development and support of the product suite including the addition of a free sync service. Unfortunately, the ongoing cost of support and feature development for these products require more dedicated resources than we are able to provide. With that in mind, today we are removing all versions of the app from sale. We’ll continue to run the sync service for another 60 days, then take it offline at the end of October. Brent Simmons, who founded the app, shared what he plans to do with the brand name: […] I want to thank them [Black Pixel] for a second thing: their incredible generosity in bringing it back to me. When I asked them about it, they told me they’d already been discussing it. There was never a need to convince them: they thought it was the right thing to do before I even said a word. […] You probably know that I’ve been working on a free and open source reader named Evergreen. Evergreen 1.0 will be renamed NetNewsWire 5.0 — in other words, I’ve been working on NetNewsWire 5.0 all this time without knowing it! It will remain free and open source, and it will remain my side project. (By day I’m a Marketing Human at The Omni Group, and I love my job.) Black Pixel will stop selling their versions of the app, and will turn off the syncing system and end customer support — all of which is detailed in their announcement. (Important note: I will not get any customer data from them, nor will I be doing support for Black Pixel’s NetNewsWire.) I want one thing: to make the very best versions of NetNewsWire ever made. And, along the way, I’d love to have your help. Nothing to Download Yet I don’t actually have an app bearing the name NetNewsWire ready to download yet. I will have test versions ready soon, though. It’s still going to be a while before the final version of 5.0 ships. The Mac community has been thrilled about the announcement. Daniel Jalkut, founder of blogging tool MarsEdit, said, "I appreciate Black Pixel’s decision to return NetNewsWire to Brent Simmons. It was the right move strategically, but also very humanistic." Federico Viticci, a prolific blogger on Apple ecosystem, said, "Congrats Brent Simmons on bringing NetNewsWire home. The Mac can use a modern RSS reader that can stand the test of time." John Gruber, a columnist on Apple ecosystem, said, "Black Pixel did a great job taking over NetNewsWire, but times change, and companies change. Handing the NetNewsWire name back to Brent was a classy move, but completely unsurprising to me, knowing George and the other folks at Black Pixel."