Of course, but when something like that happens to a popular app there will be an outcry. If you are not a tech person you might miss that, but I’d argue if you care about what launcher your phone has and you care about this issue to go foss you are probably the type of person who’d hear about it.
I use KISS launcher but there are many other options mentioned here that are also good. Yes, nothing is exactly like Nova. But lots of other stuff is good too.