I would like a little more gurantee of effort/return than the TOS of Kickstarter has, but I would totally invest in a Linux phone. I would drop almost the entire cost of the phone down as deposit if it meant I could have it in a year and be guaranteed one.
More than that. Proper, real, hardware. And a bit more UI polish. The software is inching closer. But hardware wise there’s very little real option. For the time being my existing android devices are going to be demoted to little more than modems for a small Linux portable. I badly want a real good hardware platform to run a mobile linux distro. I have an octo core ARM chromebook tablet running postmarket. It’s a great experience apart from too little RAM. KDE Touch is pretty nice. And sits a bit under 500Mb idle. But the moment Firefox or Chrome launch we’re swapping hard.
I just bought one a few weeks ago, but I haven’t had time to fully set it up yet (my house has been falling apart). I’m in the US with Mint Mobile and calls and SMS work. Camera works. Battery life is pretty decent. They have an Android compatibility layer that integrates pretty well into Sailfish. I was able to install F-Droid on it and then Bitwarden and Molly (Signal client) so far.
One of the more trickier apps I may need to install is Tailscale… but I’m thinking maybe I can switch to Netbird and use their reverse proxy and remove the need to install a VPN client on the phone altogether.
I’m not a heavy smartphone user, so for me I’m thinking this might be a viable path to take.
Unfortunately, Sailfish OS uses a proprietary (closed source) android compatibility layer, as well as a closed source UI.
For the parts they have open-sourced, they implementrd a CLA that contributers must sign. It’s the HA-CLA-I-ANY license, which specifically allows them a perpetual Copyright and Patent license, and permission to relicense your code contributions to a more restrictive license which enables them sell or package it into a closed-source proprietary app.
Personally I’d be more comfortable supporting the development of PostmarketOS instead, since it is completely open-source with no CLA, meaning no chance of any rug-pulling in the future.
It’s unfortunate that it isn’t open source. Their AppSupport feature looks so great though. Hopefully it’s possible to do something similar in postmarketOS.
SailfishOS seems to run quite nicely, but has the limitations listed by you.
PostmarketOS seems to run a tad worse, but is fully open source.
Wouldn’t it make sense to support both, because otherwise there’s some danger of a chicken and egg situation:
people don’t use PostmarketOS, because it doesn’t work well enough. People don’t support PostmarketOS, because they don’t use it.
SailfishOS could pave the way for people using Linux phones and developing the need for completely open source ones after they realize the limitations of SailfishOS.
I can see that happening to me at least, because I ordered a Jolla phone with SailfishOS, which will hopefully be delivered in a few months (batch #3). I chose SailfishOS over PostmarketOS because of their Android app compatibility layer being fully aware this part isn’t open source and that I will eventually trying to get rid of that situation.
The demand for having a Linux phone soon that may be able to become my daily driver was more pressing than facing the risk of getting frustrated by PostmarketOS.
Do Linux phones need to run a Kickstarter?
I would like a little more gurantee of effort/return than the TOS of Kickstarter has, but I would totally invest in a Linux phone. I would drop almost the entire cost of the phone down as deposit if it meant I could have it in a year and be guaranteed one.
More than that. Proper, real, hardware. And a bit more UI polish. The software is inching closer. But hardware wise there’s very little real option. For the time being my existing android devices are going to be demoted to little more than modems for a small Linux portable. I badly want a real good hardware platform to run a mobile linux distro. I have an octo core ARM chromebook tablet running postmarket. It’s a great experience apart from too little RAM. KDE Touch is pretty nice. And sits a bit under 500Mb idle. But the moment Firefox or Chrome launch we’re swapping hard.
SailfishOS is a (non-Android) Linux phone that may be viable right meow!
SailfishOS runs fine (well?) on the Sony Xperia or the Jolla C2.
I just bought one a few weeks ago, but I haven’t had time to fully set it up yet (my house has been falling apart). I’m in the US with Mint Mobile and calls and SMS work. Camera works. Battery life is pretty decent. They have an Android compatibility layer that integrates pretty well into Sailfish. I was able to install F-Droid on it and then Bitwarden and Molly (Signal client) so far.
One of the more trickier apps I may need to install is Tailscale… but I’m thinking maybe I can switch to Netbird and use their reverse proxy and remove the need to install a VPN client on the phone altogether.
I’m not a heavy smartphone user, so for me I’m thinking this might be a viable path to take.
p.d. Yes, you can bring up a terminal. :)
Unfortunately, Sailfish OS uses a proprietary (closed source) android compatibility layer, as well as a closed source UI.
For the parts they have open-sourced, they implementrd a CLA that contributers must sign. It’s the HA-CLA-I-ANY license, which specifically allows them a perpetual Copyright and Patent license, and permission to relicense your code contributions to a more restrictive license which enables them sell or package it into a closed-source proprietary app.
Personally I’d be more comfortable supporting the development of PostmarketOS instead, since it is completely open-source with no CLA, meaning no chance of any rug-pulling in the future.
It’s unfortunate that it isn’t open source. Their AppSupport feature looks so great though. Hopefully it’s possible to do something similar in postmarketOS.
SailfishOS seems to run quite nicely, but has the limitations listed by you.
PostmarketOS seems to run a tad worse, but is fully open source.
Wouldn’t it make sense to support both, because otherwise there’s some danger of a chicken and egg situation:
people don’t use PostmarketOS, because it doesn’t work well enough. People don’t support PostmarketOS, because they don’t use it.
SailfishOS could pave the way for people using Linux phones and developing the need for completely open source ones after they realize the limitations of SailfishOS.
I can see that happening to me at least, because I ordered a Jolla phone with SailfishOS, which will hopefully be delivered in a few months (batch #3). I chose SailfishOS over PostmarketOS because of their Android app compatibility layer being fully aware this part isn’t open source and that I will eventually trying to get rid of that situation.
The demand for having a Linux phone soon that may be able to become my daily driver was more pressing than facing the risk of getting frustrated by PostmarketOS.