Where will aftermarket tinker dev development be once L5 is released ? Here ? Or perhaps ubuntuforums or ??
I doubt that this forum will be the place since there are other forums exclusively for that purpose, but we might get some app developers for PureOS Store who use this forum.
It also depends on whether the Librem 5, PinePhone, ZeroPhone, or something else will attract more tinkerers. PINE64 seems to be doing more active outreach to the development communities and is marketing its phone as a device for tinkerers, whereas Purism has reached out to some communities, but its focus is clearly its own software development, and the Librem 5 is too expensive for most DIY hardware projects.
My guess is that people who want to play with the hardware are more likely to chose the PinePhone, but the Librem 5 has released the KiCAD schematics files under the GPL 3+ license, so it will attract some hardware tinkerers as well.
I predict that people who want to develop software are more likely to choose the Librem 5, because Purism will be setting up an app store to promote apps developed by the community. There will be people at postmarketOS, UBports, KDE Plasma Mobile, Maemo Leste, etc. who will adopt those two phones for their projects and the development will continue on their own forums. For those people, they are likely to spend more money for a Librem 5, because it has better hardware and they don’t want to deal with the binary blobs in the PinePhone, but it is hard to argue with the lower cost of the PinePhone.
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Well I was more referring to say OS developers kinda like XDAdevelopers does for android .
What are the chances that this phone (Librem 5) will get on these lists (approved by carriers)?
There is .0% chance of being on a pre-approved list from major carriers before shipping. That percentage increases with each iteration and as time marches on. Primarily because as we grow the leverage grows. This is all part of the strategy and model.
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Hi Todd , can’t wait for my L5 sir. I really hope your mobile endeavor succeeds.
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Thank you for responding and honesty - making it super clear.
I’m wondering, if you would do some internal testing on major carriers and share it publicly. So, at least we get to see what features might work - such as VoLTE.
Thanks
Yes, as I wrote originally, we have tests from various carriers around the globe, but it’s not exhaustive. We have simply been testing the devkit on various networks and recording our findings. As we ramp up shipping devices we expect more and more field reports to a shared document or wiki. Flagging @david.boddie @heather.ellsworth @mladen to know this was asked (again).
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Thanks. Much appreciated!
This FAQ should help: Will my existing SIM card work? What countries and networks will be supported?
This forum thread aims to collect information about carrier compatibility: Librem 5 carrier compatibility thread
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