This is and was at every time the problem of all FOSS phone systems up to now. Instead of working together the companies and programmers work side a side at the same problems and apps. Thousands of worthful coding hours were spent to solve the same problems 5 times at the same time in 5 different companies…
ATM the next FOSS system is stuck and nobody can estimate a time when it will go further.
I fear that money does not solve the problem. The problem seems to reside in other - very other regions of work and sympathy
Ok. I agree in many respects. I am happy that people, companies, developers, are making an effort. I just had a discussion with my spouse about the pitfalls of socialism vs. capitalism. I am no political philosopher. Just interested in how humans communicate/collaborate on shared ideas.
They have love and hate between them like any others. So I can understand the animosities which are often stronger then the needs to do for bringing a project to a glorious future
Up to now I cannot understand some decisions that were made 2019 and after in the FOSS phone scene
I’m not sure what makes you think so. In my experience, the collaboration with people from like-minded projects has been stellar. I have personally “shamelessly stolen” things developed by, say, postmarketOS and Mobian communities to put them into PureOS, just like they did with our stuff Being one of the people who performed that work, I really can’t complain in this area - it always felt like despite being split into separate projects, we were working together towards a common goal anyway.
Also, I can’t really even list 5 companies seriously investing into this space. In fact, over the last years, I can only think of one that had significantly invested holistically, and perhaps one or two more if we look at particular subsets of the stack (unless we count things like Sailfish, KaiOS, Tizen etc. but that’s a completely different business space that’s hard to compare).
Or are you talking about how there are several DEs, distros and other competing projects out there? Of course there are, people are free to put their efforts into whatever they want for whatever reason they have. People’s needs and motivations vary, and the landscape of available options simply represents that, just like it does in software on desktops, in businesses, in foods, in entertainment, in relationships, even laws differing between countries…
If we want mobile GNU/Linux space to be healthy, we need more than a single entity pouring money into it, otherwise it suffers as soon as that single entity has any troubles with continuing to do so.
I understand Your opinion and can see Your efforts to make things happen. But for me there was some time ago a point where all activities begin to run separately. My starting would be much more radical:
There must be an end for developing PureOS for the L5, PM-OS and for example Debian Mobile separately. None of the three lines, also not even sailfish, have a stable and widespread user count.
For me no wonder that there will be financial issues. Honestly, how many active users own and use a L5 have in between? Is there a perspective in money and time to develop this project further?
Or is it long long over time to sit together and amalgamate all this together to a COMMON project with acceptance and a respectively count of users?
If things running further like today I have a BIG fear that nothing will ever be ready, is completely daily usable and has a perspective on the market
We can put many hours into discussing other impossible things as well, but that’s perhaps not the most productive use of our time. Every project has its reasons to exist.
I’d chip in a few donations here and there if this took off. Seems a good idea to me. The Purism investment thing sounds good, but the bar is a bit higher than just donating £30 here and there.
I think we need a dedicated one and not a group who do somtehing in coding for the L5 when there is “free Time”
But regardless of… I think there will be a need for at least 100.000 $ Maybe much more. Therefore I asked how many owners/users of the L5 does really exist and is potentially interested in paying and getting a better L5 ?
That is an important information
We are not 500 users, maybe much more.
If Purism has miscalculated the efforts and costs for developing and maintaining the L5 - why not tell the users what is really needed and start a campaign?
Yes, but before you reach that end, you have to make the hardware part of Librem 5 perfect, i.e., the part which is specific to this device. This is not done yet, so you have to separately work on Librem 5 for now.
I like the idea of contributing more on the SW side of things, with filing bugs and even solving low hanging problems. I would guess many L5 owners both have a technical background and an ideological alignment with the FOSS spirit, and would like to see mobile linux continue to exist.
A simple “How to start contributing” guide would be awesome for people like me.
(I am not suggesting guido.gunther should do this, but it was convenient to reply to this to continue the discussion)
Being one of the people who performed that work, I really can’t complain in this area - it always felt like despite being split into separate projects, we were working together towards a common goal anyway.