Not enough people care to use cut rate hardware that actually conforms to the 'wholly open' philosophy. Even Stallman couldn't maintain using fully open hardware. He had to switch to a Thinkpad with Coreboot.
People have expectations when using devices as complex as a phone or laptop to where, compared to even a desktop with Linux, having a smartphone that is fully open comes with serious drawbacks.
You could always get a LibrePhone or a Pinephone but you probably won't enjoy the experience.
well, "fully open" is just an ideal. I think I could live with proprietary bits that are not involved in the private data trade.
it doesn't have to be "cut rate". I left the specs/price point open for that reason. But indeed thinking of it as a tool, not as a trend-following gadget with 12 cameras and the screen size of a laptop.
Just interested to see whether this approach is viable.
> Just interested to see whether this approach is viable.
Spoiler alert: It's not. The better SOCs end up becoming more proprietary because it's the companies' own implementations that make them perform better. That leads to proprietary drivers/software.
Not enough people care to use cut rate hardware that actually conforms to the 'wholly open' philosophy. Even Stallman couldn't maintain using fully open hardware. He had to switch to a Thinkpad with Coreboot.
People have expectations when using devices as complex as a phone or laptop to where, compared to even a desktop with Linux, having a smartphone that is fully open comes with serious drawbacks.
You could always get a LibrePhone or a Pinephone but you probably won't enjoy the experience.