RE: https://fosstodon.org/@furilabs/115777683365761046
> If you don’t want to follow my route and burn your money to test everything what is available you can also choose to pre-order the FLX1s and support most polished and complete linux smartphone today.
While this is a lovely statement, I would prefer to not burn money on Android based phone as FLX1s.
Having mainline support for your hardware isn't easy or nor cheap. It requires huge investment. I'll rather continue working on OnePlus 6/6T support until it can be daily driven by regular users.
The huge value of mainline based phones is the longevity and relatively low-cost of supporting the phone for many upcoming years. This cannot be reasonable done for Android based devices (at least not ar voluteering scale, without having many full-time employees).
When looking at the equation, I belive it could look like this:
1. Mainline: you invest early and then users benefit, but cost you €
2. Android downstream: you don't invest early, but:
2a. you invest over the years as you promised to support your product, where for >= 7 years you likely invest same amount as in case of 1.
2b. you decide not to invest and leave users with unsecure or partially working hardware and you profit €.
Of course there can be nuances between 2a and 2b.
What do u think?
@okias I think it's great that both endeavors are happening. Halium is more quickly providing mobile Linux devices and allowing us to more quickly work on overcoming the 'applications barrier to entry'. Mainline is the end goal but will take more time. I think ultimately there are more synergies than anything else, and that Halium will be useful as a stepping stone on the journey to mainline.
