That’s what got e.g. LineageOS up to Android 10 (currently) on the Fairphone 2.
Whether Fairphone did it similarly or used the work of LineageOS or the cooperation with /e/ now to get to Android 9, and whether this might get in the way of Google certification for the official Android 9 … we’ll just have to see.
Custom ROMs naturally don’t have to bother with Google certification, but it is very important for phone vendors to be able to sell and support their phones with all the Google Apps and services installed, as most people still want to have them.
I’ll add one important point here. If you observe most of the custom OS their SELinux status will be permissive which means they are not safe and prone to threats. The other thing is they will be userdebug builds. These two will not be the case with respect to official releases.
The manufacturers need to work a lot more beyond the functionality(which is the primary focus of Custom ROMs).
I’m excited about this update to Android 9.0 and I can’t wait for it to release to all users!
I’m wondering: what makes possible is this massive and unusual update to a new Android version?
Of course there are values: it’s fairer, but I mean, what about finances?
I suppose that past FP2 sales and FP2 spare parts sales provide enough money for this new update. Is that really so?
Could we imagine that FP2 spare parts sales alone provide enough money for perpetual Android updates for the FP2?
(I guess not, but when would it need to stop?)
Okay! but isn’t the support for actual technical needs?
I mean, I mostly ask out of curiosity, if the support helps people with actual technical issues I wouldn’t want to waste their time.
Right, I was hoping to get guesses and speculations mainly! but I’ll contact the support to see if they can provide more definitive answers. If so I’ll post those here.
Well, honestly, although everyone here is right and support is the official channel to ask I wouldn’t currently bother support with that question. Especially as support currently seems overwhelmed.
As you ask for guesses and speculations:
I wouldn’t expect FP2 spare part sales provide enough money for perpetual Android updates.
My guessing is that it’s more Fairphones mission driving that development. The mission is to support HW as long as possible and as Android 7 is no longer supported (by Google, i.e. no more security updates) you have to change to at least Android 9 to provider longer support. Bringing out Android 9 for FP2 could show the industry that it’s really possible to provide a long supported device!
As you were asking for ROI: I’d say the invest could pay back from a marketing point of view. Marketing is always cost and pays back via reputation. And it would imho be an amazing marketing and press event to really show that device receives supported software for more than 5 years!
Also keep in mind that (more guessing!) “only” about two developers are working on the update (so the costs are reasonable). This is a lot for this small company, but little in the context of the smartphone industry.
If you’re still interested in some feedback from Fairphone itself you might also consider to summon Rae here. She might pass by and comment on your question.
I totally agree with @Volker here.
Besides those considerations, you can find some info in the Impact Report under “Bigger market, greater impact”
Our sales goals
… We also started selling more smartphone accessories in 2019. Accessories and spare parts made up 7% of our total revenue.
According to the *Cost Breakdown on the same page, 16% of the price of a phone are for
Product development and Impact Research
We invest in research and development of fairer material supply chains and working conditions, modular and long lasting smartphones, as well as long term software support.
So, the long term software support obviously is already calculated and included in the price of the phone you buy. The additional returns from the spare parts will help for sure; but in general, they should not be needed for providing software updates.
And the other way round should also be considered: I wouldn’t expect FP to sell many spare parts more just because they offer an update to Android 9 (so I don’t think there’s much ROI seen from that point of view)…
Not so sure about that, if I got it right.
Wouldn’t it be more likely to buy a spare part, when the phone’s OS is kept up to date?
Who would invest a new display, when the software is not up to date and maybe even lacking security updates by Google.
OK, I have no idea, if that really amounts to a lot of sales, but it might be relevant in one or the other case.
Probably more likely. But still I assume people replace defective modules even if there’s currently no security update available. Bad from a security perspective, good from a sustainability perspective.