As far as I understand it, the manufacturer of the phones (see blog post around the time the FP3 was released regarding some company in Taiwan) also produces the software for the Fairphone 3. They obviously have sources for everything (from Qualcomm) but they haven’t given the kernel sources to Fairphone itself yet, so they couldn’t publish them yet.
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Generally I think reserving some space and providing any version of the source code would keep this discussion at a lower level.
Since it is work in progress every stage of development is only a snapshot and there would always remain an offset between the actually released production code and the latest changes.
But this process was done in the past for the FP2 already. So it’s nothing entirely new to Fairphone. As it is not Fairphone’s fault not publishing any code version due to missing parts from third party partners they are not to blame.
But often I came across spots on the net where preparations were done like building up the basic environment with some clear pieces of information why there is still something missing and that it will be delivered asap or actually being worked on.
Giving no information though leaves plenty of room for speculation, accusation, complaining.
At least the support reacted on query and provided some basic information meanwhile.
This is only a friendly community/user base asking for some more. But if wanting to push a rival out of the market this would be a perfect weak point to start the battle.
Let alone reporters who pay attention to this irregularity putting it into focus of many other parties.
Please let’s hope that’s not the true reason for the delay. 
I have learned that some programmers like to clean up their code prior to publishing it. This can take quite some time too.
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Would the source code contain the boot image? I’m desparately looking for it because I dont like being locked down and am looking to root and also maybe port TWRP to FP3.
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No unfortunately not. The image needs to be provided by the manufacturer or be extracted from a device via an exploit.
Maybe @Matombo brought it wrongly, but (s)he’s damn right: this is not the first phone Fairphone is producing, and everything has been done well with FP2. So what’s going on with the FP3?
FPOS is supposed to be based on FPOOS + Google Services. And that’s the same with I have learned that some programmers like to clean up their code prior to publishing it.: the code is running on the FP3 for thousands of users right now. It shouldn’t be modified after the release, as that would not be the code run by devices, so we couldn’t trust it.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Fairphone and I trust them, but I’m a bit disappointed on that point. I’ll stay on my FP2 and won’t order a FP3 before an open OS is there.
IMO (but I’m getting a bit off-topic here), Fairphone should do everything they can to see the FP3 supported in mainline linux, with all drivers upstream. I know it will be hard to convince partners to release the source code of their binary blobs, but competition from Librem and PinePhone is coming and we should not have to choose between privacy and trust on one side and fair materials and repairable on the other one. The world needs one phone doing all that.
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That might be a bit optimistic. After the Android 6 update it took them at least half a year to publish the sources. I seem to recall there was quite some lag in other cases as well. Would be great if it were faster, but so far there isn’t anything concrete to suggest the FP3 is different in this regard (though I do note the concern that more of the development is done externally, which potentially means Fairphone has less control).
At least during the Android 6 releases, this was the other way around - or this was the community’s understanding at that point, e.g.:
I’m not sure that this changed. The focus has been on the GMS version, as Fairphone Open was installed on less than 5% of FP2s. FPOOS was late on FP2 and will be late on FP3 (if it is released). The limited resources they have initially go towards fixing issues with regular OS.
How would you know that the code isn’t the code that is running on devices? The only way to be absolutely sure about what the device is running is to compile code yourself after you’ve reviewed it, and to then install that build or checksum compare everything (insofar as that works). Even then, the source code for device blobs most likely will never be released - so can you truly trust the device?
Competition for whom? At Fairphone level it would be 5% of Fairphone’s market that installs Fairphone open, maybe 10% if we include other OSes.
The problem is that things like the baseband modem drivers would need to come from Qualcomm. Qualcomm has a >40% market share for baseband modems (e.g. here), in a phone market that is >1.5 billion devices annually (e.g. here). Fairphone will do well if they sell 100,000 devices in a year. This works out as Fairphone being (optimistically) 0.02% of Qualcomm’s sales volume - which gives you a rough idea of their negotiating power.
As much as I’d want to see a device that does everything right, we’re still quite some way off. If Librem show that they can get the device to meet consumer expectations that may boost the development of open hardware. Their route is the only sensible one in terms of openness and by extension trust. If the volume of hardware production is large enough, it gives enough space to find producers that can incorporate fair trade minerals and are happy to work with social programmes such as that promoted by Fairphone. Currently combining features from the Fairphone niche and the Librem niche would put so many constraints on the project that it won’t fly. My hope is that eventually we’ll get to a state where projects such as these can merge, but I fear they’ll need to mature independently for a while yet.
I completely agree. Buy a device for what actually is, rather than for what it might one day be. Good to mention why you’re not buying it, hopefully it helps map out the market better.
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If your FP2 is still working, why would you change to the FP3?
This would be totally against the principles of Fairphone, that are the fairest and environmentally best phone being the one you already own.
Sure. But as @Johannes already elaboreted so perfectly well, the world will have to wait some time.
True, but you should not make the statement of one user’s experience - unrelated to Fairphone - the source of a complaint or accusation directed at Fairphone.
Btw.:
Shouldn’t any software developer be working on the program and the code all the time to level out any flaws and bugs, to perform upgrades and integrate new security patches etc.?
I am no programmer and maybe I get it wrong and the code discussed here is not affected by such further developement.
Otherwise I completely agreee with @Johannes.
The FPOOS-users have proven to be a minority for Fairphone. When aiming at the mass market, the percentage of this users will most likely shrink further. This forum - on this regard - is in no way representative when it comes to the technical knowledge and interest of the average Fairphone owner.
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The Librem 5 is not open hardware; it runs open source software (including firmware). The hardware (designs etc) is proprietary.
Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed your post. Great points. Which does not mean that I (or Johannes) do not want to see FP Open OS. It is about a small company who have limited sources, and who have to make pragmatic decisions.
A large company could do it with the blink of an eye, but they’re too high up in the power pyramid and shareholders to care about long-term.
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Even if some time is required in order to release the source code, I do not understand why the boot image is not immediately released? The guarantee agreement already states that rooting the phone will void the guarantee, and ok, that is quite fair. What is the point in making life complicated to the open community and having them to wait for an officiall release or an exploit (and we all know this is only a matter of time)?
Releasing the boot image would allow, in principle, any one to install/develop whatever (s)he wants on the phone or get rid of google from the phone. And this is a liberty anyone who bought the phone should have.
And saying that only 5% of the FP community is interested in such things is only partially an argument, since an even smaller fraction of smartphone users actually cares about how fair the chain production is, so that FP already took the decision to target minorities. Providing the boot image is a fair thing to do, and tell me if I am wrong, but I think it requires zero effort from FP. Actually, since the image is even inside every single FP3, why on earth the corresponding file does not actually simply have read permissions?
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Welcome to the community forum.
We like sources for claims like this here, so your source would be … ?
That even smaller minority interested in fair production chains is the Fairphone community. And if you take 5% of an already small minority you’ll end up with a minority of the minority. To me that makes it a good argument as the company wants to stay in business.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d much prefer the FP3 to offer as much choice in term of OSes as the FP2 did at some point. But then, with the change of CEO and trying to scale up the business I can understand that catering to 5% of your user base might not be top priority (for the FP2 it was said that 5% installed FPOOS instead of FPOS).
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100% agreement.
Couldn’t have said it any better. 
Looking forward to that future! 
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You only describe people who want both. Thats not what open os for fair phone would be targeting. It would target people wo want fair traid. People wo want open os. And people who want both.
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No, I was stating a fact backed by numbers.
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Thanks for the explanation. 
But it remains that it is simply an illegal violation of the GPL. No matter if 5 or 90% want to see the source code.
The FP was shipped with software, there has to be source code somewhere, why was not it just made available for download? I do not really find it trustfull if FP did not even get the source code for their product from some custom contract programmer(s) anywhere in the world. Does anyone at FP work at all who can understand what is being programmed? Or is it a black box?
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@Ingo I think you understand me wrong: There are people who care less about the fp being fair traid and more that there was fpoos for the fairphone 2. FPOOS is not an extra gidding for people who buy fair trade phones, but actually opens up a whole new market. I personally don’t know a phone besides the FP2 that offers an offical AOSP build. It’s an untapped market that fp could be using.
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The people who prefer a FOSS smartphone are the same people who want firmware being FOSS. These people are not being served by FP1/FP2/FP3 but by Librem 5, and as cheaper alternative (without open hardware available), PinePhone.
Personally, I’d much rather have a non-AOSP/Android smartphone with Android emulation layer than AOSP.
For people who don’t want to live with Google there are already some guides available which remove a lot if not all the proprietary software. If you combine that with F-Droid you should be good to go for the time being.
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PinePhone is not available yet. Librem 5 is not available yet while costing twice as much while not being fair traid.
And as the FP is not 100% fair traid but still way better than any other phone on the market. An open source os with closed source firmware is still way better then a completly closed source os.
For example: Most linux user for example can live with nvidia drivers, but don’t want to run Windows.
Without root you can’t remove google play services. Thats the feature I’m missing on my FP3.
Also. GPL.
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Hence for now you need to make the choice between fair trade and FOSS. Even though these are not binary, for now the trade off is real.
Your Nvidia example, while well intended, is terrible IMO. My opinion is that most people who use a graphics card do not need an Nvidia. If you want to support FOSS, you buy AMD or Intel GPU instead. Both FOSS drivers are great on Linux, and AMD also delivers good 3D performance.
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