Why would the problem be money ? The phone is sold more expensive than competitors because of the software support and for fairness, if not then the business model is wrong. Moreover, we should not forget Fairphone earns money (some millions of benefits the year before if I remember correctly).
You are in software so you should know something can block and you have to try different ways to solve it without breaking something else. Otherwise it would be easy.
Just saying that I’m willing to donate, I hope the problem is money and not people. People that are not good at what they do and hurt the company, but are too high up or rooted in the company to resign/leave.
Because something needs to be the reason they can’t hire a couple developers to get this done in (some) time: Either they don’t really care (I’d rather not believe this), or they just don’t have the liquidities required to run an efficient software team on top of the hardware expenses. There is no third possibility I can think of.
The third reason could be the problem of getting the right people.
These days, there are plenty of companies struggling to get staff.
Or maybe they just want to pocket as much money as possible.
They earned 2 millions in profits a few years ago and I can’t imagine them having earned less than that last year.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/fairphone-finds-market-responsibly-sourced-mobiles-2021-12-03/
Edit: found this claiming they earned 4 millions
I can’t imagine it being that hard to find talent. If every other company can do so, why would Fairphone be the exception?
Fairly empty statements at seemingly random intervals unfortunately seems to be Fairphone’s way of communicating with their customers. “Early next year” is all we have to go on right now. With no indication of how often we will get security updates. Will it drop tomorrow or next month? We don’t know.
I remember Google making headlines when their update for the Pixel (insert number) was delayed by a whooping week or however long it was.
As it is now I’m deeply disappointed in the lack of Android 12 and even more disappointed in the lackluster communication about it.
Wouldn’t it be better if they were actually working on Android 13? This would be a good way to catch up, since it’s unlikely they would manage to transition from A12 to A13 during 2023. Without this Fairphones would always be one version behind.
Just a thought.
Do you think it makes sense to dump a nearly ready development of Android 12 to start customization of Android 13 and stay on 11 for another year?
Going from Android 12 to 13 is significantly easier than 11 to 12. It took us (2-3 people) just a few weeks to fully port CalyxOS and LineageOS from Android 12 to 13. I almost rebased the whole OS myself except a few features that had conflicts and that happened in just one week.
I understand that there’s a much bigger process to get builds certified by google/carriers etc. but current update schedule is way too behind. It shouldn’t be so hard to get monthly security patches in time at least, irrelevant of feature updates and new android versions.
Do you want to work at FP? 
That was my first thought regarding a possible third reason, too 
Maybe a possible solution would be to work closer together with the LOS community, LOS 20 is already out and supports the FP4 officially.
Dear Oliver, I’ve made ecxact the same experience and can only agree with you, unfortunately.
Greetings, Annemarie
You all seem to consider the software management is done at Fairphone itself. Is it the case ?
Some kind of top level work and decision making has to happen at Fairphone, even if the actual grunt work is subcontracted. They still need some in-house competence (even a single person), if only to be able to assess and pilot the work those subcontractors do for them.
Without this they would be blind, completely at the mercy of their subcontractor(s).
Subcontrators Mantra: It’s done when it’s done…
Contractors answer: See Appendix B.4, “Penalties”… 
They’re not looking for any tech staff. I guess they think “this is fine” insert meme here
Why, I see they are looking for a CTO. 
Clearly they are missing somebody at the helm, which would explain a lot of the current irresolution.
Does it really matter? They could just find another third party to take over. Or take over development themselves when FP2 is EoL.
It matters since the way to get faster updates/upgrades is not simply to hire more internal developers but it depends on another company.