FP Security Updates need to be more frequent

The third reason could be the problem of getting the right people.
These days, there are plenty of companies struggling to get staff.

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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.

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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Do you want to work at FP? :tada:

That was my first thought regarding a possible third reason, too :wink:
Maybe a possible solution would be to work closer together with the LOS community, LOS 20 is already out and supports the FP4 officially.

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Dear Oliver, I’ve made ecxact the same experience and can only agree with you, unfortunately.
Greetings, Annemarie

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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).

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Subcontrators Mantra: It’s done when it’s done…

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Contractors answer: See Appendix B.4, “Penalties”… :smiling_imp:

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. :open_mouth:
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.

Fairphone made their bed, so they either have to sleep in it or get another bed.

Personally, I’d like to see them switch to another company.

They may be internal. At least, I’ve done some OSINT (open source intelligence) :nerd_face:

The CTO vacancy has this team under him.

Since we know the dev team is from Taiwan, I thought, hmmm, maybe those guys are that dev team? Not that international teams in Amsterdam are uncommon, but just testing that hypothesis. I did some quick searches and Oscar popped up: https://www.linkedin.com/in/oscar-chang-497a4564/

He’s based in Taiwan, but not working on Android development. So not sure if this is the team FP talks about. I guess these people are all the team leads or something. So maybe one of the other guys runs the dev team in Taiwan, didn’t find them via LinkedIn, but I didn’t go full OSINT on them, just their name and added the word fairphone to the queries.

That’s more like it, Eva is the CEO, Noud is CFO, Miquel the head of product management for example.

Edit: I’m still undecided if I find the direction this topic is taking funny, silly or just a huge waste of time :laughing:

Don’t get me wrong, I’d prefer to have Faiphone deliver monthly updates at the beginning of each month as well (and from beta testing it is clear they do have access to the patches in advance), but some of the things going on in this topic are just wild speculations and I seriously ask myself what those are going to change/improve.
And yes, some of this things written to “defend” Fairphone I find rather funny/silly/waste of time, too :stuck_out_tongue:
Sometimes it’s good to vent and I don’t think it always needs a response.

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