I mean Fairphone’s support claims are already a stretch:
Release vs EOL date:
- FP1: December 2013 through July 2017
- FP2: December 2015 through March 2023
- FP3: September 2019 through September 2024
- FP4: September 2021 through September 2026
- FP5: September 2023 through September 2028
On the Linux kernel side:
- Fairphone 1 used Linux 3.4
- Fairphone 2 used Linux 3.4 (released May of 2012) which went end of life in October of 2016, yet Fairphone claimed support until March of 2023.
- Fairphone 3 currently runs Linux 4.9 (released December of 2016) series which was already officially end of life back in January of 2023.
- Fairphone 4 claims support until 2026, but it runs Linux 4.19 (released October of 2018) which only has official support until December of 2024.
- Fairphone 5 will likely claim support until 2028, but will also likely run Linux 5.4 (released November of 2019), which only has official support until December of 2025.
On the Qualcomm side, they typically only provide three years of support for their platforms, yet:
- Fairphone 2 used a June 2013 msm8974 SoC, which was EOL by 2016
- Fairphone 3 uses a June 2018 sdm662 SoC, so in theory it is already EOL
- Fairphone 4 uses a September 2020 sdm7225 SoC, so it too in theory is near EOL
- Fairphone 5 uses a November 2022 782g SoC, … you get the gist.
For bonus fun:
- FP2 was running Android 10 with its claimed March 2023 support, despite Android 10 not having any Pixel Security Bulletin’s since October of 2020
This means:
- FP2 was already truly unsupported a year after release
- FP3 was already truly unsupported months ago, despite claims of longer support
- FP4 and FP5 will be met with the same fate
To be clear:
- I do genuinely appreciate that Fairphone keeps providing updates for so long, I just wish the support claims were actually properly clarified.
- Fairphone was doing CVE backports for Linux 3.4 until the very end which was pretty awesome to see, but at the same time such CVE backports do NOT make a kernel secure.
- Running end of life kernels or platform blobs is insecure, despite whatever ASB patch level is claimed.
Edit:
Fairphone can easily address this situation:
- Rename the current support dates to “best-effort support”.
- Add a proper “full support” date, based on the soonest EOL date of all given underlying components.
- Examples:
- FP2: Full support until October of 2016, Best-effort support until March of 2023
- FP3: Full support until January of 2023, Best-effort support until September of 2024
- FP4: Full support until December of 2024, Best-effort support until September of 2026
- FP5: Full support until December of 2025, Best-effort support until September of 2028
- Post a PR writeup about transparency and a call to action to other vendors to provide longer support periods.