Catharsis - Unable to buy license

General
#1

I just don’t understand the business model of Jolla.

I was going to buy a Sony Xperia 10 ii and after that the Sailfish OS license for it and… surprise: You cannot buy licenses if you are outside EU, Norway and Switzerland.
Good thing that I paid attention and went to the Jolla store before buying the phone.
Now, I just can’t understand why aren’t they selling licenses outside those zones.
I mean, I could understand if you tell me that there is hardware involved (as there would be Logistics) but in this case?
How do you plan to expand the user base if you don’t allow to buy the License for the OS? as native applications for Sailfish represent only 30% approximately of what i use, therefore forcing me to continue using android applications.
How do you expect third party applications development for the OS if there is not enough user base??

Sorry people for this little catharsis.
Thanks,

Ariel

1 Like
Sailfish in America
#2

Have you ever tried to buy something that isn’t super-mainstream from the US?
It is almost like the rest of the world didn’t exist to them.

This question has been raised many times before - and while there hasn’t been an official response, it seems likely that it has to do with taxation and legal hurdles like certification and software patents. I’d be willing to bet money that SFOS infringes some random patent-troll nonsense software patents to do with interface design. Getting into the US market probably takes a staff of lawyers the size of the entire company - whereas if you are fine in one EES country, you can basically expand to all the others.

Sure, there are probably countries that would already work fine to expand to, but conclusively determining that is non-trivial.

As with all geo-locks there are ways around it if you just want to.

6 Likes
#3

I’m not based on the U.S
And i know that i could bypass the geo-lock but i would be violating the Terms of Use and could risk a block of my license.
as i said, this was catharsis. Not really expecting a solution.

Anyways, Thanks for the response Attah!

1 Like
#4

It is ridiculous to think that Jolla has the resources or means to lock your account.
You would not be the first neither here that faked the location in order to buy a license

4 Likes
#5

You’re unbelievable!
Also, they will send their finest German shepherds to hunt you down.

1 Like
#6

I would not worry about that. There are at least 3 or 4 other people outside the EU running Sailfish.
Some of them have been using SFOS for years without getting into any trouble.

#7

CAATSA may be bigger problem, than bunch of lawyers.

#8

I guess I’m off topic but is that not the same? IIUC that’s more or less only legal barrier. At least there are a lot of rumours that some companies (individuals or even counties) have way around that.

#9

It’s simple - if Russians develop some part of system and use it, to get free from Android dependency…they are acting against US interests. Next thing is advertising money and data collection. Big data giants don’t wanna lost clients. So it’s highest grade politics and big money. Very dangerous. Jolla must have protection to survive.

#10

Don’t forget the aliens, Major League Baseball, and reverse vampires. :wink:

4 Likes
#11

I will take care about aliens :grinning:

#12

My guess is, that while Jolla is very happy that they are able to provide Sailfish to end users, it does not pay the bills at all. Maybe we are 0.05 % of the income but who (publicly) knows? They cannot afford to spend too much time/money-effort here; it’s a relatively small company, the scope immense and, I guess, the workforce must focus on the paying (governmental, etc.) customers.

Jolla probably cannot sell Sailfish in the US and in other countries due to (missing) conformity tests. These things are expensive and I don’t think it makes economically sense to apply for the certificates. Jolla has to comply to the law. They, as a company, cannot officially sell devices in non-supported countries (but I don’t think they will bother about end users).

Just make sure that the needed Wlan/radio bands are supported in your region…

2 Likes
#13

The whole point of the license is Alien Dalvik so this is about the agreement they made with Myriad Systems – which can’t easily be changed.

I thought they supported the US but am apparently wrong.

No-one is going to know or care you’re in the US. Myriad get paid and Jolla get a bit. Go ahead and use a VPN (one is built into Opera).

#14

I am in the UK and run Sailfish. Of course when I bought the license years ago the UK was in the EU but now it isn’t any more. To date nobody has said anything about this at all and I doubt whether they ever will. In any case, I bought the license when I was ‘allowed’ to, and even though I am not now ‘allowed’ to because the UK is now outside the EU I still have a valid contract with Jolla for the license. As somebody else said around here. Jolla have bigger fish to fry just keeping their OS working without having to worry about a few sneaky users working their way around the system to get a license.