Criticism of the licensing policy and browser development

General
23

I understand what you mean and I have also said many times, I would love to Fairphone to co-operate with Jolla. Put as Jolla has answered to this, Fairphone would need to agree to this co-operation. Jolla can’t do that without Fairphone allowing. And unfortunately as I tried to say, in my understanding Jolla can’t do business with community ports that are based on some FOSS stuff like lineageOS. Licenses don’t allow that to my understanding.

+as @Obikawa said, Jolla lacks resources a lot. And they could of course spend those resources to try find somekind agreement with Fairphone (as they have tried in the past), but in my opinion the resources are spend better currently with focusing on new Jolla phone. With that they can find new users, developers and get finally some cash in. This hopefully helps Jolla grow, hire new people and get more muscles to do all kind of other things in the future. And hopefully encourage other hardware sellers in Europe to start offering their phones with pre-installed SailfishOS, which would mean they find somekind of agreement

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24

Hi,

If you wish to help Jolla, there is an official donation page : Sailfish OS subscription – Jolla Shop

Has for browser development, yes this is one of the biggest issue with QT5.6.

Both of the issue have been heavily discussed here. We can only hope than the J2 offer enough money for Jolla to hire Dev to update the Browser.

Has always with Jolla thing are slow. You have to remember that other sit on giants shoulder, Jolla doesn’t.

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25

I understand the resource argument, and I do not underestimate it.

Small companies like Jolla operate under constant pressure. Technical debt, limited manpower and the need to survive financially are very real constraints.

I also understand that cooperation with hardware vendors like Fairphone cannot happen unilaterally. These agreements require legal clarity, shared responsibility and mutual commitment.

My previous comment may have sounded emotional — that was not my intention.

What I am trying to express is something bigger:

Europe has several independent initiatives:
• Jolla (Sailfish OS)
• Fairphone (sustainable hardware)
• SHIFT or Volla (alternative hardware vendors)
• Community-driven systems like Ubuntu Touch or postmarketOS

All of them are fighting parallel battles.

From a citizen perspective, this fragmentation is concerning.

Digital sovereignty is not achieved by isolated projects that barely survive. It requires structured cooperation, shared strategy and long-term stability.

If Jolla needs resources, perhaps the discussion should not only be about internal prioritization, but also about how ecosystems could be built stronger — whether through partnerships, structured licensing models or even community-backed funding initiatives.

I want Sailfish OS to survive.
Not emotionally. Strategically.

Because independent, privacy-respecting platforms are becoming increasingly important in a world where digital ecosystems concentrate power.

But survival requires clarity, focus and alliances — not just resilience.

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26

Thanks, I’ll support that and leave a post about it on my blog

27

Jolla and fairphone had been talking about an official sailfish on fairphones for ages, in the past, but the thing never materialized because fairphone is scared nobody will buy a system different than android, ence losing money they cannot afford to lose

And that’s why we don’t have a fairphone with official sf

As for the browser, jolla is updating the engine as we talk and the updated browser “should” be released with sf 5.1, hopefully
(admittedly they are taking way too long on this, althought it seems to be a very hard task)

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28

Jolla did not choose supporting any other device than the former flashed ones and C2. Instead Jolla choose to follow the path of launching its own device again. This Jolla 2 will become a rival for Fairphone and it will be much nicer.
If anyone wants a Fairphone with Sailfish plus Android support for say E25, that would not only mean this person ‘wants to sit on the front row for a penny’, it could also damage Jolla’s new business.

29

If it is the browser: I am using the Qwant browser app.

30

Fairphone is a business (!) created by thinktank De Waag in Amsterdam. Without a business concept they would never have made it. It sells ‘sustainable hardware’ yet it can only guarantee support for about seven years because of Android and Telecom. Fairphone’s main achievement is that it proved that modular phones are possible.
It started in 2013 and sells now their sixth device. So their former devices were not thát sustainable.
There are similar brands: Nothing, Teracube, Shift, HMD.
Jolla 2 will be partly sustainable because you can change the battery and Jolla is willing to support Sailfish for a long time. My advice: give Jolla 2 a chance.
We all want Sailfish to stay. Since Sailfish is connected to Jolla, I want Jolla to stay. Without a company that backs the OS (and device) , a company that is willing to maintain it, Sailfish will fall apart in individual hobbyism and nobody is responsible. It would be good if Jolla Sailfish would become an attractive alternative to the non-hobbyist too.
It’s more than a toy. The world needs more than the duopoly.

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31

I understand the argument that Jolla needs to prioritize its own hardware in order to survive.

Without a company behind it, Sailfish OS would indeed risk becoming a hobbyist project without clear responsibility or long-term accountability.

At the same time, this situation exposes a structural tension:

• If Jolla focuses only on its own device, growth remains limited.
• If it spreads too thin across community ports, resources become overstretched.
• If hardware vendors fear revenue risks, cooperation stalls.

This is not about blaming Fairphone or defending Jolla.

It is about fragmentation.

Europe currently has:
• Sustainable hardware manufacturers (Fairphone, SHIFT, Volla)
• Independent operating system initiatives (Sailfish, Ubuntu Touch, postmarketOS)
• Users who actively seek alternatives

Yet these forces rarely align strategically.

From a business survival perspective, I understand why Jolla launches its own device.

From a digital sovereignty perspective, I question whether isolated survival is sufficient in the long term.

If every alternative builds its own silo, the ecosystem remains weak.

If alliances form — even loosely structured ones — the narrative changes.

The browser update in 5.1 is good news.

But long-term strength will not come from a single update.
It will come from structural cooperation.

That is the discussion I am trying to open.

32

‘If Jolla only focuses on its own device growth remains limited’. You can’t prove that.
If Sailfish was given free this would not guarantee growth. It still would be used by techsavvy only. E/OS can be flashed on many devices but this did not spread e/OS. What made real impact was the collaboration with Fairphone and the promotion of pre-flashed Murena phones.
About fragmentation: linux is fragmented. The huge number of distros can work to its disadvantage, to its weakness .
PostmarketOS: they still are far from becoming an alternative. Ubuntu Touch: Canonical tried it but halted its project partly because of a lack of money. Are lineageOS and GrapheneOS good candidates? I think not.
Times are different now. Europe acknowledges the need for independency. This is a good time for Jolla to jump in. If Jolla2 gets good reviews this could give Sailfish the boost it deserves.

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33

tl;dr

You raise a good point there actually. I am not aware of any technical reason this couldn’t work.

Guter Punkt. Ich sehe zumindest keinen technischen Grund warum das nicht möglich wäre.

(I don’t trust machine translation with double negatives)

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34

For the browser, piggs port of Angelfish works pretty well, look into that one!

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