the reply looked boring, no specific sum given as answer, tl;dr
Both Jolla and SFOS have always got their revenue from more than just selling licenses to end users. It’s all there on jolla.com and sailfishos.org/cases, please take a look. Yes, without Russia it looks a bit thin atm, but I believe it’s a growing market - esp. since the EU is starting to put into practice decisions about using & supporting native FOSS more.
I truly wish Jolla oy the best. Perhaps these uncertain times and the anomalous geopolitical scenario are also making the situation worse.
From the outside - because J-D is external and independent mini shop - I believe that the main medium term problem was the Russian ownership, and it seems to have been overcome with the re-organisation.
Another aspect to understand well (I haven’t found any news on this topic) is IF Jolla’s recent pivot in the automotive field is going well, or if that’s draining all the costs.
On the license topic, over the years I have noticed that by proposing a license for Sailfish OS and that’s it (with the Predictive text engine only) separate from Android Support… you could sell many more licenses, as many users DO NOT want Android apps in their Sailfish phones.
Jolla will have to define the 2 prices carefully but it’s a way to rise the numbers…
It can be a nice idea. However, imagine that the predictive text will cost €10 and the full license €50, then many people will buy the €10 instead of €50. On the other side, if the price policy would be €40 and €50, it will be a small change and probably many will still buy the full license just in case one day they might need an Android app. The license price is tailored for companies more than end-users which are an insignificant profit source, IMHO. I wrote many times, that we are just beta-testers, here.
Im surprised you are surprised; you didnt know?
Back in Narikkatori, the sfos logo got a “beta” slapped on it. I dont mind personally; if you mind (as seems to be the case) theres always less beta options around, like android or ios
I don’t know how old are you, but I have heard this song from EU around 2005, when they wanted to replace Microsoft Office with OpenOffice … it is 18y - nothing happened. EU is incompetent. I wouldn’t relay on them.
If you have any sources to back your proposition, please share.
Watching the market closely, Qt itself is very active there. It is high competition. It could be however that there is demand and Jolla surely can fit.
In my opinion / analyses this is act of desperation because when you are specialized in telecommunication, you do not switch the field completely and write software for automotive.
It could be they are working on Navigation or Entertainment system … but it is not the field Jolla has background … hence … I stand with the hypothesis of desperation. Added to this the fact or rumors that capacity is cooling, Hence the conclusion “Go woke, go broke”.
In fact I do not care, if someone is woke, but it is bad if Jolla goes broke.
And take this with humor, don’t flag, please
BR
Agree. The EU is not helping, unless there is some Euro-planning call that everyone missed.
A Euro-planning call for an alternative GDPR / privacy ready mobile operating system…
The plan is “All sold out” (of course to the US).
I can tell stories, how funding was cut, how competition was destroyed, how science was drained.
It is so pathetic that meanwhile I am ashamed for Brussels! We are heading definitely south.
This is why I am so concerned about Jolla. It is one of the things that are still left over from the world that was half a way normal.
Actually SFOS would be a must for EU seen the GDPR and the fact that we don’t know how much information Google in the US is getting from european devices, and if this data is declared and handled under GDPR. It is a big question mark. But if you followed the law suit of this young austrian law student against Meta, probably EU parlament and also juridiction is influenced by corporations. Probably Google is buying its “monopoly” by paying the right persons. What are thousands or millions if you can make billions…
Yeah guys, paying for a license to access SFOS on every device (be it SFOS X or ported) sounds like a great idea! I am sure that locking developers out from accessing the OS source code either at all or with a paywall would be a successful strategy!1!!
/s
I think a subscription model is a reasonable proposition. Somehow a proper business model is necessary in order to survive. We are facing one of the disadvantages of ‘free’ internet. I guess most of us dislike the surveillance capitalism that is behind so many digital services. But developers need a living too, so from a workers point of view payment is fair. Besides, payment can be an incentive to improve the quality of the product. It works both ways: consumers pay and can expect something in return: e.g. a plan, updates, maintenance of the app store.
Angel capital for a start can be nice, funding by the EU too, but being dependent on a national government is problematic.
Multiple posts in this thread received off-topic flags and the discussion seemed to be veering away from the original topic. I’ve therefore split off those posts into their own thread in the hope that the conversation here can remain on track.
If anyone (especially the Original Poster) is unhappy with this or feels I’ve broken the thread of conversation please let me now privately.
I was meaning the creation of an intermediate “Predictive only+Jolla Support” license, to be priced around the 60% following of the License with Android Support, following the typical pricing strategies.
A free version is helpful for the newcomers.
For Android Support
based on Alien Dalvik
there is no future unless Alien Dalvik
turns completely open-source. The company who developped and support Alien Dalvik
is Swiss but French controlled and France is betting on /e/OS
and Murena 2
smartphone. Therefore, there is no way that solution will be further implement and updated unless it turns completely open-source. RIP.
To my understanding the original developer of Alien Dalvik, Myriad Group, has sold the rights to Jolla, and Jolla now continues the development.
They cannot afford to develop even their own system and the “energy from community” approach which at the moment is focused only on applications do not seem being able to fulfill this lack. Hence, it is quite improbabile that they can develop Alien Dalvik
further.
Moreover, unfortunately, the rights of distribution and develop under a NDA
do not let us to hope that those rights will help us to free the Alien Dalvik
source code in a bankrupt procedure. However, there are other solutions (e.g. WayDroid
) to go for supporting Android
app running on a Linux system.
This puts us in the position that we are not in a desperate need for anything but relaxing and waiting or even better works for something else which will be useful in the near future.
Actually the Android App Support (as it is called nowadays) was the most active field of development in the recent years, with frequent version bumps. With respect to the focus on automotive this also makes sense, since that is based on the same framework. I expect that the development of Android App support will continue in the future, IF Jolla can sort out their financial problems.
I really hope that Jolla can find a good solution to be able to stay afloat and continue to develop the fantastic Sailfish OS (my favorite and the only os I want to run on my phone). Hopefully we get to see SFOS evolve for more years to come.