From hns at goldelico.com Fri Jan 1 10:40:53 2021 From: hns at goldelico.com (H. Nikolaus Schaller) Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2021 10:40:53 +0100 Subject: [Tinkerphones] Happy New Year - and a better new year Message-ID: Dear all, I wish you a happy and better new year. We have got some funding by a generous community member in December so that technical operation of the community resources is secured for a while. So please make use of these lists if you think they are still valuable. And please share your ideas and wishes and expectations. Best wishes and stay safe, Nikolaus Schaller From david at boddie.org.uk Fri Jan 1 16:44:27 2021 From: david at boddie.org.uk (David Boddie) Date: Fri, 01 Jan 2021 16:44:27 +0100 Subject: [Tinkerphones] Happy New Year - and a better new year In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <13530440.FObihRiBA0@aurora> On Fri, 1 Jan 2021 10:40:53 +0100, H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: > > Dear all, > I wish you a happy and better new year. Happy New Year! > We have got some funding by a generous community member in December so > that technical operation of the community resources is secured for > a while. Thanks to those responsible for helping to keep these resources available. There are so many old sites that have disappeared over the years. > So please make use of these lists if you think they are still valuable. > And please share your ideas and wishes and expectations. I changed direction at the end of 2020 and hope to be able to spend more time looking at community-run projects, though this depends on what kind of work I end up doing in 2021. I'm hoping to look at getting some old hardware (Minibook, Nanonote) up and running again, and maybe also setting up new hardware as it arrives (EOMA68). Unfortunately, the Smartbook I was experimenting with no longer boots past the initial bootloader, so there will be no more progress until I find a debug board for it. I'm sure I will also spend a small amount of effort playing with Android, especially since my phone is now several generations old. David From paul at boddie.org.uk Fri Jan 1 18:37:32 2021 From: paul at boddie.org.uk (Paul Boddie) Date: Fri, 01 Jan 2021 18:37:32 +0100 Subject: [Tinkerphones] Happy New Year - and a better new year In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <12775550.AojAFH7mgD@jason> On Friday, 1 January 2021 10:40:53 CET H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: > Dear all, > I wish you a happy and better new year. I wish everyone a Happy New Year, too! > We have got some funding by a generous community member in December so > that technical operation of the community resources is secured for > a while. Thanks to that person for their generosity and to you, Nikolaus, for keeping this effort going! > So please make use of these lists if you think they are still valuable. > And please share your ideas and wishes and expectations. I see that the last time that there was a summary of goals and expectations on this list may have been exactly two years ago: https://lists.goldelico.com/pipermail/community/2019-January/001935.html It seems that some things have moved on whilst other things remain the same. Various initiatives continue with some producing more obvious outputs than others. Here is a list of some of them: https://lists.goldelico.com/pipermail/community/2019-February/001964.html Later, the F(x)tec Pro1 was mentioned (https://www.fxtec.com/), and although this has apparently shipped, it appears that delivery times are rather long. Meanwhile, in its Christmas gift guide, the FSF has gone from recommending an old Samsung phone to recommending one that has a long waiting list and doesn't seem to be shipping in significant quantities. I suppose the gift guide could almost work as an advocacy exercise for consumer restraint and for people to reflect on the impact of consumer culture on our societies and our planet. (Personally, I just see this as another reminder that any activity directed towards furthering our goals must be sustainable, and that picking apparent winners - a consumerist approach that one might regard as uncharacteristic for an organisation like the FSF - typically fails to deliver meaningful and lasting change.) Returning to more positive thoughts and actions, some progress has been made in related areas. There are ongoing efforts to improve support for various Ingenic-based boards, which might not be central to any phone effort, but I guess that the work with the MIPS Creator CI20 helps Nikolaus's other efforts to support PowerVR-based SoCs, one being used in the GTA-04, I believe. We have also made some progress with the Ingenic-based Letux 400/Mipsbook/ Minibook recently. Again, this is rather on the edges of relevance to phone development, but it does demonstrate that hardware need not become obsolete by losing software support, even though the Minibook is hardly going to run "modern" desktop software. Anyway, I hope that the coming year proves to be better and kinder to everyone, that you are all able to pursue your goals, resume any efforts that may have needed to wait until better times, and to find happiness and fulfilment in the things you ultimately choose to prioritise! Paul