[Tinkerphones] Happy New Year - and a better new year

[Paul Boddie]

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