I've got a Jolla phone running Sailfish, which is reasonably open. I'm happy with it because as an advanced user I can enable developer mode and modify or fix things. It's a stable and usable system. But Jolla doesn't seem to be doing so well right now. Before that I had a Nokia N9, the only Maemo phone, precurser to Sailfish. Another capable although minimal system. That didn't go anywhere either, because Nokia sold out to Microsoft – who by the way don't seem to be doing so well either in the mobile space.
Also Firefox seems to have thrown the towel in the ring already.
I'm waiting to see what Ubuntu comes up with in the phone/tablet space. It's certainly taking a long time.
I don't understand that with all the people concerned about rights and privacy, and all the open-source affectionados, there just doesn't seem to be that much of a market for alternatives to the big two of Android and Apple iOS.
Is it because of locked-down hardware? Or that Linux on desktop and mobile is not a (funding) priority? Or are people that addicted to downloading low-quality apps (i.e. the "eco-system")? Or is there simply not enough demand?
Jolla/Sailfish had (and quite frankly, continues to have) many problems, making it unsuitable as a phone, or for mobile development.
* Jolla has always used (and continues to use) outdated hardware, Ubuntu Phone OS shipped with or ran on reasonably performant hardware. Only after several years is Jolla now discussing the possibility of porting the OS to a somewhat modern device (Sony Xperia)
* The Sailfish SDK relies on VirtualBox for the emulator and for native compilation, a drain on resources and memory, and an indication that the development team was not well versed in creating cross compilation ecosystems or tools. Ubuntu Phone SDK was limited to Ubuntu Linux, but ran natively (Sailfish SDK required VirtualBox even on Linux)
* For years, Jolla withheld from or misled the public on the state of internal affairs (Canceled tablet, no refunds for crowdfunders, CEO and key employees quitting, lack of funding, relying on volunteers for key areas of development)
* Sailfish OS has always lacked basic security features for applications (QT Quick embedded in plain text) or for the phone itself (encryption, permissions). Sailfish's security problems may be just as problematic as Tizen's
* Sailfish OS was never true open source, even less so than Android, although it has always been advertised as such.
* Very poor/non-existent developer relations - A few developers attempted to make games for Jolla, but encountered serious problems that the developers weren't interested in fixing (i.e. SDL2 on Jolla not supporting landscape mode, preventing games from being submitted), even worse, the developer for the SDL2 Wayland port flat-out refused to fix the problem or provide the source code for other people to fix the issue. Such problems or resistance from the developers were never encountered on Ubuntu Phone OS.
It'd be lovely if all these efforts crystallized into a truly open Linux-based mobile platform available to the masses, even as a niche thing.
Sailfish is far from open yet, but it's a very good OS.
Nokia produced incredibly good hardware, with the added benefit of a physical keyboard in case of the N900. This is a must. They seem to be getting back to business. It'd make a lot of sense for them to buy Jolla and rebuild Maemo, which should have never been discontinued!
Sailfish could have been great, but Jolla apparently tried to overextend themselves making hardware and software for their products and almost died trying. It's a shame because the Jolla phone had a swappable back part and could have things like a slideout keyboard that looked really sweet. Now they're on the enterprise and government contracting grind and market their OS on their site with all the bs enterprisey jargon, with Sailfish as a community/open-source driven project being mostly an afterthought. They also have a very limited number of devices that can run android compatibility, and you need to pay for a license.
It's a shame because their UI is the only decent thing in the world of Linux phones that isn't an utter travesty that just tries to bend the Linux desktop into being a "mobile OS" that runs like absolute shit and feels really awkward to use. But the UI on Sailfish is of course the proprietary parts aside from the android emulation.
I'm really crossing my fingers for Jolla in particular, and Sailfish/Mer in general, to succeed. It's becoming clear that Android's currently debatable status as free software is heading decidedly in the non-free direction.
Sailfish/Mer's Android compatibility also makes it sounds at least somewhat realistic that there's room for it in the market.
Moreover, what I've heard about it is that it's aiming to be much more of an "ordinary GNU/Linux system with a radio and a slick touch screen interface" than Android has ever been. Does anybody have any hard information on this? It would be so delicious to have a platform that's more like an ordinary computer than what's offered in the mobile space today.
And yet I am using a Linux Phone since 2014 as a daily driver :) And no, it is not for everyone, just like the Linux desktop. It would need a company like Nokia to put its weight behind it to bring it that far.
But if a smaller company like Jolla can do it, it can be sustainable. If there are users and enough money coming in, all it needs to do is exist. And maybe some day there will be a company like Nokia putting its weight behind it and it can gain marketshare in big numbers. But even without it, it is a viable platform, just with some drawbacks.
So yes, for the near future I keep on using my Sony Xperia with Sailfish OS. I also keep an eye on the Pinephone and Librem 5, but today they are not ready to be a daily driver for me.
The openness of Jolla is an illusion. Sailfish OS is barely open source: sure the core components are but when we move to the UI, you can hardly find any open code there.
Even though Sailfish OS is quite nice and Linuxy, the original Jolla phone was published on 2013 and even then its hardware wasn't that good (especially the display), so until there's some modern hardware actually running Sailfish and the price is ~400 €, there's no point of talking about any Jolla/Sailfish phones :(
You seem to be talking from a position of ignorance at least when it comes to Jolla and Sailfish OS. The former is probably the best non-mainstream mobile OS that can be used today.
If Jolla open sourced their UI technology, what would happen to the company and investors? And would Sailfish OS then be fated to suffer endless fragmentation, like Android?
There's nothing terribly wrong with the closed parts of this system. Much of the phone is readily accessible to developers, and Jolla provides a lot of support. It's far more open than Android or iOS.
I agree with the grandparent. This matters more to Jolla; it's literally their company. If Sailfish doesn't catch on they will go out of business. I'd feel better if I knew in advance that everything they are working on is open source.
While Ubuntu has experience bundle's open source software and to a smaller extent creating their own, they don't have any experience in mobile, which is a different ball game entirely. Early progress is impressive though, I will agree.
This is true, and I hope SailfishOS will one day be completely FOSS, but please have a look at the bigger picture.
Here's a comment I wrote about the situation on reddit:
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Yes, I'd prefer SailfishOS to be 100% FOSS, but Jolla is helping GNU/Linux establish its roots on the mobile.
How is it doing this?
* libhybris has opened up a whole new world for GNU/Linux, by allowing programs developed against glibc (i.e. GNU/Linux) to run on top of proprietary Android drivers (i.e. phones).
* Jolla puts a lot of development into lipstick, which makes it easier to develop UXs for phones/tablets/other form factors [This involved developing Wayland support]
* Jolla have opensourced their browser (Qt5 + Gecko engine) and their office suite (Nokia's Calligra Office work, with a QML interface)
* Jolla develops a sychronisation framework (buteo-sync) that can be used for syncing emails, Twitter, CalDav/CardDav, etc (I think Ubuntu Touch might adopt it in the future)
I have Jolla phone and I have mixed feelings about it. Sailfish OS is interesting - learning how to use it has steep learning curve (but once you get used to it, it's perhaps faster to do something with it than on any other phone). It is sometimes unreliable (my Jolla randomly shuts down, sometimes several times in a row, see https://together.jolla.com/question/7144/jolla-randomly-shut...). There are other quirks here and there, guys from Jolla are fixing them one after another, but I would say that Sailfish OS is still in beta state.
It is really developer friendly device. It has awesome SDK and it isn't trying to restrict you by any means. But even that, there are not really that many applications for Sailfish OS and only few of them are good. And there is literally no official client for anything and that brings problems - for example, several people were banned from WhatsApp for using Mitakuuluu (WhatsApp client for Sailfish OS). There isn't full-featured Facebook client, there isn't client for my bank account or for my operator. App for public transport for your country? Nope, it isn't there. Sure, you can use Android apps (not from Google Play though, you have to use Yandex store or Amazon store), but: 1) There are no Google Play Services - that means no integration with Google Account, no maps, no that pretty cool Google Inbox app, Google is moving a lot of things into Google Play Services, 2) there will be problems with any non-trivial app. Games are OK, but GPS tracking? Didn't work when app wasn't active (so you have to have screen on). Wanted to try Pressy? Doesn't work, it wants to access your Google account. Besides, if you are buying this device convicted that you will use Android apps on it, why not buy Android phone?
To end this comment with something positive, I could say that this is "OK" device. It is impressive that they are able to build this device with that small team. They are listening to community, they are updating their OS frequently. Besides some quirks, Sailfish OS is as good as any other mobile phone OS. It runs fast and it is based on Linux, Qt5 and even Wayland compositor. You can be more confident that you are not being watched (at least they say). Your inner geek will be pleased. But at the end of the day, you will look at other people phones, they are playing that new cool game, using that new cool app you always wanted to try, trying that new HN or Reddit client, using Google Inbox, using Instagram Hyperlapse, using their expensive gadgets, fitness trackers, using their phones to find how will they get home and your phone has just suddenly rebooted again.
Three days ago, a Jolla C replaced an iPhone 5S as my main phone. To be fair, me using iOS was just a kind of an experiment. Before that, I was using a CM build without Google Apps using FDroid as unique app repository.
I must say that, while still needs some polishing, Sailfish OS (which is not 100% free, but is quite there, and provides a complete Linux experience), does the job. My Pebble works, my BT car kit works, and I have all apps I need. In fact, my biggest complain is about the hardware, being underpowered and with an atrocious camera. An official port from Jolla to some mid level device would make me _very_ happy.
In some countries, like mine, the FOSS mobile OS killer has a name: WhatsApp. Without official support for FFOS or Ubuntu Touch, and being very aggressive against third party apps (banning their users), most people can't even think of them as an option for daily usage.
Jolla goes around this bundling a commercial Android Dalvik emulator. Not the best solution, but one quite pragmatic.
Sailfish OS is a decent alternative - has been ported to several different phones, uses a modern software stack (Qt/C++/Python 3/Wayland) and is decently popular in some regions (the Jolla phone outsold the iPhone 5c when both were released around the same time). Unfortunately, Jolla's future is looking rather uncertain now.
I have never really liked any of the major players. I used to run WebOS on a Pre3 for a long time. Now I have a Jolla C, but it isn't my main phone because of its poor battery life, so I also use an Android phone.
The saddest thing here is those alternative OSs innovate a lot. WebOS in particular was years ahead of both iOS and Android in terms of UX (after all they had Matías Duarte on board... [1]). Sailfish is more interesting technically, in that it was probably the fastest OS to do "zero to non-trivial native mobile app" on thanks to its development tools (the Qt environment, with QML, a standard build VM...).
I backed the tablet as well, but I don't hold a grudge. What they are trying to do is incredibly hard, failures have to be expected.
If you want to meet the developers from Jolla, I think they have a BoF room at FOSDEM every year. I sat in to listen for a while in 2017, it was pretty interesting.
I am using Sailfish OS on a Sony Xperia XA2. I am using it now for about 1 year. Before that I used Sailfish OS on the original Jolla 1 for 5 years. I have also used a Nokia N9 with Meego Linux, which can be considered a forerunner of Jolla/Sailfish.
It uses Qt, Wayland, Systemd. The original Jolla 1 even used Btrfs, which was deemed a mistake. Sailfish OS is available on more devices, like the Pinephone, Fxtec, Cosmo Communicator and others. If you have the official version for Sony Xperia, you get Alien Dalvik, with which you can run Android apps. I am using Whatsapp and Firefox as Android apps this way. I am still hoping that Signal takes off for mesaging, a native app like Whisperfish is something I would really enjoy. With Whatsapp a native app is not possible, there have been threats for lawsuits.
I am very happy with Sailfish, and have been for 6 years. I enjoy having plain linux on my phone, being able to use ssh as root and having a device that I trust. There are some 'costs' involved, like having less shiny bling and less apps available. Companies like Apple and Google can spend billions on their phone platform. Jolla only has about 100 employees in total. You do have to adjust your expectations somewhat.
Jolla have received criticism about not having open sourced all their software. I do understand that criticism, but that argument doesn't make Apple or Google look any better :) I am curious about where linux phones will go in the next years, but currently Sailfish is good for me.
I've had a Jolla phone for most of 2014 and I can say I'm not happy with it.
What drew me to it was the open source OS but it's very immature and needs a lot of work. It also needs a lot of new adopters to improve its ecosystem of apps.
The android compatibility is shaky at best and ruins the entire user interface experience of the sailfish OS.
The whole phone does not feel robust, not at all like the OnePlus for example which is my currently active phone, or the iPhone 4 that I previously used.
All this makes me very reluctant to purchase a Jolla tablet.
Also Firefox seems to have thrown the towel in the ring already.
I'm waiting to see what Ubuntu comes up with in the phone/tablet space. It's certainly taking a long time.
I don't understand that with all the people concerned about rights and privacy, and all the open-source affectionados, there just doesn't seem to be that much of a market for alternatives to the big two of Android and Apple iOS.
Is it because of locked-down hardware? Or that Linux on desktop and mobile is not a (funding) priority? Or are people that addicted to downloading low-quality apps (i.e. the "eco-system")? Or is there simply not enough demand?
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