Fairphone 3

[Bernhard E. Reiter]

Am Mittwoch 25 September 2019 16:07:36 schrieb Paul Boddie:
> On Wednesday 25. September 2019 15.17.24 Carsten Agger wrote:
> > I send the following question to Fairphone support:
> > "I'm interested in buying a Fairphone 3, but I'm not interested in

Thanks for requesting this,
I think it is helpful if potential customers voice their preferences
for Free Software.

> Certainly, Fairphone are improving on multiple fronts, 

Yes, they do. And they make a real-world usable phone with as much ethics
as they can to stay in a price that people would like to pay for it.

One drawback:
https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032971751-Operating-systems-OS-for-the-Fairphone-3
* "rooting the Fairphone 3 will void the warranty" linking to
https://www.fairphone.com/en/legal/fairphone-3-warranty/#4warrantyexclusions
"4.2 The Fairphone Warranty does not cover damage resulting from:"
" i. The Product has been rooted or unlocked."

so their brief version is wrong, as their warranty does only not cover damage 
from rooting und unlocking, but does not make it void against other damage.
It would probably be illegal to exclude a warranty, see
https://fsfe.org/freesoftware/legal/flashingdevices.en.html
FSFE works with consumer protection agencies to increase their understanding 
of Free Software, which is good in the long term.

> so it isn't quite like the completely narrow focus one tends
> to see in activism (the FSFE included) where you get to uphold
> some of your ethical concerns and compromise on everything else.

FSFE's actions are mid and long term. The main task is to make people
understand Free Software and the relation of software to society and their 
life so they can make better choices. FSFE's doings proof that wide, long 
term vision and actions that are in line with it.

https://fsfe.org/campaigns/pdfreaders/pdfreaders.en.html <- FS PDF readers
https://fsfe.org/campaigns/android/  <- Free Your Android


> A few days ago, I wrote about sustainable phones and mentioned the
> Fairphone 3 because it appeared in a mainstream review:
>
> http://lists.goldelico.com/pipermail/community/2019-September/002034.html

Cool to see a favourable mainstream review
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/18/fairphone-3-review-ethical-phone

"What if you could buy a phone that will last five years, can be easily 
repaired and is made as ethically as possible? That’s the aim of the latest 
Fairphone 3 – and on many counts it succeeds."

> Personally, I feel that if people cooperated more, we wouldn't have to
> compromise on our ethics at all, 

This means convincing more people, for which they first must know the 
arguments and alternatives. This is why promoting open standards is so 
important, because they allow people to judge faster how interoperable
their device/software combination is and it allows smaller vendors
to make better offers.

https://fsfe.org/activities/os/def.en.html

> the German banking sector and restrictive practices
> on hardware that can be used to access banking services:
>
> http://lists.goldelico.com/pipermail/community/2019-September/002035.html
>
> I wonder if there has been any concern expressed in FSFE circles
> about that.

Yes, for example see 
https://lists.fsfe.org/pipermail/fsfe-de/2019-September/010893.html

Note that all banks I know also allow independent devices for a second factor,
so there is no de-facto dependency on a modern "smartphone". The device is
more secure, too.

And it is a European thing with the psd2 requirements, banks are conservative 
and they want to keep their unique position in business life,
so they are only reluctantly implementing improvements and struggle with it: 
https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/zahlungsverkehr-neues-psd2-verfahren-verwirrt-bankkunden.684.de.html?dram:article_id=459340

Overall it is progress and chance for Free Software as more software has to 
get access to the banking data of customers. And standards will emerge over 
time, because of customers demands (from their fintec startups promisses. 
>;))

Regards,
Bernhard

-- 
FSFE -- Founding Member     Support our work for Free Software: 
blogs.fsfe.org/bernhard     https://fsfe.org/donate | contribute
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