dear FSFE,
if you really want to encourage the upcycling of Android devices, you need to take responsibility for maintaining a robust, comprehensive archive of all of the software required to do so, for as many phones as possible. with no exceptions, other than "we just can't find the software for it". TWRP et al recoveries, new ROMs, SuperSU or equivalent for rooting... everything. and comprehensive guides.
because as it is, once people step outside the top few phone brands, even trying to get hold of the latest ROM means scrabbling around on forums and websites of questionable provenance, with little or no support - and a fair number of spam sites along the way
so first, fix that. *then*, once you've made it easy, you can preach to us about upcycling phones.
@thamesynne It's difficult - a lot of the unlock mechanisms involve dirty blobs from who knows where, and the other boot images often contain copies of the binaries from the phone.
@penguin42 indeed, it is difficult. prohibitively so, i'd say. but standing on a soapbox and telling people what they should have done two years ago won't make it any easier :-/
given that FSFE is supported by the German government and EU; there's likely to be a hard limit to how much they can push boundaries without causing an actual diplomatic incident....
@vfrmedia @penguin42 @thamesynne ever tried to get a official Samsung firmware? There is a whole fucking page that has them all and wants you to pay for it. Why is Samsung not hosting them?!
@thamesynne Yes, but there's difficult and difficult to do legally; FSFe cares about the latter.