[techrat]

> Why is there no money to be made?

Not enough people care to use cut rate hardware that actually conforms to the 'wholly open' philosophy. Even Stallman couldn't maintain using fully open hardware. He had to switch to a Thinkpad with Coreboot.

People have expectations when using devices as complex as a phone or laptop to where, compared to even a desktop with Linux, having a smartphone that is fully open comes with serious drawbacks.

You could always get a LibrePhone or a Pinephone but you probably won't enjoy the experience.

[streamofdigits]

well, "fully open" is just an ideal. I think I could live with proprietary bits that are not involved in the private data trade.

it doesn't have to be "cut rate". I left the specs/price point open for that reason. But indeed thinking of it as a tool, not as a trend-following gadget with 12 cameras and the screen size of a laptop.

Just interested to see whether this approach is viable.

[techrat]

> Just interested to see whether this approach is viable.

Spoiler alert: It's not. The better SOCs end up becoming more proprietary because it's the companies' own implementations that make them perform better. That leads to proprietary drivers/software.