I actually somewhat agree with the sentiment of what Pichlo said, just thought it could have escalated in a non helpful way very easily. There's a real disagreement to be had, but it isn't over that particular phrase, which was misquoted.

From what I've read so far in four years, the arrogance/humility problem is in no way exclusive to the project leaders, and I think it comes from the overall agressive tone that has been common here, particularly in this thread.

I'm not going to try understanding which one of the egg or the hen came first, but I do understand that people from both sides end up irritated - after all they all sunk either lots of money and hopes, or lots of sweat and time - and ultimately feel obliged to answer like they have rabies. With all due respect Pichlo, while I usually appreciate your concise and well written messages, your post here shows exactly what it is complaining about.

This kind of conversations and oppositions between backers and project leaders is very likely to just be noxious over the longer term. I myself would not stand such critics (including personal critics, not just comments on the project itself) for a long time while dedicating much of my time in a project for backers without any guarantee that it will even work. I think our impatience kind of makes us forget how much the projects leaders are investing in the Neo900 compared to our pledges, even though our pledges should not be ignored either.

Maybe the project leaders need to consider apologizing for the lack of communication (even though we know they have no manpower for that, they also know the lack of news has always been seen as a huge problem in the Neo900 project and they could maybe just dedicate half a day every month to share updates in a news, even if the news is about lack of progress due to any issue), maybe. But maybe we should also consider being more respectful and not behave like these angry clients in a bar that know no better way than yelling or humiliating the bartender if they did not want ice cubes in their drink.

A community project is going nowhere if the community and the project leaders look at each others with hostility as if they are in trenches expecting the next assault. Let's kiss and dance the dance of joy.

Again, 3rd rate psychology with the express wish to explain, pardon or dismiss away another's behavior in a situation by attempting to tell other people what they are thinking or how they are feeling is not a help of any kind.
It accomplishes the opposite.
it wrongly validates everyone's feelings and behavior.

Yes .. it was stated a long time ago that though there is a lack of manpower to post official updates ..there was a lot of movement project-wise on IRC.

The difficulty the consumer has with that is:

A- technical talk on a project in arena such as Internet Relay Chat ...is just that ...chat.
IT IS NOT AN OFFICIAL NOTIFICATION OF ANY KIND.

B- Technical discussion of such specific depth is beyond all but those who are specifically intimate with it. Which leaves an easy 90% out of the loop.

C- Even on IRC the team were busy working ( it very obviously appears) on problem solving. Interrupting them to ask mundane and simple questions compared to their immediate concerned tasks seems not only just that...interrupting ...but also detracting and distracting them from their work.
All of which make issues.

D- By keeping updates and "Q" and "A" in a specific area ...and out of the work space of the IRC channel ..it keeps distracting chatter down that can pull away from their work.


The point of official updates in any context of a relationship is that it is "official" .
It allays concern, bolsters faith, and helps in 2 way communication.

An official update doesn't have to be pure technical answers given, or "we are done "this" , now it is time for "that" statements...
EVEN if the update is something as non-tech and vague seeming as .."Hey everybody we still have a pulse..we are working hard..everything is going great, or we are struggling , or it's a mixed bag "...
whatever..
ALL of those kinds of simple 2 min. responses put a human face to the update statement ....and to the team..which can be empathized and commiserated with at SOME level...
And then I have a leg to stand on..
I can be supportive..
I can defend the project and team..

a couple of minutes ...literally...once every two weeks or once a month...
it doesn't have to be an in depth White House 10 hour "Q" and "A".
No questions need answering ...
Just throw us a freakin' bone now and then..
Give the rest of us something to work with to validate and justify any continued interest at all.

Yes ..bad enough investors/ donate-ers (no bloody word for that) / preorder-ers are upset with 4 years + waiting.
Worse is zero official updates on the official site ...for a very long time.
That troubles...

Lets just separate the direct emotion in the issue and look at it in a pragmatic realistic business light..

If I as a consumer walk into a tailor's store ...who is said to make the finest tuxedos ...and says ..."money up front please.."..
then tells me at the desk .. to ..." wait right here, your suit should be done shortly, not sure exactly how long it will take but it shouldn't be long..."
and I end up waiting not all day there ...nor the next...
but wait 4 years...
patiently.
during the first 3 years of waiting in the store for my suit ..
the tailor comes back and informs me of progress ..
but then follows a whole year without any official word whatsoever on the state of the tuxedo I paid into 4 years ago...

How long would the consumer patiently wait before becoming upset?
How long would the tailor stay in business if this is the standard daily business practice?

Those who do it ...STOP JUSTIFYING and VALIDATING behavior ...which in any other business construct...Is not acceptable .

This isn't about "everyone should understand what they got themselves into when investing in a project ..."

call it a "donor / artist " relationship ...
call it whatever you please ...
But in the end ...the blunt is ...
this is a customer / business relationship ...
And the standard rules of "business 101 engagement" ... apply.

The customer does have a valid reason to be concerned and to voice that concern...
if communication with the business breaks down.

You might be right, and if so I'm sorry. I just don't really see the point in fighting when everyone here just hopes the same thing: successful completion of the project. Yet I understand the frustration, I have my share myself, as I don't even remember how much I pledged already because it was long ago. And I still want my Neo900.

About posting news, I agree that IRC should not be the only channel (but it is definitely a very useful one), that's what I meant when I said that maybe a news a month wouldn't be bad in terms of lost time vs backers' satisfaction ratio.

It's funny that the news mentioned the sunk cost fallacy. This is exactly what I have been thinking about since late 2016 when thinking about my own Neo900 unit. I know that even if the Neo900 is finally completed one day, I still haven't paid the full price, and who knows how much I would need to add. So, considering that the hardware will already be kind of old and considering that we don't exactly know if a full-featured OS with phone capability will be realistic, do I still want my device because I already pledged a fair amount and don't want to lose that money even if it means sinking more, or is it because I still truly want a Neo900?

All the work achieved by the team to provide better security is a nice addition (and surely an amazing work that had to be done in the mobile phone market), but what hooked me at the beginning was mostly the updated hardware for a N900. I'm not usually driven by the hardware arms race, but the N900 was one of these phones being really limited by hardware and the user could feel it with the freezes or crashes when the ram was full. This should be better with the Neo900, but will it be enough by today tomorrow's standard of smoothness and responsiveness? Maybe. I hope so.

At this point I still want my Neo900 and will still pay more, and I think it's a combination of sunk cost fallacy and some remnants of my real wish to use a Neo900. Of course there will be a limit to how much I can invest, but we'll see when they have elements to figure out the final price themselves, probably after the next campaign.

In the meantime, I'll probably be very happy to get one of Chen's devices (a bit concerned about the OS though). It won't be as secure as the Neo900, but again that's not what sold the Neo900 to me. It won't have stylus or be compact either; well, that is sad. Funny to think that I will only get my Neo900 at a much later point (if ever) although my N900 was still not totally outdated yet when I got involved, but the fact that I still want mine convices me that the Neo900 is still a timely project that will keep hyping me in the months or years to come.

The current number of Neo900-complete preorders is covered by secured N900. Further N900 are still available, though not easily and of course only with the needed funds that need to come from preorders, the latter being an unfortunate vicious circle. There's an option to have the mechanical parts produced to order if we can't find them as complete N900. This applies particularly to the slider mechanism and the digitizer, plastic cases should still be available in abundance though need careful evaluation of their production quality.
I repeat the kickstarter IS NOT:targeted at customers who already preordered, it's meant to find NEW customers to reach the minimum order count needed.

I appologize for any ambiguity or delay in answering any of those questions, and answering them in the way I did wasn't meant to sound arrogant or anything, It shows why I rather should stay silent since I'm obviously not capable to post anything in a way that doesn't cause irritations. I will make sure we will review further newsposts like that of sn0wmonster even more thoroughly than we already did, to avoid any such ambiguities and missing answers to unposed questions. Alas this will cause further workload from, and delay in the publishing of any newspost. Please also bear with sn0wmonster who came to the project late and had to collect all the info bits prior to his first newspost. I want to explicitly thank him for his awesome help and dedication he voluntarily brings to the project.

best regards
jOERG

Hi Kabouik!

Thanks for the very nice post!

I'm very sorry and feel bad about not being able to find the help I obvioulsy need for the communications, though I have high hopes in our new volunteer sn0wmonster.
Just for a reference the current newspost wouldn't have been possible with just half a day assigned to that task, it's amazing how much work is going to prepare a newspost that nobody has a chance to see from reading it when it finally gets publsihed. And yet obviously we did perform sub-par as you can tell from the replies in here.
Half a day is about the amount of work invested by me into spoiling this recent discussion by terse answers that I had not thoroughly thought about each single word in them and thus obviously were percieved as hostile or arrogant although I don't at all feel that way about it and thus the answers were not meant to sound like this.
I can assure everybody I'm at least as frustrated as any of you about the delays. I again want to appologize for the long silence from my side caused by personal health issues I tend to ignore though I shouldn't.

[edit] That's not decided yet but I don't see how we could change the price drastically for the kickstarter. IF we do (to the lower side obviously) then all preorder customers will of course benefit as well from that. I wouldn't fell anything else was fair.
Best regards
jOERG

Thanks for the update. I stand corrected.

I want this project to work and have back it like many here. But with anything there's always a chance of fail, delays, project creep and other things like lost of money invested.

But for me, I feel like another possible way to look at this is to show others that this type of device is not only possible, but has some potential market place. While maybe not huge, it could be enough to fund or kicker start the next future device with more modern components.

My dream is to have a modern piece of hardware that I can load many OS on that has privacy minded features, pen (like the s-pen/apple pencil .. but small of course). Image if hardware like the note ran what ever OS you wanted and had a keyboard .

Anyway I understand that life can get in the way of your best intensions, I mean I was hoping and still do to contribute time to the project. But have been dealing will my own life stuff.

So I appreciate The Neo900 folks for trying, I appreciate the backers for sticking around, I appreciate the critics for keeping an eye on the target. But I would just say let not get so worked up that we forget projects success and fail a lot of time because of one person ... so we need to challenge, but support these project leads.

Looking forward to the day my fav phone is a little faster and can link up to new bluetooth devices and the many other new features.

X

Oops, how embarrassing. This poster was blind and made a complete fool of himself. My deepest apologies.

Just my 5 cents.

The only thing that I want from the Neo900 team is to actually finish this project. The time it takes is irrelevant, because my requirements to the smartphone hardware are non-existent. I'm still content with my 10-years-old N95, and in some ways it is still a superior experience compared to modern iPhoid smartphones.

The only thing that will really make me mad would be if the project just fails with no outcome whatsoever. I was observing the development of GTA04A5 by Nikolaus Schaller, and was horribly depressed when it failed because of the soldering problem, despite not being financially involved. Making hardware is much more difficult - and important - than making software. You don't publish patches to your hardware, or "clone" someone's hardware repository onto your table, or check if a fix worked by simple recompilation.

Also, I (unlike a lot of other people here) am interested in Neo900 project for its security first and foremost. There simply is no such thing as "paranoia" when it comes to the safety of personal data. Every byte of closed-source executable code is a breeding ground for backdoors and spyware.

So, I am ready to wait as long as necessary. The only thing I ask is to please not give up. Two failed open hardware projects in a row will be too much.