Yeah,
nothing B.I.G. on the horizon; business as usual. We'll see what MWC brings!

RE: MWC

"expect to hear some new exciting announcements during the week"

A way for Europeans to officially obtain devices again without hoping on AquaFish passing customs?
A new device?
A new partnership with Nokia or another big name or FairPhone2 official (although I'd expect FP3 to be available by the time this happens, IF it does)?
Dalvik available in store for ported devices?

As far as I'm concerned, any of the above would be good news for Jolla and end users.

I think it is worrying that they keep referring to these emerging markets, whereas "Europe" (and "North America") isn't mentioned anywhere. What exactly has this business strategy given them so far? A failed contract with some South African nobody provider, a failed contract with an Indian webshop, a failed contract for a piece of crap phone with an Indian nobody provider with likely the worst customer service in the galaxy and because of that a whole bunch of angry illiterate and gullible Indians spamming the comments on the Jolla store and spamming TJC. A winning strategy, clearly.

Meanwhile, in the places of the world where people are actually interested in their products, there is nothing. I will be using my Jolla phone for the next ten years unless it breaks down, but what are others supposed to do? Unofficial ports are not exactly an option because your support depends on the porter's personal interests, you don't have Android support, you don't have Exchange support and you don't have access to the Jolla store. After more than three years, the Jolla store is still a complete joke with no way to pay for applications other than indirectly through flattr, with no way to properly filter or to view more than three screenshots, with no quality control whatsoever, with nowhere near the amount of applications available on OpenRepos due to extremely misguided restrictions, with no web interface, to put it short: with nothing to offer. And yet, without this store available, the only way for a port user to install things is by using OpenRepos.

But surely selling Sailfish in China, where even a baby already has five different phones, will solve all problems.

I am as far as one could be from being a business mastermind, and yet Jolla's management is even farther.

I'll take those claims about "further open sourcing" with more grains of salt than there are in the Dead Sea (maybe a good emerging market?). They've been repeated over the past three years, always "coming soon!" or "more info in the next months!", and except from the browser and documents applications years ago, nothing has changed.

I am a bit more optimistic as:
- this is now clear that some community device will be made available (was already hinted at FOSDEM). This was not that clear from last months communication. And it will change the game for those who cannot engage in SFOS as there is no (official) hardware to buy or only quite old and used ones (J1). Of course let's see the details when they arrive.
- this seems to me the first time they engage themselves (officially) to open source most remaining part of the OS.
- a China deal seems reachable now.

For the rest, there are confirmations of what we know:
- SFOS remains dedicated to be independent even if rather dependent on Russian funding (if open sourced, then we can trust them even more)
- a Russian team will deliver some codes back to SFOS core.
- the money is still tight but no dead valley in the short-term
- community remains important to them

Looking forward to MWC

I hope for a new device with not that big dimensions.
My aquafish lies in the drawer since august - I just can't switch to that brick from my lovely small N9.

Wow. Still says they are working on 2nd half tablet refund! Sadly, unless I missed it, I see no plans for North America. Can't a global version be made?

Some functionality came up in the translations, mainly "Sailfish Device Manager" (I thought that would only end up in russian corporate extensions) and VPN related.

Some more or less interesting ones I stumbled upon:

Settings:

• "User can flash device with fastboot flash tool"
• "Encrypt user data" (Accepting this will encrypt all user data stored on the device. This is an irreversible change and you will need to enter a lock code on all future boots in order to access your data.<br><br>If you accept the device will reboot automatically and you will be prompted for your lock code before encrypting your data. This may take as long as an hour and your device will not be usable again until the encryption has completed.)
• "Quick access to Camera" (swipe up in lock screen)
• "The device has been permanently locked"
• "Locked by Sailfish Device Manager"
• Settings -> Networking:
• "Select SIM card used for dialing calls and sending messages. You can also access the setting in Events shortcut panel."
• "Identity"
• "Enabled/Disabled by Sailfish Device Manager"
• "Networks added by Sailfish Device Manager"
• "Managed networks"
• "User networks"

Store:

• "Other Half installation prevented by Sailfish Device Manager"
• "Installing applications disabled by the Sailfish Device Manager."

Most likely I've missed some (and I'm not sure all of them are even new), but it's nice to see some things progressing.

What do you folks think about remote administration if it lands in vanilla SFOS? Useful tool for security in corporate environments or just the first in a row of possibly hard-to-track backdoors? (Feeding the trolls a bit, I know.)

That's quite good, I've wanted such features for quite while

I guess the device encryption won't be in the next update, then, but it's good to know they're working on it.

Well I'm all for a backdoor. If the device management is required by my company it should only affect data affiliated with that. Somewhat like BB does it I hope. Work Environment under Device Manangement and User Environment separate from that. I cannot accept a device management policy on my phone that has remote wipe and whatnot capability that also affects user data. It is unacceptable as a tradeoff to gain corporate interest for SFOS in my opinion.

It all boils down to the implementation.

I used MSExchange on my N9 and Jolla and my company required by policy to be able to remotely wipe my phone because back then it was not 'sandboxed'

Luckily on N9 and Jolla you could fake that capability and still deny the functionality. That is of course against the usage agreement for corporate mail but well... screw the IT that has such measly measures to ensure their data to stay safe.

I would hope on SFOS we get an environment based solution. Maybe some other user than nemo. Separate clipboards etc.

One can dream