again, I don't see this happening on MTK based devices.

Current list of Sony "Open Devices" is at https://developer.sonymobile.com/ope...and-resources/ btw

edit: note no Mediatek devices. Qualcomm only.

So one thing I'm confused about (and I'm not that technically minded, so this might be a stupid question).

Are they going to be using libhybris to do this? Seems to me if they've got an agreement with a manufacturer the size of Sony, they might be able to get licenses to develop / use native drivers, which presumably would improve performance and reduce complexity. I can't imagine they'd do that in one step, but it seems like an interesting possibility for the future if all goes well.

I don't know how much work goes into developing drivers, though I'm sure it's a lot. But if people manage to reverse engineer them *without* any of the technical specifications, presumably it isn't out of the question for a collaboration between Sony and Jolla...

SONY doesn't manufacture SOC's so there's nothing there.
Jolla can't develop drivers for something that it does not make also.
RE drivers in commercial products and in mobile bussines is highly unlikely also.
So. libhybris..... because there's no native drivers since non of the SOC manufacturers (Qualcomm, MTK, Samsung, Huawei and now Xiaomi) is going to make one for Sailfish. At least not ATM, we can just hope for brighter future.
Even the non SOC ARM vendors are not exactly known as great for FOSS and linux support.

I realise they don't manufacture many of the components, I was more thinking having the right license arrangements to develop drivers for them - as I understand it, half the battle is having access to the technical specifications, and the right to publish an open driver using that knowledge. They do run AOSP, after all, though with some blobs involved too.

I suppose it isn't an entirely all-or-nothing thing anyway, and Jolla can move drivers over to the native side as and when they can and it helps - I can't imagine the libhybris layer sits between the OS and literally the entire hardware.

I think that it is all or nothing. SONY also gets those android drives for android phones from manufacturers. And since qualcomm and SONY support OSS you get sources for some devices. But also, SONY can be a real pain in the ***. Their long awaited MM update for their Android TVs isn't exactly something that looks like it was in development for more than a year and tested before release. And they use MTK which doesnt help since MTK doesn't exactly follow google APIs.

edit: typos

Someone on TJC wrote the following:

So does someone know if we now have to:

1. buy Sony from anywhere and later flash SailfishOS by our self's
https://developer.sonymobile.com/ope...es/flash-tool/

or

2. Wait until Jolla starts selling Jolla Community - Sony Xperia X with SailfishOS

?

Have same question.
Can we flash later SF on every Xperia X?
All Xperia X are open device or also exist Xperia X with close Bootloader?
So if exist the risk that a buy an Xperia X normal and after than i realize that i cant flash SF on it?

Quite a few devices there actually