> just like 10 yr old laptops can run Linux and still be secure so will Fairphone
This simply isn't true and isn't how things actually work. On a 10 year old laptop, where exactly are you getting updates for the firmware, and who is maintaining the driver code, etc. properly?
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So you say that Linux kernel doesn't support "driver code" properly?
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Linux kernel driver code mostly isn't tested or directly maintained. There are frequent API changes resulting in the driver code needing to be updated to continue building/running. It's one of the things that leads to the driver code rotting away without direct maintenance.
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Not clear what you mean or who you think writes / maintains most of the drivers.
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I'm not following what you're trying to insinuate. The kernels for Android devices are generally based on the Android common kernel kept in sync with the upstream LTS releases. The upstream kernels take years to get poorly maintained, half working drivers for the components.
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Those are never well tested or maintained. They're rarely the subject of security research or hardening. Most of the work on them is done by the hardware vendors, but it's not what they use in practice and it's not a focus for them. They don't promptly upstream security fixes.
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You seem to be misunderstanding how Linux kernel driver development/maintenance tends to work and also how things work with platforms like Snapdragon. Upstream support for the hardware starts slowly coming together after launch and never reaches the point that a serious option.
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If you think upstream drivers for other platforms in the Linux kernel are well maintained, secure, or heavily reviewed you couldn't be more wrong. You've got a completely wrong impression of how it works. A driver being upstream just means it gets blindly ported to new APIs.
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Theoretically easier to use as a starting point to make a stable driver for a recent kernel because the people making the API changes kept it building, although often not actually working. Those drivers are often incomplete/broken in the first place. Not a marker of quality.