How about they just make the laptop available to the other 75% of the world's population?
When they launched three years ago I was super excited and told everyone about them, I really believed in what they were doing. Granted it wasn't available in my country but surely they'd work on that right?
Three years later, not only have they failed to expand their geography meaningfully, but they've been utterly silent on the topic, there's no roadmap or sign of interest from them, and they go as far as to delete posts on their forums about forwarding laptops to unsupported countries.
They just don't care about the rest of the world it seems.
It's hard to not become bitter as the years march on. We will never have Framework where I live, it seems. Guess I'm being petty but I'm slipping into the "fuck this company" camp.
Same for me. I can easily see some Chinese competitor figuring out distribution and simply crushing them if they don't have a global brand, Oppo-style.
Welp, this prompted me to start Googling. Turns out there are at least two other companies out there which are aiming for the same market segment (a repairable, upgradeable laptop that's Linux friendly). They're sell laptops called the StarBook and the PrimeBook Circular. StarLabs will sell me a StarBook in my local currency online today.
The process of saying goodbye to Framework has begun, before they ever even allowed me to say hello...
The funny thing is that virtually all of these small laptop makers I've seen will sell a laptop to someone pretty much anywhere in the world, simply with caveats that you need to make sure you get the right power adapter (not that this is really an issue anymore now that USB C charging exists), you won't have local warranty service etc. Framework is the only one that seems to hate 75% of the human race and actively prevent them from buying its product.
I got curious and searched up your examples. While the StarBook looks like the most compelling alternative to the Framework laptop with coreboot and good repairability they don't seem to feature any modular ports, which is arguably what sells the Framework laptop for some people. Even for me, the thought of being able to swap out a USB-C charge port for a SD card reader is very appealing.
The other one, the PrimeBook Circular, doesn't appear to be on sale anymore? Their website is gone and an empty parking page loads.
When they launched three years ago I was super excited and told everyone about them, I really believed in what they were doing. Granted it wasn't available in my country but surely they'd work on that right?
Three years later, not only have they failed to expand their geography meaningfully, but they've been utterly silent on the topic, there's no roadmap or sign of interest from them, and they go as far as to delete posts on their forums about forwarding laptops to unsupported countries.
They just don't care about the rest of the world it seems.
It's hard to not become bitter as the years march on. We will never have Framework where I live, it seems. Guess I'm being petty but I'm slipping into the "fuck this company" camp.