Patreon is one of the methods to donate that is given on the ubports.com donation page. According to Patreon, 158 patrons are giving $US 1,148 per month to the UBPorts Foundation. Sure, that's not going to pay a salary, but, to me, it is a significant amount of money toward running servers and infrastructure. However, I don't know if that's true, because I don't know what the operating costs are. I am blindly donating because I want to be supportive, not because I am trying to pay an amount that I think the software is worth to me. What are the operating costs? If that was clear, maybe more people would be likely to donate. A graphic popped into my head: a thermometer where the level in red is the annual cost, and the red turns green from the bottom up as donations come in.

The question of charging a fee for FOSS is an old one. It cannot be easily answered. There's a lot of philosophical debate about it in the history of FOSS. To me, FOSS is one of the greatest accomplishments of humanity. A shining knight standing to face the history of industrial economies. I'm just saying that charging money doesn't just slowly smother UBPorts. It's no longer FOSS. It doesn't matter if you charge $US 10 or $US 1,000. It's no longer part of this amazing community of altruistic creators.

Do you want a fee to use Linux? Wikipedia? Every forum and website you use to troubleshoot the problem with that driver that doesn't quite work right in Linux in the latest new bare hardware you bought? When someone posts a solution to a problem in a forum, they do not charge money. They are freely giving their intellectual property. This is all part of this network economy that the Internet is enabling. To me, UBPorts is my best hope for a phone in this economy. I will do what I can to voluntarily give of my time and money.

Finally, I've received the right phone. It is from Southwest Distributors, via Swappa. I should have followed the recommendation of the UBports site and gone there first. I could tell right away because one of the first steps after powering it up is asking about a SIM and giving the option for an eSIM. Verizon models don't offer that.

@beta-break
The core app list includes calendar, but not contacts. The list described here includes Morph, which is not a core app, but does not include an email client, such as dekko.

I realize that there's a lot of work planned here (like, VoLTE), but I think that contacts and an email client should be added. Also, the list of core apps should be re-evaluated?

Thank you!

I'm now on my fourth Pixel 3a from Amazon or Ebay. Every vendor has send me the wrong phone. Wrong model, wrong size (I already bought case and screen protector separately), Verizon-locked, unknown vendor locked. The one I have now is the wrong color, although I don't care about that. From Ebay, it's supposed to be "Factory unlocked". I tell vendors that I want that, plus OEM unlocking. This time, I was able to put my Google Fi SIM card (that I use in a Google Nexus 4) in and activate it. That works, but the OEM unlocking is greyed out. I can't downgrade Android to 9 (step 1).

I haven't been able to find out the model of this (Regulatory Label is blank). I tell vendors that I want a G020G, following the advice elsewhere in the forum, but I can't determine that that is what I have. I'm waiting for a call back from Google to see if they will unlock it or tell me what the phone's status is.

I can't see that it supports eSIM, but from what I read it is supposed to. There's no eSIM IMEI listed or other evidence of it. Is this a clue as to what the phone is?

Thanks for any info you can provide me.

@kugiigi Two of the Motorola phones I've had use serveral acceleration gestures. For the flashlight it is two hacking motions. Two wrist twists opens the camera.

Did you recently buy it? Can you return it? I went through 4 phones from Amazon, Ebay and the site that the UBports buy link goes to, before I got one that was OEM unlockable. Others here have had similar experience. Sellers might not understand what it means. Try to find seller who will check that or at least give you the IMEI number so that you can contact Google Fi support to find out if it was originally sold in Google Store. Those are unlockable.

I'm taking another run at learning to work on apps. Central to this is the developer documentation.

Right away, the first link is bad. @mimecar course goes to
https://docs.innerzaurus.com/
which doesn't work.

I know that there's a Github site for the Gitbook, but I don't think a person getting started should have to learn about how to work with that in order to learn the programming part of it. At least, not at first.

I think I've found an HTML version of the course. I don't know if that is current. If it isn't, I think there should be a live version of the built Gitbook as HTML in docs.ubports.com.

I'm willing to work on the documentation to make small changes such as what might be helpful in this case. I've gone through the process once before, on the Pixel 3a documentation in Github.

I'd like the Developer Guides to be the one stop for everything I need to learn to make progress here.

Thank you.

I'm interested in exploring working on this, so that CardDAV can be configured via the system-settings and more. I don't see it under the system-settings-online-accounts repository in Github. I've run Mobian on my Pinephone and all the usual Nextcloud services are available in the settings there. I guess the code, even the language, could be pretty different in this case between Mobian and UT. Still, I'd like to explore that. TIA.

I'm upgrading from a Google Nexus 4 to a Pixel 3a. I have a convergence dock for my Pinephone. Since the P3a uses USB-C, I'm wondering if anyone knows if the dock for the Pinephone will work on the P3a. TIA.

I already support through Patreon. I encourage that approach. Maybe more visibility for that? As much as I don't like paying middle-businesses, and I personally think Patreon takes too large of a percentage, there they are.

I'm open to other voluntary ways of giving money.

Okay, this is a dumb question that I haven't been able to answer for years. I've used a Nexus 4 for some years, usually in the dev channel. I never notice that an OTA has arrived. I guess that's because they are only relevant in the stable channel. I'm probably wrong about that. You see, I'm ignorant of a lot about OTAs. How do I know which OTA I'm on and how do I see that I have received one? I can't find answers here, Wiki, general web searches. Sorry to bother with such a trivial question.

This is so frustrating. Is there a reliable source to buy these phones for UT at a reasonable price?

@tonton_ Thank you for this work.

LINMOB says that there are improvements to CardDAV. I wonder if they are referring to your work here?

https://linmob.net/weekly-update-23-2024/

@alter

2. That's wild! Is that by design? Works when composing a new message, too. Why doesn't it use a contacts glyph, like the phone app? That would be nice continuity in the UI. In any case, its great to know that there is a way. Thanks!

I don't see how to install 20.04. I'm running 16.04 on my Pixel 3a. I downloaded the latest installer from the usual place. The channel pulldown in the installer only has 16.04 choices. How do I get to the hidden choice for 20.04? Thanks!

EDIT: never mind. I see the Settings menu in the installer, to allow hidden channels.

@keneda, I guess the sellers aren't bothering to look up the IMEI from every phone and properly determine which model. But, they advertise them as the specific models, which is not nice. One of them seems to have many Pixel 3a and 3a XL phones, and they are all listed as the same, which is hard to believe. My experience is that there are more Verizon and other carrier-locked Pixel phones out there than ones that people got directly from Google. Who would bother to get it shipped to them when they can walk into a store and by a branded one?

Import/export of HTML bookmarks would be a great improvement to Sapot and Morph. I haven't been able to find a way to convert HTML bookmarks into the tagging mechanism that these browsers use. Other browsers let me import the HTML and preserve the folder layout that I have for the bookmarks. I usually have to drag and drop into whatever the folder is for the bookmark toolbar for a particular browser, but that's about the only part that varies from browser to browser.

@keneda, I've been able to return every phone I bought. Both Amazon and Ebay have good return policies. They even provide a free return shipping label. So, I'm not out any money (at least yet).

I will look at those other phones. I'm looking for what is closest to a daily driver. I have my Pinephone for hacking on, if I want.

@nero355 I bought a Pixel 3a.

@alyosha This is happening to me now. I'm on Red Pocket GSMA. 2G/3G/4G no longer works. Have to change the setting to 2G/3G.