I'm very pleased with Pine64 and I think they're doing a tremendous job of pushing open hardware and doing it right, and I am a frequent buyer and occasional contributor to various pine-adjacent projects accordingly. But it really disappoints me that they aren't committed to free (as in freedom) platforms. I die a little bit every time I see them call you to join their Discord channel in these updates, or to follow them on Twitter, or post on their subreddit. Especially for a project in close collaboration with Linux distros, IRC and mailing lists are an important communication medium which is under-emphasized and under-utilized by Pine.<p>Pine seems to understand the value of free software within their phones, but why not without? It's very frustrating to know that a sizable fraction of their development discussions are being had on the other side of propriatary garden walls.