Let’s be honest: the primary problem with any of the FOSS options before and after Android is that they literally suck. A phone has to have good SMS and phone c

Let’s be honest: the primary problem with any of the FOSS options before and after Android is that they literally suck. A phone has to have good SMS and phone capabilities, decent performance, and some kind of non-anemic app ecosystem to really exist today. Some of the open source options for phones never managed to achieve any of these, and the ones that exist today still struggle at it, and yet may possibly still be sustainable. Ultimately, I don’t buy the argument that developers opinions about J2ME vs Android had anything to do with it. The T-Mobile G1 is why Android broke through the market. I believe that is in part due to Google’s backing, which instantly made it newsworthy at least in enthusiast circles. The closest thing we have now is the Pinephone, but it largely doesn’t work (though I still find it in much better shape than many of its FOSS phone peers, probably bested by Librem 5 but I don’t own one to know for sure.) To be sure, it doesn't look close to breaking through to the mainstream any time soon, but it’s also not really ready. It has no app ecosystem and no carriers shipping it, and core functionality is still mostly barely working.