Support exFAT (sdxc) in Jolla tablet!

That exFat license can be crucial to someone with big SD-cards and limited computing skills and I don't see the evil in this. Microsoft invented the system and holds patent to it, no evil in that imho. Also with droping the exFat support you are not only bringing the free filesystems to the table, you are limiting the exFat from users. And if I have understood things right from different posts on TJC, MTP is really hard/impossible to get to work on MacOS. Also there at least used to be some topics on how the at least two SD-cards went foobar on Jolla phone because the use of free filesystems on 64gb SD-cards messed up something internally on the card.

This is just crazy. MTP does not work on Mac, even on Linux you'll have to figure it out by yourself. So please, be trutful in your arguments. Also, not all file systems are good for removable flash-drives. Some of them will wear those cards out prematurely because most of them are designed for completely different purpose. It takes more than "free" to be a good choice! Maybe something like F2FS might do, but again, it's not compatible with Windows, Mac or regular devices using SD-Cards. As for "non-crucial" licenses, this will effectively prevent interoperability with great amount of different devices, which is likely be a deal breaker for many. For them it's definitely not "non-crucial" license.

Whether free or non-free is better depends on who you ask. In this particular case it comes down to everyone's personal preference, where the functional tradeoff being interoperability between devices and binary blob + more expenses to Jolla.

And if I'm not completely mistaken the lack of exFAT isn't breaking device interoperability completely. SDHC cards (32GB and less) will work just fine on SailfishOS as FAT32.

@avhakola, you're right. However, I have a hunch that users with limited computing skills and big SD cards are a small minority in this community.

@MSH, I am being truthful to my arguments. For me MTP works on Linux out of the box (Debian stable 7.8, Gnome 3.4.2). OSX indeed seems to be an unfortunate case with MTP.

@Okw, yes I also think less skilled + big SD card owners are in minority in this community, but this exclusion makes sure they will be so also in the future and 100% of the time hand their money for Apple, Microsoft or [insert your random Android device manufacturer here] instead of maybe choosing Jolla.

MTP has worked on most modern GNU/Linux distributions out of the box for some time now. It's not Jolla's fault that fruit company's Fisher-Price computers don't work with MTP.

@MSH. MTP works out of the box for me on Kubuntu 14.04. You are probably thinking of the last LTS release of the *buntu from 2012 where MTP support had to be patched in. Really not my fault that Apple is overpriced and under-featured.

I am glad Jolla decided to stick to their principles of building as open device, instead of paying what is essentially protection money to perpetuate a system that is just insanely unfair. In the age of affordable Terabyte hard-disks you are seriously trying to convince me that I need to pay extra money just to use an SD card that's more than 32GB? If it was complete interoperability I was looking for, in all honesty I would have purchased tablets from a no-brand Chinese manufacturer, Google, Samsung, or Sony. But this is Jolla we are talking about, a company built on a reputation of openness. I would not have purchased a tablet from them if that wasn't the case since I already own a 10" tablet.

@nthn You're correct, it's not Jolla's fault that Apple doesn't support MTP. But it is Jolla's fault that their PTP support is broken and now they're backing away from supporting a filesystem that would have allowed Mac users to transfer files using sdxc cards. Add to that their broken CalDAV and CardDAV support and using a Mac with Sailfish is not a great experience.

@Rewarp, you cannot use those terabyte disks with cameras etc. without another device (ie laptop). Your solution is to buy Jolla and then throw in some extra money to get another device for functionality that has been crippled on purpose by request of vocal part of community politics. It seems like this community is completely unable to think anything from average users point of view. Effectively this decision has already excluded certain use cases - if this is the way to go, how many more use-cases will be excluded in the future? And how much harm has to be done to mainstream adoption until you are satisfied?

@Okw All of your 3 points are incorrect.

1. The stretch goal was for sdxc card support. ExFAT is implicit. But anyway, if your objection is paying Microsoft money, then what are you using a Jolla for? You're paying already for Exchange ActiveSync.

2. The only free alternative is to not use sdxc cards and stick to FAT32. Cameras often won't use sdxc cards formatted with fat32 even if they support it for sdhc. You usually can't add other file system support to cameras and other devices. Adding Linux filesystem support to Mac and Windows isn't free.

3. MTP support is not working on the Mac. It also isn't supported in host mode in SailfishOS too.

jolla wrote "cards over 32GB that are formatted in Jolla Tablet will not be readable with Windows computers". So I assume, the tablet can read exFAT and write to exFAT. Only to format a card with exFAT you will have to use a device other than the tablet. Am I mistaken?

@MSH. If you haven't noticed yet, Jolla did not grow by being "mainstream". As I stated, I could have chosen not to buy from Jolla, and got a more mainstream device that would conform to the Microsoft patent cartel. This is a niche company catering to a specific crowd who value the openness of the company and their devices.

Their success akin to that of System76. A niche company profiting from a niche crowd. Or your local vegan restaurant. In other words, once a company abandons their principles to appeal to a wider audience, they will lose their appeal to the niche crowd, and in Jolla's case, become indistinguishable from Samsung, Sony, or any no-brand manufacturer.

I also find your argument that I would be using a crippled device unconvincing. I am in complete control of all the devices I own, and for my present tablet, I rarely even plug in the USB cable to trade files because I can use KDEConnect to trade files between devices, and even use it as a keyboard. In fact, just by showing my setup to friends and acquaintances, I have 3 friends who have installed Kubuntu on laptops they own, two of them on primary machines.

It's tragically hilarious how people are saying they should pay to unlock the >32GB storage from exFAT patents when we could just use ext4 or btrfs for no extra charge. At the end of the day, you get to vote with your wallet, and all I can tell you is let your wallet do the talking. I have voted with mine, you are free to do so as well.

@Rewarp, Jolla is niche company for now, but in order to survive in the long run, you simply cannot despise mainstream folks who over everything else expect device that "just works." Even I expect my devices to "just work", no matter if they are also for tinkering around. Also, if this 128Gb support is advertised, most folks will interpret it like they can go and use their cards as they would with any other device (this has already happened when that perk was published). When they notice that interoperability is next no nothing and then somebody tells them "yeah, community didn't want it to be included no matter the consequences..." they will feel they bought a crippled device and that bad bell will ring quite far. On my devices, only server and htpc side of my home can actually make any use of btrfs or ext4. This is because my use cases kind of dictate what I must run on my laptop, as much I'd like to have Elementary OS as my primary laptop OS. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one in such situation. But yeah, in the end, I'll vote with my wallet. So far I have supported Jolla from since the beginning (being one of "the first ones"), because I wanted a worthy successor to N9 and I didn't like the alternatives. But if in the future this community chooses deliberately make things increasingly difficult for reasons not in any way related to technical superiority and improvement, then I guess it doesn't leave me much options. In this case it's not a deal breaker, but I'm worried that in the future things like this are taken to extreme by overly zealous foss-folks in a way that effectively excludes all possibilities for Sailfish to become sustainable in the long run (meaning more reasonable choice for mainstream users).

@Rewarp you're obviously happy in your Kubuntu bubble but it's surely obvious to you that lots of people choose to use other operating systems and devices that do not run that OS. It's patronising and wrong to disrespect other people's choices and you're sadly misguided if you think you're not paying Microsoft any money by choosing Jolla.

Have you read the blurb on Sailfish.org? The world doesn’t need yet another smartphone – it needs a new way of thinking. That’s why Jolla was born. We want to challenge the dominant perceptions. We want to create an innovation platform for ideas, opportunities and openness. Open Jolla, a new way of thinking.

I know a fair amount of people subscribe to the philosophy of just wanting things to work. In that case, you are in the wrong community, because guess what from the democratic vote, a large vocal majority wants an open system which does not support patent cartels for unnecessary "features" like a larger exFAT support.

Don't worry about mainstream acceptance. You write a lot about iProducts and it is rather ironic that you don't realise Apple has built an entire industry by doing things their way, and people buying into them because of quality builds and marketing spiel, except they also went out of their way to patent rounded corners and create their own walled gardens which is the absolute worst thing they could do in the long run for consumers. In fact, you as an iUser should be complaining to your iCEO about using MTP or supporting ext4, or btrfs instead of the more technically and socially aware Jolla community here.

From what I see, Jolla is a healthy company with an almost cultishly loyal community behind them. Do you know what happens when a company decides to turn against the community for "mainstream" support? Refer to Nokia.

@aegis. I do not mean any personal disrespect, and if I come across that way I sincerely apologise. You have to see it from my perspective, I do not want to subsidise your crippled devices with an unnecessary patent tax This isn't about some essential patent that requires GSM to work, it is basically a filesystem support. This is as ridiculous as it sounds. Paying more money just so you can use a larger sd card? Imagine my shock when that became the stretch goal in the tablet. To use a modern turn of phrase, I don't even!

@Rewarp, Apple's way of doing things have been built on top of years of brand development and main driver of it has always been things to "just work", even if it has at times been restricted into their own ecosystem. Innovation, platform of ideas, opportunities and openness will not be ruined by support for some proprietary bulb granting compatibility with boatload of devices outside smartphone world.

As for democracy, I am not bound in any way to agree with majority or anyone else within this community or outside it. I'm perfectly capable of forming my own opinions about things and also seeing when majority is doing something foolish. This particular decision just sent a message that for example photography enthusiasts are not welcome here and excluded them by cutting chances for compatibility with their primary tools. Looking at the arguments, they really did not represent new way of thinking - rather anti-ms sentiment that is decades old now. If this community continues to exclude groups of people with argument like "I just don't like MS", chances are that all that "new way of thinking the same way as most vocal or extreme people in the community" won't carry us very far. I don't want Sailfish ending up like Maemo or MeeGo did.

@RewarpAt the end of the day, you get to vote with your wallet, and all I can tell you is let your wallet do the talking. I voted with my wallet, I bought the all this stuff to help fund the goals and SDXC-support was one them. from the democratic vote, a large vocal majority wants an open system which does not support patent cartels for unnecessary "features" like a larger exFAT support. Large vocal group on TJC doesn't talk for all of those who bought the tablet. It is more likely for FOSS-fighters like you to be here on TJC than average tablet user who bought the device and expects it to work because it was promised to support SDXC and now feel betrayed.

I don't understand your point. What you just wrote "main driver of it has always been things to "just work", even if it has at times been restricted into their own ecosystem." is what you would get if we were using an open standard filesystem.

If you want to blame someone for not supporting photographers, try Apple, for introducing yet another proprietary filesystem, HFS+ that only works with Apple products out of the box, and is so terrible Linus Torvalds said it was probably designed by monkeys.

This isn't about anti-photography, or anti-Microsoft. It is about anti-stupid-software-patents. This is literally a patent to use more than 32 GB sd cards. You can disagree with the majority, I only put those statements in because the opening post wants to say I am in the minority and Jolla only listened because we spoke up.

Your concerns about Maemo and MeeGo are noted, but erroneous. They both fell not because the community decided not to use exFAT, but because Nokia stabbed everyone in the back.

@avhakola And I voted with my wallet before the shocking announcement of a licensing deal to use more than 32 GB on an sd card for the stretch goal. The project was already funded by then from people who didn't think any further purchase would go towards paying to use a larger sd card.

Judging from the number of up-votes for this answer, and the lack of support for the opening post, and remember the poll which everyone could participate in, your hypothesis is convincingly rejected. If you don't like how FOSS advocates like me have won the battle by convincing a majority of the voting users to reject a stupid patent license, then do a better job selling your stand.

You backed and got improved feature basicly for free after the strech goals were introduced and you cry you don't want them because you don't believe in software patents and the handicapped device is better?

@Rewarp if you don't want to pay Microsoft for non essential software licences then why are you doing so already? Why are you not asking Jolla for the money they've charged you for Exchange support, a feature that is far less essential than SDXC card support?

@avhakola I got improved features which according to the announcement, is a larger battery, gyroscope, fully laminated display, and compass sensors. Also known as things which are more useful than paying extra money to use a locked-in file format.

From my perspective, Apple devices are the ones crippled if they refuse to support MTP, ext4, or btrfs because that is a political decision and not a technical one. Refer to HFS+ for example of clear monopolistic practices.

@aegis. Funny that you brought that up. I didn't know Jolla was actually paying for Exchange support as well until exFAT proponents wrote about it, which I think is also stupid and redundant. But it did not get the extreme prominence a stretch goal to get a larger sd card working got for the tablet, and the fact that was prioritised over paying developers to improve Sailfish with features like a split screen.

@Rewarp, I don't understand your point. What you just wrote "main driver of it has always been things to "just work", even if it has at times been restricted into their own ecosystem." is what you would get if we were using an open standard filesystem. Not necessarily if those alternative file systems ruin the durability of flash cards. If you want to blame someone for not supporting photographers, try Apple, for introducing yet another proprietary filesystem, HFS+ that only works with Apple products out of the box AFAIK Apple has not dropped support for SDXC. This isn't about anti-photography, or anti-Microsoft. It is about anti-stupid-software-patents. This is literally a patent to use more than 32 GB sd cards. I completely agree that those software patents are stupid. however, compatibility with broad range of devices requires to honor standards and patents behind them.Another option is to simply exclude groups of people, like with this decision. Your concerns about Maemo and MeeGo are noted, but erroneous. They both fell not because the community decided not to use exFAT, but because Nokia stabbed everyone in the back. They fell because of disarray in Nokia, and because they didn't see it as sustainable option anymore. And because community cannot take the development further by their own, nor create new devices. This is my main concern - if things are driven only by ideology without any regard to technical, UX and financial side of things, the same will happen with Jolla and Sailfish. This is why entering also mainstream market is so important, no matter how much it dents the ego of always so self-righteous foss-communities.

because that is a political decision and not a technical one. Seems like keeping the exFat support away is political or even religious type of decision to some of the users on this forum. FOSS-fighters "freedom of choise" when ignoring exFat is just illusion when you are limiting the choises to the ones they like. Also sounds little bit of a double standards to dislike some patents and license fees and then say "meh, don't care" to others.

Now it is a question of durability? Please furnish the proper studies showing SD card wear and tear will occur with anything but exFAT, because that seems to be what you are implying.

I have no idea what Apple thinks of exFAT, but the point remains that they have created a walled garden, and will continue walling in their products. It's interoperable between their devices only via monopolistic practices, raising prices for everyone else who prefer to use open systems.

The open source community has been waiting for a genuinely open tablet for a long time. There are lines in the sand to be drawn, and Jolla is the most clear demarcation so far - until Canonical launch their tablet.

Trying to perjure people who purchased devices from Jolla based on ideology and principle misses the point of Jolla itself. From the get go Jolla has always sold themselves as being open and listening to the community. On this matter, the majority has spoken that we would rather spend money from the campaign on other enhancements rather than a short term but wasteful licensing on a filesystem that will further entrench bad industry practices.

So yes, this is an exclusionary decision. No decision can please everyone, so let's aim for the one that pleases most of the community. As usual, if you don't like these decisions, you can always buy a no-brand Chinese tablet, or an iPad. No one is forcing you to continue with the Jolla community.

@avhakola. Nice work taking my sentence out of context. I said

From my perspective, Apple devices are the ones crippled if they refuse to support MTP, ext4, or btrfs because that is a political decision and not a technical one.

If you have not noticed, the IGG campaign did not generate a net profit of US$ 18 billion like it did for Apple. As such the money should be spent wisely. Spending campaign money simply to use a restricted file format is a bad choice technically because:

• we lose interoperability between adopters of open systems,
• there are sunk costs which cannot be recovered
• we lose the opportunity to invest in novel features
• Jolla can't submit patches to filesystems bugs easily
• the company is having technical decisions controlled by a third party with no means of input.
• said 3rd party is Microsoft, who also produce their own tablets and their own rival operating system. A company with a track record of using monopolistic practices to crush or fight competing products.

And ideologically because

• it perpetuates a monopolistic system that only benefits major corporations and not smaller players like Jolla
• it supports stupid software patents which do not encourage innovation, thereby breaking the point of having a patent system in the first place.

tl;dr Nowhere did I mention I didn't care about other patents. But since you are having a problem with comprehension let me repeat it again: I care more about the exFAT license because it gained prominence during the IGG campaign. Don't worry about consistency, I will throw my wallet in the ring too next time Jolla holds another poll on other stupid licenses they choose or think they are forced to subscribe to.

Now it is a question of durability? Please furnish the proper studies showing SD card wear and tear will occur with anything but exFAT, because that seems to be what you are implying.http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=1428075&postcount=54but the point remains that they have created a walled garden, and will continue walling in their products. Do you realize you are building the walls of your own instead of welcoming everyone to the party? Your open source "community" isn't anything more than just bunch of haters and nothing better than those "evil" corporations you so much hate (so 90s to hate corporations).

we lose interoperability between adopters of open systems, the support for open source filesystems has always been there and no-one wanted to take them away from you, but for some reason you want take something away from us.

@avhakola. You did not understand the request. Your link is not to a study of comparisons of different filesystems on the effects of wear and tear on SD cards. It's to a single comment without context that has nothing to do with sd card durability in relation to filesystem formats.

I have no qualms about working with corporations. You are once again wilfully misinterpreting me. Refer to my list of technical points again.

Points like there are sunk costs which cannot be recovered and it perpetuates a monopolistic system that only benefits major corporations and not smaller players like Jolla? exFat support would add value to the device and bring more sales to the company isn't way to cover costs and benefit Jolla? Also Jolla sold something like 3-4 times the devices originally planned and that also might do something for the unit price.

That is counting your chickens before they hatch. In this case dragon eggs even as exFAT support costs a one time fee of $300,000. The IGG funds were limited, and there is little benefit to using exFAT beyond wasting money.

I am still unconvinced how essential exFAT actually is to your tablet. Do you all plan to take out the cards every day and swap them between your computer, tablet, phones, and camera?

exFAT support or not, it is a minor issue, as any tablet (iPad, Android ones, etc) is not perfect, always lack some features following each one preferences. The majority of active Sailfish users don't want exFAT as shown in the pool. I've voted for exFAT support in December 3rd 2014, but I respect the strong opinion of the majoritity of the community. People need to learn to live with that : - there is no perfect thing (tablet, smartphone, car, etc); - respect the opinion the majority of the community.

@Rewarp Are you 100% sure the fixed sum is used for tablets or is it volume based? If it is volume based, the sum is fraction of the fee you suggested.

I am not. I do not represent Jolla, merely speculating based upon the stretch goal which was USD 1.5 mil, on top of a campaign goal of US$ 380,000. Have you seen the price of the tablet? It's is borderline better priced than similar spec tablets, and Jolla is a small company that can't purchase in bulk. About only 7000 units have been sold at present.

Under such restraints, it is quite hard to get favourable supply deals, and any unnecessary expenditure should be avoided.

Now please tell me, why do you want to use exFAT? Do you swap sd cards between your tablet and your computer, phone, and camera every day?

Micro$oft asks for a NDA so Jolla can't say how much would cost a exFAT volume-based license for the Jolla Tablet.

"exFat support would add value to the device and bring more sales to the company isn't way to cover costs and benefit Jolla?"

No, I wouldn't say spending a shitload of money on proprietary malware is a way to cover costs. In fact, I think that would be called creating more costs rather than covering them.

Now it is a question of durability? Please furnish the proper studies showing SD card wear and tear will occur with anything but exFAT, because that seems to be what you are implying.

This is known issue. Using wrong alignment and file system will result premature wear. These parameters vary between different cards, so there would have to be a mechanism to detect such values and format accordingly. However, I'm confident that excellent engineers at Jolla can figure out an easy solution for that part.

I have no idea what Apple thinks of exFAT, but the point remains that they have created a walled garden, and will continue walling in their products. It's interoperable between their devices only via monopolistic practices, raising prices for everyone else who prefer to use open systems.

And the point remains that practice of excluding users is risky, and if it's not done right way, it will result in pr disaster. Not only for community but also for Jolla and Sailfish. Not everybody will fit into your mold of "righteousness."

So yes, this is an exclusionary decision. No decision can please everyone, so let's aim for the one that pleases most of the community. As usual, if you don't like these decisions, you can always buy a no-brand Chinese tablet, or an iPad. No one is forcing you to continue with the Jolla community.

Then we will just have to hope that community will be enough to sustain a company like Jolla. If not, well... I guess it's no point even mentioning the result. Nobody seems to be interested in it anyway. As nobody seems to be interested in question, "how this decision made consumers life better" either.

@MSH. The only people who are complaining seem to be in the minority. If this issue was truly so important, you would think there would be a backlash right now with people flocking in to upvote this suggestion to restore exFAT licensing - because this issue is without doubt the single most controversial thing about Jolla, and ironically not the fact that we will be using SailfishOS, which I am surprised you folks haven't chimed in yet to ask Jolla to replace it with Android if it is offering a less exclusionary product.

Like it or not, the app ecosystem is what keeps people from moving once they have spent so much money and time buying things for their iDevices and Android tablets.

I said nothing about righteousness. I even listed out the technical reasons point-by-point because I don't have the karma to edit the wiki answer as I am a first-time Jolla customer. Oh yes, hello, the Jolla community gained new members because of these "exclusionary" and "disastrous" PR moves.

This entire venture has been about making the best choices for the Jolla community. And in return they have attracted a very specific and discerning crowd to their products. I get laminated screens, gyroscopes and larger battery life instead of a stupid license to use exFAT sd cards. I think this is going to make a lot of our lives better.

The only people who are complaining seem to be in the minority. If this issue was truly so important, you would think there would be a backlash right now with people flocking in to upvote this suggestion to restore exFAT licensing...

Most of us have already given up. Only reason I talk about this is to voice out the risk involved if such rationale is used every single time there is some feature that is in common use and which doesn't have real open source alternative or workaround. When the discussion begun that exFAT has to be excluded (mostly because it was an MS product, that was just about the only real motive behind the move), outside this community there were numerous, disappointed comments how over zealous foss-people are going to ruin the product so that no average user will want to have anything to do with it. That might sound strange to you, but for me it sounded sad. If that is how general public sees our community, we definitely have an uphill battle in our hands not only on technical, but also on pr side. For you it's only question of exFAT - for me it's broader question, "what will be the next standard this community will force to break compatibility with and by doing that, when will Sailffish cease to be usable for average person." Only small portion of people actually buying Jolla devices are active here, please at least try to remember that.

I am surprised you folks haven't chimed in yet to ask Jolla to replace it with Android if it is offering a less exclusionary product.

I thought that I'd answer with my personal reasons to use sailfish over Android or iOS, but after that kind of comment... such stupid comment doesn't really deserve more than this.

I get laminated screens, gyroscopes and larger battery life instead of a stupid license to use exFAT sd cards. I think this is going to make a lot of our lives better.

What makes you think that those are for exchange for not licensing exFAT? Has it been stated somewhere, or is it just your own imagination? For me this means that I won't be buying big flash cards for any of my cameras because my tablet won't work with them, so I'm not that convinced that my life actually got better with this decision. As I said before, it's not a deal breaker but I'm worried what will be the next one.

About @MSH comment "what will be the next standard this community will force to break compatibility with and by doing that, when will Sailffish cease to be usable for average person" : iPad lacks many features (for exchanging data, compatibility with other non-Apple devices, etc) but it sells millions and millions of units. Typical iOS users deals well with the lack of features (no microSD, etc). Jolla Tablet will not sell millions of units due to all possible tablet features. More important is to be a good alternative tablet in the eyes and hearts of the users, being different from Android, iOS, Windows, etc.

@Rewarp Your knowledge of Apple is way off. They co-authored the CalDAV and CardDAV open standards that Jolla still does not support to any kind of workable definition. Their iCloud mail uses IMAP. They support more open standards than Jolla!

Yes, HFS is a little crufty but it's been around since 1985 yet they've still managed to extend it with ACLs, FSEvents, journaling and many features that a modern filesystem has.

They also support Microsoft's proprietary standards such as Exchange, CIFS, ExFAT and more.

You look rediculous claiming Apple have a walled garden when their level of interoperability with non-Apple systems is far greater than what Jolla provide today.

Jolla have already lost me as a tablet buyer because of the ExFAT issue and over this weekend I've been reconsidering the pain I've had working around Jolla's limitations for the last year. The conclusion I made was that I bought a Sony Android phone today also. My Jolla is going in the drawer next week.

Out of curiosity could you list the limitations you face.

You could send it to me, I'll gladly take it ;)

@ApB, I don't know about @aegis but the kind of limitations I face on my Jolla daily should not need listing again since 2 out of 3 threads on this very website are about them. It's just that Jolla itself silently ignores the calls for fixing them and there are enough very loud Jolla fanatics who actively stump them out. I am a long-time Linux user. For years I had no other phone than N900. I bought my first Jolla second-hand, only to try it out. And I liked it enough to buy a second one, brand new. But since then, I have become increasingly disillusioned. Not by the OS itself, even though it is still very much beta, after three years of development, starting from a pretty polished code base. Have you tried typing an essay like this on a Jolla? It absolutely sucks!

But that is OK. That's what I get for using a beta product. And beta testers like me is what Jolla gets in return. And guess what? Instead of saying thank you for reporting, you are right, it really sucks trying to write a reply to TJC of more than four words on a Jolla, we will see what we can do about it, I get what? Absolutely nothing from the company and beating from people like... no need to mention names.

THAT is what disillusions me the most. The attitude of Jolla the company and its loudest supporters. Failing to acknowledge bugs, failing to provide any kind of feedback, let alone ETA on critical things, even going back on their own words like in the case of the exFAT stretch goal...

Regarding exFAT - I do not give a flying duck about exFAT. But I do about Jolla's sneaky ways. Such a terrible PR is something that a small startup simply cannot afford. Not in this field with such a fierce competition.

"Shut up and get out of here!", I can hear you calling (again). Well, if things continue going the way they do, I may as well. Good luck in your small, closed elite club. I wonder just how long the company will survive with a customer base of five. Or even five thousand.

@pichlo The first thing you have to remember is that they are a small company. And this is a reality. If you don't like their ways, limitations or products noone can keep you. And that is perfectly fine. Everyone wants the "best" for themselves and some are fine with what jolla offers.

Also everyone expects perfection in everything they do. Not going to happen. They fucked up things and will fuck up more in the future. And they will fix them and they will displease people. That is normal. Noone is perfect yet everyone else expects perfection from others. Personally i am here for the journey and to criticize/suggest things that will make everything better.

@RewarpNow please tell me, why do you want to use exFAT? Do you swap sd cards between your tablet and your computer, phone, and camera every day? Not daily but when I do swap cards between devices, I would really like to have one or two huge cards instead of having to juggle with handful of smaller cards.

Oh yes, hello, the Jolla community gained new members because of these "exclusionary" and "disastrous" PR moves. "Good" for the community have such a open viewed member such as you. I wonder how many has left TJC or any other way has given up with Jolla because of this since the leaving members seldom post about them leaving (seen one or two FOSS-crusaders do so). How I know there are some leaving members if they don't let us know on the TJC? We can read on other tech forums how they are selling their used Jolla-phones and atm unreleased Jolla-tablets.

@ApB: Yes, they are a small company. They need to calculate. What is more expensive: a license fee or lost customers due to a lack of features and, most importantly, the lack of trust? I just hope they've made the right calculation.

@ApB I use CalDAV calendaring which worked great on my Mac, ipad, N9, Symbian, Linux laptop and android tablet. I was quite stunned to find that missing when the Jolla first arrived. My workaround is to use a special phone only google calendar which I restrict info in. CalDAV still does not work for me with ownCloud or Apple's Calendar server or iCloud. I'd rather not use Google calendar.

I use CardDAV contacts. An open standard supported on my Mac and tablets. Again, not supported. I'm forced to use a subset on Google.

Editing contacts on the phone is often impossible as they are read only. I carry a pen and paper around!

Jolla doesn't have a transfer tool and expects mtp. Macs don't have mtp. They do support ptp in iPhoto but that doesn't work with Jolla. There's no flickr support in Jolla. There was in the n9. The api for adding flickr accounts like we had on the n9 isn't open.

I'm having to use FAT32 on SD cards which has limitations for filenames and sizes that Macs do not have. It makes copying music hit and miss. While we're at it, Artwork in AAC files doesn't work.

Mapping on Jolla is useless. The Android HERE maps app barely fits in ram, crashes or kills off other apps, sometimes doesn't give voice directions without a reboot. It was one of my favourite apps on my N9.

SIP isn't supported. I bought a new router, two new SIP phones for home and office so that at least I had SIP in my two most used locations. It worked great on the N9.

The native browser doesn't support cut and paste in non text areas. I have to use an android browser for some tasks.

Events view is awful on Jolla. I lived in it on my n9. that is perhaps what I miss the most about Jolla. I didn't often use a 3rd party twitter app on the N9. On Jolla I use tweetian which is sort of ok but missing a view of the whole conversation.

Since the last update, my Jolla now disables 3g data randomly, kills apps randomly and is generally unreliable. I'm missing calls, messages, email, appointments.

Frankly, after a year of living with these limitations, being told by Jolla that the are listening to their community and open source standards are important, it wears a little thin and smells of hypocrisy. Getting abuse from clueless linux fanatics who can't see anything past their own narrow usage doesn't help either.

So, with much regret I'll wish Jolla well and move on. I'm keeping my Jolla and will see if it gets better but I'm off to Android for my daily mobile needs. I've been very impressed by my Sony Z3 tablet so I've ordered a Z3 compact phone too.

@aegis Thanks for the answer.

I really should find a derogatory term too for non-FOSS advocates. But the sour grapes-like comments here do speak for themselves.

iOS devices lack microSD card and Bluetooth transfer (contacts, files, etc) to non-Apple devices. Both can be done using Jolla smartphone (and table in the future). But nobody says "Apple lost me" due to these "features".

@aegis comment "Getting abuse from clueless linux fanatics who can't see anything past their own narrow usage doesn't help either" is totally out of proportion. If you are getting abused, please :

• go to next police station to open a complaint if it is serious;

• learn to live giving small issues (like a detail about file system in a future tablet) its proportional value, i.e., small value;

• if it is not true, then you are offending many people who doesn't think like you, all due to some minor issue.

@Rewarp You're again off base. I run a web hosting and design company. I've run it on open source, both free and paid since 2003. Our servers all run Linux. I've been contributing to open source projects since 1997. I passionately believe in open source. All my development is open source.

But we've lost already with SDXC. If we want interoperability then you pay the licence, same as Jolla do for GSM, Exchange, MPEG...

You know @aegis, most of your problems sound like that could be fixed by just using different apps. Plus if you want an even more open architecture that may respond to your demands, go for FirefoxOS. I have used it while I was in Malaysia and it was a solid system even though I was using experimental builds.

This is however, a simple debate on the wisdom of paying for a software license which most of the voting community don't care for, and do not want, and do not need, because the fix is so simple. It's like the fix for animal cruelty - don't eat animals.

@rcolistete You are wrong. iOS devices DO support SD cards, including ExFAT. You need one of these cables.

http://store.apple.com/uk/product/MD822ZM/A/lightning-to-sd-card-camera-reader

I know lots of people who complain they can't Bluetooth files or contacts like they did on their old Nokia. But then they'll find a gazillion apps that do it another way or just use email. Going back to the original problem though, there aren't a gazillion alternatives. There isn't even one alternative. SDXC mandates one filesystem and no others.

Jolla didn't lose me because of just this. It's death by a thousand paper cuts. It's clear they don't have the resources to fix issues in a timely manner, even the ones the community votes the most for See https://github.com/nemomobile/buteo-sync-plugin-caldav/graphs/contributors for instance. Their staff are spread too thinly.

@aegis Ok, so iOS support SD cards but no iOS device has microSD card reader. Fantastic ! The user needs to pay UKP25 and transport a cable/adaptor every time.

iOS doesn't support Bluetooth transfer to no-iOS devices. That is the truth, admited by Apple. The solution is to install other solutions (softwares) to solve iOS limitations.

@Rewarp I'm vegetarian also. The fix for animal cruelty is not just to stop eating them. As a vegetarian though I wouldn't still insist that mainstream meat eaters stop eating meat and adopt vegetarianism. That is their choice. But you seem happy to insist that mainstream computer users adopt your FOSS standards.

@aegis. Actually I am vegan, so slightly different camp. I do not insist mainstream users adopt FOSS standards. I insist Jolla does not spend money on stupid software patents. Jolla does not even have a US market until the Jolla tablet, so I would question the wisdom of pre-appealing to the general public while forgetting the demands of their original users.

It sucks if they have not been fixing problems that are plaguing Sailfish. But isn't that part of the risk of using hardware and software from a small company built around such strange ideals as trying not to screw the customer over for profit.

@rcolistete I would have to use a cable on a Jolla tablet too to read SD cards. Most cameras use full size SD. You still need ExFAT. You can't read SD cards at all on the Jolla phone apparently as that does not have USB OTG capabilities. Another paper cut.

@Rewarp Yes it's absolutely a risk that a small company doesn't have the resources to fix everything but as I said, it's been a year. That's a long time to give them a trial and if I honestly evaluate my experience, I need more. I really hope their business plan includes generating a profit though - it pays for developers and they need more IME.

So if most of cameras have SD cards (not microSD), it is more logical to transfer camera files via cable. Nowadays, I would only buy a camera with WiFi connection. Sailfish users should then focus on asking USB-OTG, USB-host, etc, so we have more ways to transfer information from Jolla devices.

I insist Jolla does not spend money on stupid software patents.

It's impossible to create an usable tablet without doing so. Like it or not, to create device in consumer space there are closed standards that have to be followed, some of them have a licensing fee. If we go down the route of categorically refusing all software patents (there is not one that was not seen as "stupid" by some), then Sailfish will end up being completely useless for average users. That would be the end of Jolla as a company, and the end of Sailfish development. To succeed we really need to attract people from Anrdoid/iOS/Windows camps to adopt Sailfish and to do so Sailfish needs to offer something better for those users - and frankly, those arguments will have to be something else than "software patents are BAAAAAAAAD!"

@rcolistete, how would that help? With a cable, the camera just acts as a big, clunky, expensive card reader. You still need an exFAT support.

But as I said so many times before it hurts, I do not care about exFAT. I care about how Jolla screws with its existing customers.

@pichlo So you should also say how Apple screws with its customers, because iPad lack many features (no microSD at all, etc).

No tablet from Apple, Samsung, LG, Asus, etc, will satisfy all users. Jolla has one tablet model. If the screen size, diversity of outputs, etc, don't satisfy some user, he/she should choose another tablet which fulfill better its requirements. It is nonsense to ask Jolla to release a tablet with all features (and lack of features) desired by thousands of different users with different preferences.

@MSH: yeah, all those closed standards that have to be followed! Projects like Neo900 definitely don't exist and certainly can't be found here!

@nthn, Neo900 has been at works since late 2013 and it's doubtful if it will deliver this year. Small hobby project for very small group of enthusiasts cannot be compared to company aiming to become "next Google."

But nobody says "Apple lost me" due to these "features". I never bought iPhone and the BT thing was/is one of the reasons.

so I would question the wisdom of pre-appealing to the general public while forgetting the demands of their original users. None of the original users didn't want the exFat support?

It is nonsense to ask Jolla to release a tablet with all features (and lack of features) desired by thousands of different users with different preferences. I'm not asking for all the features, just one that was already promised to us.

@avhakola I have all Jolla tablet announcements. None cites SDXC or exFAT. They cite microSD with 128GB capacity. Nobody has paid any Jolla Tablet perk including SDXC/exFAT. One nice possibility was to have a separate perk to add SDXC/exFAT capability, so only those interested would pay for it.

@MSH. Hence why you have a poll asking the community to determine when a licensing deal makes sense or doesn't on a case by case basis. You clearly have different standards of stupid licensing. If this isn't a blatant enough violation of the purpose of patents in the first place, I do wonder what you consider stupid licenses?

@Rewarp, that way we will have some serious infighting in community in the future. Just look at all the wars in Maemo community...

I do see problems in current software patent scheme, but as long as it is there you have to play with it at least to some degree. Other option is to go out of business with product that is not sustainable. IMO priority should be placed on making Sailfish as good as possible from user experience point of view, so that things are as easy as possible. Some of it will require licensing 3rd party closed source software bits and I'm perfectly fine with it. On non-essential stuff something might be left outside, those are the ones that might be asked from community (from which we know that the loud part will reject them no matter the cost/consequences/annoyance/whatever just because it's "bad"), but for the sake of future I do hope that Jolla is capable of leadership so that decisions on essential parts won't be outsourced to community.

I don't see any leadership problems here. Jolla obviously don't let the community dictate their decisions. For example, Sailfish is not fully open. It is a resource allocation issue. Spend money to get a feature that already works for free, or use it to improve the hardware and software that require actual labour.

This is pretty much the most slamdunk easy decision ever.

@rcolistete Nobody makes a microSD card with 128GB capacity. It's an SDXC card. At one point Jolla were claiming SDHC card support greater than 32GB when nobody mades SDHC cards greater than 32GB either.

@Rewarp there has not been a poll asking if ExFAT licencing made sense. The 'poll' asked users to suggest open source filesystems and vote on the answers. It explicitly said that excluding a feature was not to be part of the poll, so Jolla's decision to exclude a feature is at odds with what they asked people to vote for.

@rcolistete The first strech goal was for "Micro SDHC up to 128gb" but it was clear they ment the SDXC since the SDHC is only up to 32gb which was given with the original specs sheet and Jolla employees were talking about exFat on their posts to the forum.

@aegis. We have been through how many pages now of the pros and cons of exFAT licensing? The decision is now set and if you want to use exFAT, it's time to find alternatives and hacks.

@aegis No, the pool answers which were best voted explicitely stated (no exFAT licensing).

@Rewarp, if it "already works for free", then tell me which operating systems, cameras and other devices will be compatible with this upcoming solution if there is no exFAT. It's "slamdunk easy decision" only for those who could not care less about common compatibility or just about anything else but their own use cases and workarounds. Most average people interpreted the original stretch goal to be oob compatibility with SDXC-standard (as there is no such thing as SDHC over 32Gb), if exFAT support was not meant to be there from the beginning, then it would have been better not to announce such stretch goal at all. I don't want to be explaining and defending such solution to people who originally expressed interest in Sailfish when I don't believe in rationale of that decision myself.

@MSH. Use FAT32 if you want maximum card compatibility. Next question.

ok. out of here. It's like debating with born again christians. Good luck Jolla.