There is substantial demand for a cyrillic keyboard. Russian is a state language or a minority language in 15 countries. And then there is the diaspora, which numbers into the tens of millions.
A cyrillic keyboard should have been offered before the Belgian, Andorran and Lichtensteiner keyboards.
Would frame.work accept a bounty to start an initial production run?
Probably not the best time to release any russia focused product.
Also, it doesnt really make sense to offer a russian keyboard right now, since framework doesnt sell anywhere close to russia (afaik). Belgia, Andorra and Lichtenstein are all neighbours of countries where they sell or only a few kilometers away.
I doubt there will be a russian keyboard until framework sells in russia and that might take some time.
I feel a bit uncomfortable lobbying for the Russians – for the reasons you allude to – but as the OP points out, there are a lot of Russian speaking people outside of Russia.
I find it hard to believe that the market for a cyrillic keyboard just for people inside markets FW already services wouldn’t outpace that for a Lichtensteinian keyboard! I’m shocked, actually, that that is even a thing!
To offer a take, I’m ethnically Russian, but born outside Russia, and never gave any money or other support to Russian government (aside from whatever EU has been paying for gas all these years, of course). There’s tons of people like me in a variety of EU and other Western countries. The Russian layout support thing isn’t a political one, and I recommend you don’t make it so, that’s ridiculous and is a net negative for a large amount of people who have zilch to do with the invasion.
Wrt practical aspects… On one hand, I don’t know if there’s many Russians in countries where Framework sells laptops proportionally to other desired layouts, and let’s be real, Framework isn’t gonna start selling in Russia anytime soon On the other hand, adding Russian layout support is quite simple - there’s no need to mechanically modify the keyboard layout beyond keycaps, you can take an Intl (US) keyboard and add extra letter names on it. It’s been historically done after-purchase with stickers, but obviously, that’s not quite a viable solution for a backlit keyboard where keys have transparent lettering, and you need to manufacture or paint the keys differently afaiu? or something.
It would be great, I’d pay for it without hesitation, but I wouldn’t hold my breath, sadly. On the other hand, there’s a French keyboard, so there could very well be a Russian one!
Can you maybe 3D print the keys if you have a printer with double extruder?
They arent round or anything, so it should be quite possible, i think.
Then custom keycaps should be possible for a lot of layouts. I havent removed a keycap on my framework yet, because I never had a reason, but i think it should be doable
If framework is worried about being sanctioned, why not start production of a Bulgarian or Ukrainian keyboard? They are almost identical to the Russian layout. Are 400 million Russian/Bulgarian/Ukrainians not enough? 50 million of them reside in countries where the framework laptop is already sold.
Maybe we could put our minds together to develop a DIY method to add cyrillic characters onto an English keyboard? Anything other than stickers.
I was thinking to paint cyrillic characters onto each key using stencils. Despite extensively searching a dozen craft retailers, I was unable to find stencils small enough for the task.
Maybe someone from Russia or Ukraine knows a source?
I am also trying to figure out what kind of paint would be durable enough.
I already designed a 3D printed keycap. I am waiting on a nozzle small enough to print it, but if its possible, there should be no problem, printing a cyrillic keycap.
For a dual color keycap(black and white for sign), you might need a dual extruder printer, but maybe you can print a keycap with a cutout for the character and then print the character seperately and glue it in place or sth.
I have no experience with printing key caps, but I will try this, possibly on the weekend