Bringing the Framework Laptop to more of the world

Yes, in my memory, US based company can not deal with North Korea, Iran or Iraq and some few countries legally. Bulgaria is ok to deal with. The issue is that Framework tried to utilize the locale page as a survey. I can understand it was the way to achieve the survey functionality quickly. Seeing also how they operate this Discourse forum, Framework clearly needs Senior Frontend or Full Stack Engineers, and they know it.

1 Like

They’re on the lookout for some, yes. :slight_smile:

Nice progress there!

+1 for adding Bulgaria as a country in the “locales” page.

4 Likes

Is there a reason why it’s not possible to order the laptop with the French Canadian keyboard? It’s available in the marketplace and I see other countries can choose the keyboard langage while ordering. The only way to get it at the moment is to buy a second keyboard.

1 Like

New day, and a new Framework update with a plea to show our interest in the region selection page and my country can’t do that, because it is STILL NOT LISTED. Also Framework support couldn’t understand what I had in mind, when I contacted them to say that my country is NOT LISTED. :smiley:

Anyway, said what I wanted, probably no one will notice, now back to browsing the new EU marketplace. :slight_smile:

Why the support couldn’t understand? I think it might be helpful for hte support if you send a screen shot of the drop down list to tell them visually or send this thread’s URL.

Interestingly, even small countries Bermuda and Montenegro (Црна Гора) are listed. Romania is listed. So, I don’t understand why your country Bulgaria is not listed there.

framework-locale-edit-barmuda

framework-locale-edit-montenegro

As you may know, as a reference, in the case of other laptop company, Star Labs (Linux and coreboot friendly, UK based company), the website - location page has Bulgaria.

2 Likes

You can check my post up there for details. But you’re right about the screenshot - I didn’t think of that, maybe because the support request is first triggered from a page and text only. But I can probably add some to the replies.

I hope this is enough. :slight_smile:

3 Likes

Umm… :man_shrugging: No idea what that means. How do they get interest votes if the country is not present?

Ah, Framework confirmed that they know about the problem in the other thread. :heart:

2 Likes

I assume someone in the support team replied, just using a template text to be used for a request to ask a “shipment” for a country such as “Spain, please” or “Spain when to ship?”, That is not your case.

1 Like

Adding to the “Framework doesn’t know how countries work” issue: I’m in Singapore, not even far from Taiwan. Go and check what happens if you want to express interest for that country on the locales page:

image

Now there’s two issues with this:

  1. I question the design decision to localize the list of countries, on an English website. If I read English, if the site is a survey in English, I probably want to select a country … in English (and FWIW: English isn’t my native language)

  2. The real issue is that, no, Singapore most CERTAINLY isn’t Chinese or in China or whatever. The name of the country is Singapore (or Singapura if you must), the official language is Malay (not Chinese) and … everyone uses English anyway. Listing Singapore in Chinese is about as silly as listing the USA in Thai (and FWIW: I’m not a Singaporean either, so this isn’t a patriotic thing or whatever).

I’m confused why it’s so hard to have a dropdown list of (English) country names? That’s not a difficult dataset, nor hard to obtain.

3 Likes

I lived in Singapore for 3 years in the past. Yeah, Singapore’s public language is not Chinese, but English (+ some languages).

Singapore - Wikipedia

English is the lingua franca and numerous public services are available only in English.

The information source Framework used to create the dropdown list has problems with some missing countries.

My guess is that people at Framework lived and live only in the US. They don’t know about the countries around the world, and their decisions are biased. I hope Framework will hire people who lived outside of the US or traveled many countries around the world.

3 Likes

I even sent the complete list of the English country names to Framework. But I think Framework thinks it’s better to list the countries with each local language rather than English. I can understand the way, but if the local language is “correct”.

I suppose Framework was intentional for missing countries on the list. Because in the past, December 2021, I suggested BeeAPatch to create a survey with the complete country list on this forum. But she declined with the following comment.

Message title: Change poll maximum options number from 20 to 250?

2 Likes

I did not decline, I can assure you! I just said it was a lot of options to add to a poll and unfair to those who don’t use the forum unless we posted it officially everywhere which I said I would look into.

We are aware our locale list needs some love and we have been taking all of the feedback provided to hopefully help improve this list as we are able to make those improvements :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

I hope Framework will hire people who lived outside of the US or traveled many countries around the world.

We actually have an entire Taiwan team, hiring employees who live in the Netherlands, and our team is incredibly diverse! We hope to expand to more countries one day but we absolutely have employees outside of the US. Our most recent hire actually comes from the UK As well :orange_heart:

8 Likes

We appreciate your feedback! I can definitely send your message to the rest of my team so we can look into it :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

2 Likes

OK. So, I requested you to change the maximum poll options number from 20 to 250. But you didn’t change it, and stopped our discussion at that time. The behavior meant “you declined (my request)”. Am I missing something?

That’s good to know it. I believe that people from diverse backgrounds can have great ideas. I hope you continue to improve the locale list in a better way. :smiley:

1 Like

Changes like that can’t be made just because one or even ten users request it. By not immediately changing it, and not continuing the discussion means that your input was taken into consideration, and the team needs time to decide if they will incorporate it or not. So if your request was “change this right at this very moment without thinking about it at all” then yes, your request was declined, but if it was “this is a good idea and I would like to see it implemented” then they haven’t declined it outright and are still trying to decide if it is the best course of action for this poll.

5 Likes

Thanks for the explanation. I see your point. Their pending status for my request doesn’t mean that they declined the request.

Framework may change something by a considerable number of requests. But in my experience, if an idea is great, and persuadable for decision makers, the number of requests doesn’t matter for a change. But in this case, my request was not great, and not persuadable. It was 5, 6 months ago. I am negative to see the change (from 20 to 250) now. Just to clarify.

4 Likes

Is Romania gonna be available this year?

Still wondering why can’t I order from Germany, as both of the countries are part of the EU. I understand shipping will cost more and not be free, but it’s not a fortune and I’m sure I’m not the only one who is ready to pay for the shipping costs.

Just used the DHL calculator and for a 3kg box of size 46x36x11 cm (box dimensions and weight taken from another thread) it costs <16EUR to ship, and that is with their online calculator, I’m sure a business can get even lower prices. But anyway, I would gladly pay a 20EUR shipping and be able to order it from Germany than having to wait another year (or more) to be able to order it.

4 Likes

@Robert_Nisipeanu Welcome to the forum!

It just has to do with local documentation, keyboard availability, correct adapter plugs and making sure the product follows local regulations, … (aka bureaucratics…)

While yes, shipping something via a massive carrier like DHL will be favorable in terms of the economics you’d be stuck with a device that, if damaged in shipping would have to go through a difficult process of trying to find documentation and people to RMA it to Framework, and I’m pretty sure you lose your warranty.

You can probably expect the Framework laptop to be shippable near the end of the year going into Q2-Q3 of 2023. With them hiring a lot of logistical folks in countries like the Netherlands it’ll definitely speed up delivery and availability.

1 Like