| Product | Driver Bundle Release Date | Current Driver “Age” |
|---|---|---|
| Framework 13 11th Gen Intel | 2024/06/25 | 4 months, 24 days |
| Framework 13 12th Gen Intel | 2022/07/26 | 2 years, 3 months, 23 days |
| Framework 13 13th Gen Intel | 2024/06/25 | 4 months, 24 days |
| Framework 13 7040 AMD | 2024/04/02* | 7 months, 16 days |
| Framework 13 Intel Core Ultra | 2024/07/26 | 3 months, 23 days |
| Framework 16 7040 AMD | 2024/04/02* | 7 months, 16 days |
*An updated driver package installer is available, but the drivers included haven’t been updated
As for me, I have a Framework 16. I love this machine, don’t get me wrong.
But Framework strongly discourages using component manufacturer supplied drivers, and AMD, for example, puts out updated graphics drivers nearly every month, many of which add significant features or improvements. No Framework approved drivers have been offered since then.
And the latest beta BIOS available (3.04) was released July 23; 3 months and 26 days ago. Many folks had issues, and it’s wide release was put on hold while the issues were investigated and tracked down; I completely support that plan, and have no issue with it. BUT after a week of good, solid communication, @Kieran_Levin’s last post on the topic was July 31. Since then, you (@Destroya ) replied once (quoting a single sentence from one of Kieran’s earlier replies) to someone asking a clarifying question. And then crickets. There hasn’t been any Framework provided communication on the matter since, effectively, the end of July. Given that the update was primarily one focused on patching known security vulnerabilities, personally, I have interest in getting a functional update to patch the known security issues.
From my position, armchair-sleuthing, Kieran often seems to be the primary/only Framework employee chiming in on driver/bios posts. I assume that he is the main, if not sole, current Framework employee tasked with said drivers packages and BIOS updates. Given that Framework is currently listing an open position for a firmware engineer, I can’t say Framework isn’t trying to improve and can only hope that more engineers are going to be hired to share the workload. (I haven’t cyber-sleuthed very hard, for all I know, Kieran’s LinkedIn could say he’s the manager of the firmware team 
) But we don’t know what’s going on, primarily due to a lack of communication. Which was one of the 2 main things that blog post seemed to say was changing; improving iteration speed and communication.
So, from my point of view, since the iteration speed hasn’t significantly improved, nor has the communication significantly improved, I assume the priorities that were communicated in the post have changed or updated. Policies and priorities change all the time. Stagnation in business, and especially technology companies, can lead to a quick and brutal death (of the company).
Maybe I misunderstood the post. Maybe Framework has done a bunch of work that I haven’t noticed (which, given that I don’t have a 13, admittedly I don’t pay nearly as much attention there). Or maybe Framework dropped the ball here, as they spent the first two paragraphs of the post explaining how they had previously.
I don’t know what’s going on. In isolation, I don’t need to. But I keep seeing other posts echoing my thoughts. I feel like more and more of the previously upbeat and positive community are sharing posts of doom and gloom. Maybe it’s just in the Framework 16 community tag. Maybe I’m reading into that too much as well.
Has Framework kept up with what they described in the post? Have the policies or plans regarding iteration speed or communication changed? I don’t mean to nitpick or imply that you very fine folk haven’t been working or doing good jobs doing any of the many other things that I know you all must be doing, but I just don’t feel like the action plan described in this post have been followed through.
That’s what I meant when I asked for updates.
