Hey, everyone. Got a Framework 16 recently and I’ve been getting settled in. Love this machine so far, but I was looking to start messing with QMK for the keyboard. Typically, I just have a fork off of qmk/qmk_firmware where I keep my configs, but I couldn’t find the Framework 16 config in there. After some digging, I found the repo at FrameworkComputer/qmk_firmware and realized that the changes were there and never got pushed upstream.
Is there a reason for this? It seems like most keyboard manufacturers choose the push their changes upstream to standardize how people are modifying their keyboards, but Framework isn’t doing that. Considering that there hasn’t been a new release since December 2023 (v0.2.9), it seems like Framework is happy with the current state of their config, and that a PR should be opened to pull it upstream.
I was trying to find the exact post where the Framework team explains the rationale, but can’t pin it down. At any rate, for now, you use Framework’s own fork of the VIA software to configure with their fork of the firmware:
A community member also made a fork of the firmware that supports OpenRGB, if that’s your preference:
Someone from the FW team will have to chime in and remind us of the reasons this isn’t merged upstream yet.
I’ll see if I can find it, but I didnt have much luck findung anything from Framework kn it wgeb I looked initially.
I had used their web configurator, but I just love the degree of granularity you can get when you actually configure your own keymap. That, coulled with already knowing how to get exactly what I want out of QMK, gives me a very strong preference to just building the QMK firmware myself.
The Framework Team regularly responds in the forums, so I’m sure they will come along and explain things once they see this post. IIRC, there were plans to eventually fully merge everything upstream, I just don’t recall what the exact holdup was or when they expected to have this done.
Edit: @Destroya, could you shine a light on this for us? Now that my brain has circled back to this after my own exploration of the keyboard months ago, my curiosity has been piqued again. I was certain I stumbled upon a forum topic discussing it last fall, but I can’t find it now.
Do you mind reminding us after the February 25th event? I don’t have the answer but can ask around when we have more time!
Oh, nice. I have been wondering forever.
I feel like I’ve seen most QMK talk, on the forum, at least. But I totally missed it if someone explained.
I know they had to get into some of the lower level QMK functions to add in support for the airplane mode key. They had a merge request to incorporate it into QMK, but it looked like it kind of, just died. I don’t know what happened.
Ah! That confirms it! The RGB wheel in the 25th event announcement is in reference to OpenRGB being officially implemented on the Framework keyboards!
Digging through the PRs and Issues, it looks like Daniel Schaefer was getting push back from the QMK maintainers when looking to merge, and then the PR closed due to inactivity. After that, there was about 2 more months of activity on the FrameworkComputer qmk_firmware fork, 0.2.9 was released, and it appears to hasn’t been touched since. They also had the qmk_hid repo, which was being worked on a lot around the same time, but stopped in NOV2023. It has seen a few spurts of activity, but hasn’t seen a release since then. It feels like Daniel was working on the keyboard a lot in 2023, it got to a “good enough” state, and other priorities took over. Thankfully he’s still with Framework and continues to work on the Framework 16 stuff, so maybe there’s a chance priorities can shift back to QMK at some point?
Oh, you mean like trying to get FL16 to a point where they could ship it. It was supposed to ship about then, and got enough units out the door that you wouldn’t overrun your fingers counting them, before Christmas.
I didn’t think OpenRGB support was compatible with Via support, but I never looked into.
That would be a pretty hard requirement for OpenRGB being a major announcement in the Feb 25th event. Either Via or Vial support being able to fully coexist with OpenRGB support. Giving up GUI key map config is not something most normal people will be willing to do.
I don’t have the answer but can ask around when we have more time!