I am sorry but I need to open the can of worms. If you look at the following image, you’ll see the supported keyboard layouts for the Framework Laptop (regular edition) available in this moment:
As you can see, this broad option of keyboard layouts follows faithfully the top of spoken languages worldwide, except for one thing… there is no Spanish, at all. Spokesmen in behalf of Framework Laptop have claimed before, in several places, that “most of European languages will be supported”, yet one of the most spoken languages of the world, which also happens to be present in a western European country, is nowhere to be seen. Italy, with a comparable population, is covered. Even Belgium is covered. And here it is, Spain, again left to rot in a corner by a technology company.
Me and a big group of friends from Spain were thrilled about the Framework Laptop, but after seeing that after the 4th batch this situation is not changing, we have unanimously decided to not buy a single unit in the foreseable future until a satisfactory official explanation has been issued. I know some groups of Latin America that are taking a similar path. I want to note that, while using an ANSI or English ISO keyboard is not uncommon among the tech-literate population of Spain (due to mech keyboard manufacturers blatantly ignoring us), it is really uncomfortable to type complex texts in Spanish switfly with those layouts, and hence its usage is often restricted to programming or using the terminal. In a laptop, though, I must rely on the same keyboard for everything if I’m not home…
Some peers vested into technology from some Spanish universities are correlating this to racism, similarly to how many other companies have been actively ignoring the Spanish market so far. I think this is a dangerous road to follow. Personally, I do not wish to go so far in my speculation, but I am truly eager to understand what is the reasoning behind the delay of such an important (by number of speakers) layout.
It’s about economics. Spain is frankly a poor western european country. Currently, for example they have only 27.000 USD per captia, compared to 33.000 for Italy or 46.000 for Germany. It’s sad to say but Spain hasn’t been doing the best economically. However, I think that the reason is that they want to make shipping as easy as possible. France, Italy, Belgium, Austria (German) and Germany are easy and well connected markets to get started in when doing business in Europe.
If you want to talk about markets being left out, look at Russians for example. They have about 260 million speakers worldwide, far beyond Germany or Italy. It’s not a race thing, it’s economics and shipping. The Russian speaking regions are sadly poor and therefore will not be buying a laptop as much as the Germans will. And sometimes, they just have to make judgements that may not be the best for everyone individually.
Sweden, my country, has a population of 10,5 million with a really strong economy per GDP. This is about the same as Beligum, so why does Belgium get it first? Maybe, Framework has made the decision based on that they thing right to repair is more popular there or, the most logical reason, that when they start selling in Europe it will be easier to ship to Belgium from a central country like Germany. Hopefully, both Sweden, Spain and others will soon be joining the world in getting the laptops.
TL;DR: Economics and shipping is the reason. They want to expand as fast as possible, but currently they have to do it in a way that keeps them economically afloat.
To add up to what Elias_Kruse said, number of native speakers =/= number of potential buyers.
Yes, Spanish is one of the most spoken languages worldwide, but Framework doesn’t ship worlwide, yet. In their current distribution area, spanish speaking customers are nearing 48 million, since only Spain it’s part of that area. There are a lot more native speakers in the Americas.
To put another example, Portuguese is not on that list either, and has a lot of speakers both on portugal (10 M) and Brazil (215+ M). But since Brazil is not on their distribution area yet it’s unlikely they’ll pay upfront for the tooling necessary to make Portuguese localized keyboard until they enter the south american market, which I hope it’s soon enough so I can get one in Argentina.
We have a longer list of keyboards in development to cover a broader range of countries. The ones listed in the FAQ are the options that will be coming earliest though.
US English
Black Blank
Clear Blank
French Canadian
UK English
Latin American Spanish
Japanese
Belgian
Spanish
English International
French
German
Italian
Korean
Traditional Chinese (Cangjie & Zhuyin)
Swedish/Finnish
Swiss
Danish
Norwegian
Hungarian
Thai
Solvenian
Czech/Slovak
Portuguese
Do you have layout images easily available for upload? Useful for comparison of alternatives.
For me, potential alternatives are clear ISO, Swedish and Norwegian layout (dependent on patience). I’m Norwegian but only a few (less important) keys are slightly different.
Other countries have similar layouts too. Others might consider the same to shorten the wait.
Updated:Removed some additional text, found out my suggestion it was impossible looking at the keyboard part.
I live in the US (California even), where Spanish is the 2nd most spoken language. I already put in a preorder for the laptop, but I was a little disappointed to not see a Spanish layout available. I’ll definitely be ordering a Latin American keyboard layout once that becomes available. Thank goodness Framework makes this possible!!!
Also, my parents currently use a Spanish layout. With a Spanish layout, there is 1 less hurdle they have to overcome in order to switch to Framework!
You can use a US keyboard with a Spanish layout. The only difference is that because the Spanish keyboard (and many others) have an extra key (for those that don’t know our Enter key is smaller and we get an extra key).
So you missing a key. And what that key you might wonder? Nothing important really. The only signs there are ç (which Spanish itself doesn’t use, but it’s important for Catalonian) and } (the close curly bracket).
You don’t need the curly bracket for Spanish either… now wait a minute! That one seems important for something but I can’t put my finger on it.
In all seriously though Just give us a keyboard with the extra key. You need it for other languages anyway. I’d expect lots of people buying a framework laptop never looking at the keyboard anyway, so as long as the key is physically present it’s possible acceptable (since well, we can replace the keyboard later).
BTW I did get my framework already, but my plan is to use it with an external keyboard anyway so it’s not a deal breaker (because I know I’ll be able to get a Spanish keyboard soon-ish).
@Elias_Kruse I seriously doubt economics change much for a keyboard layout. They could just make it available only for the DIY edition - i.e. you want a Spanish keyboard you can have it but you have to replace it yourself, and because the US keyboard comes preinstalled you have to have (and pay for) both.
You can’t look at GBP or population as data points. Spain in global terms might not be a rich country (obviously, it’s not), but software engineers are reasonably well paid and they can afford the laptop. For now this laptop, in the quantities they can produce them, it’s an enthusiast thing, so it’s quite safe to assume that for any European country they could easily sell more than they can manufacture (since that’s quite limited at the time).
Early adopters are really important, particularly for the specialty market. The sooner they get new keyboard layouts, expansion cards, etc, in the hands of engineers willing to do some work, the better. When they eventually come to Spain officially they’ll want some local community already present.
I mean sure, that’s technically possible. But it sure is a lousy user experience, especially for non-techies.
It’s a bad enough experience that I ended up returning a US layout macbook I bought for my parents because they had trouble typing their password. In addition, the buggy macOS software would sometimes change the keyboard layout settings without warning, effectively locking them out.
It’s a much better user experience when you can eliminate the possibility of error altogether.
I do have English and Spanish keyboard layouts set up in Windows, but several of the keys don’t match up… so I would at least like a keyboard skin to easily use both
I’m really interested in buying this laptop.
I need to change my spectre x360 Intel 8th generation, but it’s seems framework is still not buyable in Spain… Any short term plans to start selling in spain?
Just give us a keyboard with the extra key. You need it for other languages anyway. I’d expect lots of people buying a framework laptop never looking at the keyboard anyway, so as long as the key is physically present it’s possible acceptable (since well, we can replace the keyboard later).