add initial legacy devices section

1 files changed, 29 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/static/faq.html b/static/faq.html
index f29fa47e..87da1495 100644
--- a/static/faq.html
+++ b/static/faq.html
@@ -54,6 +54,7 @@
                         <li><a href="#recommended-devices">Which devices are recommended?</a></li>
                         <li><a href="#future-devices">Which devices will be supported in the future?</a></li>
                         <li><a href="#when-devices">When will more devices be supported?</a></li>
+                        <li><a href="#legacy-devices">Why are older devices no longer supported?</a></li>
                     </ul>
                 </li>
                 <li>
@@ -191,6 +192,34 @@
             and security. Broad device support is the opposite of what the project wants to
             achieve in the long term.</p>
 
+            <h2 id="legacy-devices">
+                <a href="#legacy-devices">Why are older devices no longer supported?</a>
+            </h2>
+
+            <p>GrapheneOS aims to provide reasonably private and secure devices. It cannot do that
+            once device support code like firmware, kernel and vendor code is no longer actively
+            maintained. Even if the community was prepared to take over maintainance of the open
+            source code and to replace the rest, firmware would present a major issue, and the
+            community has never been active or interested enough in in device support to consider
+            attempting this. Unlike many other platforms, GrapheneOS has a much higher minimum
+            standard than simply having devices fully functional, as they also need to provide the
+            expected level of security. It would start to become realistic to provide
+            substantially longer device support once GrapheneOS controls the hardware and firmware
+            via custom hardware manufactured for it. Until then, the lifetime of devices will
+            remain based on manufacturer support. It's also important to keep in mind that phone
+            vendors claiming to provide longer support often aren't actually doing it and some
+            never even ship firmware updates when the hardware is still supported by the
+            vendors...</p>
+
+            <p>GrapheneOS also has high standards for the privacy and security properties of the
+            hardware and firmware, and these standards are regularly advancing. The rapid pace of
+            improvement has been slowing down, but each hardware generation still brings major
+            improvements. Over time, the older hardware starts to become a substantial liability
+            and holds back the project. It becomes complex to simply make statements about the
+            security of the project when exceptions for old devices need to be listed out. The
+            project ends up wanting to drop devices for this reason but has always kept them going
+            until the end-of-life date to provide more time for people to migrate.</p>
+
             <h2 id="security-and-privacy">
                 <a href="#security-and-privacy">Security and privacy</a>
             </h2>