Indeed.

For the last few years I've hated getting e-mail updates from Framework that announce their progress.

The emails implore to Order Now but alas I can not as my EU country is still not supported.

Plenty of businesses sell hardware across EU from a single EU entity.

Been waiting for it being available in Sweden for what feels like ages now. Sigh.

Note they have actually lifted the (illegal) ban on freight forwarding within the EU, if you’re willing to risk it. Only took, what, three years?..

Well, if I select Norway I read:

"We haven’t opened ordering in your region yet, but we’re looking forward to getting there!"

This is definitely illegal inside the European Economic Area, but I guess they are not aware of that. It is allowed not to ship to a specific area in some cases, but not refuse to sell entirely based on the country.

If there is someone from Framework Computer Inc. reading this message: you do not need to comply with any local law if you are not targeting a specific country inside the European Economic Area; you just need to follow the EU rules. Therefore, it does not make any sense to prevent people from a specific EEA country to buy your products (and that is illegal as well). Please fix it! :)

See the KB article[1]. You’re supposed to find a freight forwarder in a EU country that they “support”, select that as your country and ship there (and thence wherever you actually want to). The only allowance is that they will deign to not actively decline your payment or cancel your order if you pay with a credit card from another EU country (unlike everywhere else in the “unsupported” world[2]). I guess that’s probably legal?..

(I don’t know if they actually mean EEA when they say EU, or if they actually mean EU. That may be important given you’re in Norway.)

[1] https://knowledgebase.frame.work/eu-unsupported-SJByUb7a

[2] https://knowledgebase.frame.work/does-framework-support-frei...

Thanks for the links :) They should use EU/EEA actually, since the very same rule apply to the whole EEA. Given what they have written, I guess they would be glad to amend the page.

to be fair, you can always have the package forwarded (that's what I did)

it's obviously not perfect, though

Never used such services before, and I would dislike the extra hop in case it needs servicing under warranty.

agreed, the service point is a big one and should not be discounted

Hasn't Framework been struggling to ship firmware updates? It would be better if they use the money to patch up their fundamentals before expanding.

AFAIK they largely fixed that problem on their backlogs and have been picking up steam since about a year ago though I doubt they won't have some problems with firmware at launch for the next few launches.

Correct. See https://frame.work/blog/enabling-software-longevity

Just had a firmware update for my 13" AMD variant the other day. There are definitely still firmware issues to be solved in my opinion though.