While I agree that there are parts expenditures, I happen to think that paychecks would not have been written without a good reason (such as, necessity for food and roof and water). They have to make sure that funds aren't depleted, that the funds are still here for reaching production stage, for being able to make the devices without asking for a 2k EUR price from buyers - they don't want a crowd of people complaining and refusing to buy the final device.

It does look like they are working on a board, at first glance. But they are also sourcing N900s, from China and the like, to be able to ship full devices to those who either don't have an N900 device to put the board into, or don't wish to risk breaking something while inserting new board into old device.

While Neo900 team isn't working directly on an OS, they are cooperating with Devuan and Fremantle Porting Task Force to move Maemo 5 to the newest Linux kernel and the like.

As for "...spec wise and function wise..."... I am not buying "3 door refrigerators with computerized automatic online shopping and restocking, built in water purifier, ice maker and coffee maker" yet, nor do I think them to be available to the general public. I am thinking on a solar-powered water purifier, but I think it will become a reality for me only way after Neo900 is released. Maybe, I will get around to making a functional solar water purifier around 2020...

As for "the icebox of the last century..." Motorola StarTac could be regarded as such. And yes, I like its form factor, and would very much like to fit modern electronics into it, in such a way that it runs FreeRTOS, supports 1G/2G/3G/4G (not necessarily simultaneously; maybe, with a way to switch between them), and has relatively low power consumption (and high reliability, to the point of being useful in space or underwater).

I am not sure how the lack of visible Git updates relates to the switch from Eagle to KiCad. Also, there is a mention of git issue on the 2017-09-16: "blind man trying to fix a git issue..." KiCad migration was finished long ago.
https://irclog.whitequark.org/neo900/2017-09-16 <-- Git issue

Just take a look at >> [main] 170c67fa86d58a4df4e79fd3156597ad9e464bf0 2017-10-10 13:24 metacollin o [proto_v2_layout] [origin/proto_v2_layout] More layout progress. << Where can it be seen online?

As it was mentioned in September 2017, "The current expectation for v2 prototype layout completion is 5 weeks." No idea how much of that work was done before the metacollin's participation was "cut short due to a family emergency and has been temporarily put on hold"; metacollin is currently MIA. He was missing in October and November, I think, and then working on layout in December again. Quoting DocScrutiniser from 2018-01-23, >> layouter [metacollin] is MIA and I'm really not able to follow up like I should, since 2 months, due to health issues and other RL impact to my life. The final price still is "realistic" (or as unrealistic as it always been, anyway stable at 1k) but we need to source our minimum count of preorders like we always had to, which I hoped to achieve with a kickstarter to kick off after we got a proto_v2 to show off <<

I would start worrying if there were no news by the end of February. And I am guessing that help with Git would be welcome, since Git at Neo900 is apparently borken.

Thank you. Best wishes.
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Per aspera ad astra...