I think there will never be mass-market “Linux phones” in the sense of “runs a Linux kernel and you can tinker with all their parts”.

Demand simply is too low. FTA: (https://amosbbatto.wordpress.com/2026/10/05/linux-phones-alt...):

“Jolla has sold 15,000 units of its phone as of August 2026 just by taking pre-orders for production batches from its web site”

In comparison, Apple easily sells 15,000 phones each hour of the year.

So, the best hope for such a Linux phone would be to have something installable on hardware of a third party that normally ships Android. I don’t see that happen because such hardware gets locked down more and more to defend against cybercrime.

I don't think it is fair comparing Jolla agains half of the current Smartphone monopolists.

Also you need to build an ecosystem so that users and developers can get involved & open hardware fully supported by Sailfish OS is a good start.

Also a lot of mainstream mobile hardware is locked down on purpose to effectively enforce planned obsolescence, which makes it harder to port a sane OS on it.