I've got a ten year old Nexus running as well as a modern tablet thanks to cyanogenmod/lineageos. Is there a more valuable free open-source community project like it for anything else in the world? Because it seems incredible to have. Hard to figure a new tablet to buy that will get that same 10 year life, some custom rom development just vanishes over time. Popularity doesn't seem to be a guarantee.
I have a second-hand Nexus 7 (repartitioned flo), probably the same as you, and I'm super happy with it thanks to Lineage OS. LineasOS 19 doesn't seem to be available for it though (yet?).
> Hard to figure a new tablet to buy that will get that same 10 year life, some custom rom development just vanishes over time. Popularity doesn't seem to be a guarantee.
If I would be buying a new tablet today, beside second hand (better for Earth, more guaranties to have a FOSS ROM running on it, and cheaper), I guess that I would go for open hardware like what Pine64 is doing: the community is dynamic, and I would not be surprised to see the device still updated in 10 years.
For phones, I guess that Fairphone is a very good option too: FOSS friendly, easily fixable, and minding about resources.