>Although note, as of now, neither the Pinephone nor the Librem 5 can do MMS (they both share ModemManager and it doesn't have MMS functionality)

are there any recent discussions about debugging MMS on Pinephone I could peruse?

Well its not debugging, the functionality isn't there.

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mobile-broadband/ModemManager...

There's a start

What have you tried? Things should "just work" if you install ofono and MMSd. There are more details (urls, which forks are involved) at https://sr.ht/~anteater/mms-stack/

The basic debugging workflow is to run ofono, run MMSd, and try the scripts under the `test` directory in MMSd's source tree. Error messages logged from the script, MMSd, or ofono might be relevant.

MMSd (mms parsing, mostly) and ofono (dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 networking) need patching to make MMS work on T-Mobile; other providers might also need debugging or custom patches.

I have not even purchased yet, I think I will purchase in a couple months I've just been holding out.

I am very excited to purchase, use and tinker with the Pinephone

You can use ofono and mmsd on the Pinephone to get MMS working for both attachments and group chats: https://sr.ht/~anteater/mms-stack/

To my knowledge, only Ubuntu Touch uses ofono and mmsd. But Ubuntu Touch doesn't support MMS for the Pinephone yet either (per their Gitlab).

MMS as in text messages with images? Is that still relevant?

I remember the original iPhone not supporting MMS either but that was 13 years ago and I haven't received or sent an MMS since.

It is also used for group chats, even without images.