The chip is having mainline Linux support merged with 5.20, according to Phoronix: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-5.20-SoCs-8cx-Gen3-Arm
https://twitter.com/alexellisuk/status/1585562359254421504?s...
Things do seem to be improving. Releasing the Thinkpad x13s has brought attention to the 8cx gen 3 from the Linux community.
Regardless, the internal SOC is the same as the new ARM Thinkpad which also shipped with an unlocked bootloader. Pretty much everything suggests that this will ship unlocked.
That doesn't quite seem accurate.
For one example: https://www.theregister.com/2016/07/15/windows_fix_closes_rt...