is coreboot any closer / is there any expected timeframe?

You can read up on it here: https://community.frame.work/t/responded-coreboot-on-the-framework-laptop/791

It looks like they're making progress! For now, you can get the Chromebook version, which already runs coreboot.

Last I heard they had sent another few boards to the guy working on it after an issue caused them to short, and die. There was supposed to be a talk at a recent conference about coreboot on the framework laptop but the speaker got sick and had to bail.

Currently, there is nothing to report. It is being worked on though and aparently is deserving of a speach. We may know more at a later point if the talk is rescheduled

Edit: correction, the broken boards may have been sent to another dev along with a fix