
Why does the Librem 5 phone cost that much? - fghtr
https://puri.sm/posts/breaking-ground/
======
bo1024
Sidenote: I got my Librem 5 in the mail yesterday! Below is a video of
unboxing.

[https://peertube.co.uk/videos/watch/55eece8c-2d6c-4da3-8c8c-...](https://peertube.co.uk/videos/watch/55eece8c-2d6c-4da3-8c8c-895217d66e2a)

This prototype version is definitely not ready for mass market due to (1)
known overheating issue (so far I've observed it get quite warm sometimes, but
not uncomfortably hot), (2) a bunch little software things to work on. But
it's really exciting to be able to `ls` and `cd` and `ssh` on a phone, and
know that the software updates are coming.

Purism's accomplishment already is pretty incredible on both a hardware and
software level. For me, well worth the price. Congrats to them even if there
is a ways to go yet.

~~~
dbeley
> But it's really exciting to be able to `ls` and `cd` and `ssh` on a phone,
> and know that the software updates are coming.

It's strange that SailfishOS has not caught more marketshare on the
hacker/tech enthusiast community, because it's (almost) everything people
wants about Purism : you lose a bit in the free software and open hardware
side, but you win in terms of price (used phone + 50$ license), availability
and usability (Right now, it's the only alternative to Android and iOS I can
safely recommend).

If only Jolla devs had kept their promises of open-sourcing more of their
code.

~~~
grumdan
> If only Jolla devs had kept their promises of open-sourcing more of their
> code.

I think that's a big part of the answer to why it hasn't caught among techies.
When I tried using it (shortly after release), there were numerous issues in
their default apps that nobody could fix because they are proprietary and
Jolla didn't seem to have the resources to handle all the bugs.

I'd wager that if it had been open source, the early adopters would have put
some time in to fix a lot of the bugs.

In retrospect I'm pretty pissed at them for not being honest and upholding
their promises. In my book they're basically con artists that just tried to
get the Linux community's money by saying "open source" without actually
meaning it.

~~~
ryukafalz
This, along with Jolla's bankruptcy, is why I stopped using Sailfish as a
former user. I didn't feel that I could depend on the platform sticking
around.

I later switched to Ubuntu Touch because, despite Canonical picking up the
project, the community had continued maintaining it. They could do that
because it was freely licensed; nobody could do that for Sailfish.

~~~
andrewflnr
What hardware are you running it on?

~~~
ryukafalz
A OnePlus One, though I have both a PinePhone and Librem 5 preordered, and I'm
looking forward to giving both of those a try. The OPO is nice, though I've
had issues with the battery life.

------
95014_refugee
"We had to design the hardware from scratch"

Er, no. You bought a bunch of silicon off the shelf, and you had to
_integrate_ it. Several orders of magnitude less work.

Fifteen developers, and two years? Not mentioned, but this means you didn't
write the telephony stack either.

iMX8M bringup, driver development, software integration. This is real work,
but it's a _tiny_ fraction of what goes into making your own phone.

Hoping you sell enough of these that you manage to attract adversarial
attention. Because how you deal with _that_ will be the true test of your
commitment...

~~~
jdnenej
From what I heard it was far more complex than just picking some parts from a
catalogue. They had to find parts that could all run on open source drivers
and I think they even had to convince some vendors to open source the drivers
first. It also depends on what level you call from scratch. No one designs
anything from scratch with your definition. All phones use 3rd party parts.

------
DyslexicAtheist
They are an SPC not aln LLC. Does anyone know what is the difference between a
Washington SPCs and LLCs? Is it true that as mentioned here[0] that:

 _> I think the story is that Washington SPCs are LLCs in pretty much every
aspect besides shareholder-board disputes. _

and, why

 _> have they never made a Social Purpose Report available despite the fact
that they've been an SPC for two and a half years?_

from the bottom of the article[1]:

 _> It is also worth keeping in mind that Purism isn't actually incorporated
as a typical LLC (Limited Liability Company). They are actually incorporated
as a SPC (Social Purpose Corporation) in the state of Washington. The primary
difference between an LLC and an SPC in Washington is that SPCs can do things
that are in the best interests of their customers rather than always doing
things that are in the best interests of their shareholders. It is also
important to know that in Washington this status comes with some extra
regulatory requirements ..._

\----

if formed as an SPC, shouldn't they be transparent in how they allocate
budgets to internal projects (as proof that they do what is outlined in the
Social Purpose Report (SPR))? It's a shame they don't produce a SPR which
could be used to verify the claims about price in this post.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21371573](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21371573)

[1] [https://jaylittle.com/post/view/2019/10/the-sad-saga-of-
puri...](https://jaylittle.com/post/view/2019/10/the-sad-saga-of-purism-and-
the-librem-5-part-1)

~~~
DyslexicAtheist
the failure to publish an SPR could result in law suits against purism. Fixing
this wouldn't cost much and only be a net positive (for new financial
backers). Failing to publish a report was probably not malicious (just
laziness). Still it's negligent (IMHO). And if the rumor is true that they are
having liquidity problems (as conjectured by the author of the blog post),
then they do not deserve the trust given to them by their current financial
backers on kickstarter or the tech community who evangelize them.

We urgently need alternatives and I do want Purism to succeed.

------
oefrha
What their former CTO had to say:
[https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Zlatan-T...](https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Zlatan-
Todoric-Interview)

~~~
shaftoe
Great link.

"Quantities matter [in China] and getting only dozen or couple of hundred
orders per month doesn't really help. That said, the Librems are heavily
overpriced but that is because Purism seemingly never tried to get better deal
and the South San Francisco partner abused this so that is why Purism Librems
are double the price they should be. I believe that if we had more realistic
prices, it would be much better for Purism not only financially but also more
talking about it, more of it in wild which in turn means much more orders,
more happy customers etc. The innovation is not really that hard in this space
because big players don't try to really innovate as they have strong
positions, so it wouldn't be that hard to be good or better then most of big
players even, but quantity leverage is hard to pass by."

~~~
cartoonworld
If the price were 20% less it would demand some more eyeballs.

When I saw the price I assumed they were trying to position a premium product.
I think this is a little bit of a mistake given that in the market of
handsets, Apple owns the "premium" devices, and maybe samsung counts as #2?
Nobody is crossing that Rubicon.

$700 isn't really bad but I don't like the look of it. Maybe if they can make
this thing for 6 or 7 years. People who are worried about this have been aware
of Essential phones which aren't the same, but end users aren't shopping these
Freedom characteristics.

I predict another few years of nobody batting an eye to these devices. Great
shame.

~~~
macspoofing
>When I saw the price I assumed they were trying to position a premium
product.

They are. They are building a product that let's you do anything you want on
the device.

Honestly, the phone should be priced at a premium level because it will appeal
to a demographic that will pay more for a phone that lets them break free from
the closed ecosystems of Android/Apple. It also gives them extra cash to re-
invest in the company and doesn't require them scaling their manufacturing
just yet.

~~~
icebraining
What can you do with the Librem that you can't with a Moto G?

~~~
ptx
Run a modern mainline kernel (and future mainline kernels) without losing
compatibility with the drivers for most of the hardware.

~~~
criddell
Ok, but what does that let you do that you couldn't otherwise? Nobody buys a
phone for the operating system, it's for the hardware and the software that
runs on top of the OS.

~~~
seba_dos1
Hi, I'm nobody.

I have no interest in Android or iOS. I have no interest in phones that make
it difficult to run non-android systems on them. I have no interest in devices
I have to break into in order to make them do what I want them to do.

Phones that I've been using for more than 10 years now make it easy to run
Debian GNU/Linux on them, baremetal, straight out of Debian repositories.
Those devices don't require me to run any proprietary binary blob on my
system. Those devices are supported by community years after their
manufacturers abandoned them, as mainlining makes that task actually
manageable. That's the kind of phone I'm interested in and its OS plays a big
part in it.

~~~
criddell
> I have no interest in devices I have to break into in order to make them do
> what I want them to do.

And that is?

~~~
mastazi
Do you have time? The list is going to be really long.

Just two examples: removing Google apps from Android devices, installing non-
store apps on iOS.

If you run a web search along the lines of "best apps for rooted Android" or
"best apps for jailbroken iPhone" you will find many more examples of useful
things that you can do with rooted/jailbroken devices.

~~~
criddell
But the Librem 5 isn't a rootable Android or iOS device, it's a Linux phone.
What's an example of some killer Linux-only app that's needed on a phone?

~~~
mastazi
Bash, apt-get, chmod, vim, grep, cat, crontab, python3, pip3, httpd, sqlite3,
ps, ls, top, df, lsblk, ifconfig, iptables, perl, apt-cache, chown, nano...

~~~
criddell
Sounds like you're more interested in GNU stuff than Linux stuff. Most of that
_is_ available on Android probably because it's also running Linux.

~~~
seba_dos1
Wayland/X11, PyGTK/PyQt, usbip, being able to compile apps without dealing
with Android's awful NDK, telephony scripting, itch.io's butler, PulseAudio
streaming... and those are just the first things that came into my mind.

I have a secondary Android device just out of necessity, I am a power user
with enough past experience (I was active in Openmoko community, made Debian
chroot for Kindle Paperwhite, am still using Nokia N900 etc.) and no - I have
no actual interest in Android. Stop-gaps like Debian chroots or layers on top
of libhybris won't replace the real baremetal, mainline thing.

------
lnsru
This great Dev Kit design is available for everybody: [https://kicad-
pcb.org/made-with-kicad/librem_5_dev_kit/](https://kicad-pcb.org/made-with-
kicad/librem_5_dev_kit/) Amazing piece of open source hardware. While I am not
interested in cellphones, I might use for robotics project.

~~~
m712
Here I must praise KiCad. It is one of the best pieces of FOSS software out
there. It beats almost all other (commercial or non-commercial) software in
PCB design, hands down.

~~~
dbcurtis
> It beats almost all other (commercial or non-commercial) software in PCB
> design, hands down.

You need to get out more often. Look, I am a KiCAD supporter, too. But KiCAD
is repeating the mistakes of commercial ECAD systems of the 1980’s. Am I glad
it exists? Surely. But set your sights higher. KiCAD has much room for
improvement.

~~~
skummetmaelk
Would you mind expanding on these mistakes?

~~~
atoav
This is entirely subjective, but I think the UI is needlessly unintuitive (but
_okay_ compared to other EDA tools), and the parts management seems not well
thought out IMO. A similar feeling that e.g. LTSpice gives me: you _can_ get
into it, but parts feel arbitrary and other parts feel hacky, and ultimately
you never really enjoy it.

My favourite open source EDA tool that IMO does it better is horizon EDA.
[https://horizon-eda.readthedocs.io/en/latest/feature-
overvie...](https://horizon-eda.readthedocs.io/en/latest/feature-
overview.html)

I made quite a few working PCBs with that one already. Downsides are:

\- the library is not that big yet (but adding parts is really easy, you can
even use inheritance etc)

\- won’t run on any old machine because of the OpenGL-version

\- if you are not using windows you need to compile yourself

One of the things I really like besides the UI/UX (one button hotkeys!) is the
library concept called “pool”, where every part is made up of modular pieces,
which makes things reusable and consistent. If you’d like to change the
resistor symbol for all resistors you just have to edit in one place, if you
feel like making a opamp with eight channels, just duplicate the quad one and
add four more opamp units. Their concept takes a moment to sink in, but is
incredible flexible and is one of these “why didn’t we do it like that from
the start”-ideas.

------
riazrizvi
Thanks for explaining all the work your team is doing to create this
innovative privacy phone, truly groundbreaking, I eagerly anticipate mine
arriving in March. Meanwhile Hewlett Packard, with $5bn in net income and 50k
employees, is advertising their latest innovation on my YouTube feed: a
physical switch connected to the camera.

------
awinter-py
I love how their values-based pitch allows them to miss operational deadlines
and still maintain their user appeal

When android devices have a major public video permission hole, everyone
exhales and mentally checks out. When purism is late, it sucks but it's not
the same

Pre-sale customers are along for the ride. If the lesson for other startups is
'if you're really innovating, your users will be there when you're ready', I
think that's a really good outcome.

------
pferde
"Trust in closed non-auditable complex computer systems is something everyone
has learned the hard way we should not have. The news is full each day of zero
day bugs and exploits throughout the stack–from applications to operating
systems and even down to the very silicon the whole stuff runs on."

If only. I suspect that only tech enthusiasts are aware of these issues. In
the meantime, non-technical people only give you weird disbelieving looks when
you mention this to them, and then continue ignoring it.

~~~
teddyh
> _In the meantime, non-technical people only give you weird disbelieving
> looks when you mention this to them, and then continue ignoring it._

It’s psychological. People _can’t_ believe things which would make it too hard
for them to stay the person they currently are. It’s almost impossible for
anyone to do anything but ignore and repress such information. If you ask them
later about it, they probably would deny even hearing it or having the
conversation, because _they wouldn’t actually remember it_.

Ask anyone who tried to convince a sweeping societal change based on logical
arguments. See what happened to Ignaz Semmelweis. You simply can’t convince
people of hard things with logic.

~~~
pas
They just do the naive cost-benefit analysis: everyone uses it, successful
people use these things, yet no bad things happen to them, why should I really
care?

~~~
oblio
And that behavior is rational. If I have 1 in 1 million chance of dying from a
loose brick in a building falling on my head, the rational thing is to
completely disregard this risk and live my life as usual, especially if I live
in a city.

~~~
colejohnson66
Unless it’s planes or terrorism. Why is that?

~~~
fghtr
TV propaganda?

~~~
teddyh
What you constantly hear is what you will think about. As long as people watch
TV constantly, TV will control people’s minds.

------
cjg
Most of the things that they say have caused the high cost are sunk costs in
design.

Given that the design is open, it should be possible for another company, who
doesn't have these sunk costs, to deliver the same phone for less.

Does this mean that they have the price wrong? Can selling open designs ever
recoup such design costs?

~~~
beatgammit
I don't think they've released their full hardware schematic, right? I imagine
they're waiting until they at least hit full production, and perhaps get
closer to the next rev.

That being said, Pine64 has been able to make a similar device for far less
also using their own design, so I'm a little skeptical that hardware design
was such a large part of the price. I'm guessing the bulk of it was getting
the SoC up and going since Pine64 had similar products that likely make it
simpler to design a phone SoC.

------
strooper
It would all make sense to me, if they wouldn't charge $800 and $1000 for 24"
and 30" monitors (with keyboard and mouse) respectively. Are they designing
the monitors from ground up as well?

Business around privacy is a thing going on for at least a decade. However, we
often forget that our data flow is controlled, monitored, and stored by those
who we try to protect our data from.

~~~
bo1024
Remember these were and are offered as part of a fundraising effort to be able
to develop the phones. So I think those prices are targeted at people who want
to make a serious donation to the cause as well as getting the hardware.

~~~
olau
Indeed. After reading the blog entry, I feel like buying a Librem 5 even
though I don't want a large phone (am on an old small dumb phone that lasts 3
weeks on a charge).

We've seen so many NIH (on the software side) phones over the years, and then
finally this. It bodes well for the future.

------
GordonS
A bit OT, but I didn't know Librem made laptops - does anyone here have any
experience with them, especially the 13" model?

~~~
mike-cardwell
They're expensive for what they are, but I want one anyway. The only reason I
haven't so far is because they only have US keyboards. If I'm going to spend
that much on a laptop, I want my £ key!

~~~
jdnenej
Can't you just map that in software?

~~~
mike-cardwell
I don't want to. I want a laptop with a physical £ key. Like my Macbook and my
Thinkpads have.

------
Pmop
Well, they could say that it's expensive but at least you get to really own
the phone, not the other way around. Technical wording works best with
technical people.

------
131012
Has anybody received them? Last time I checked, deliveries were suspiciously
late.

~~~
DJHenk
There is this guy on Reddit:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Purism/comments/e2mqgb/i_have_my_li...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Purism/comments/e2mqgb/i_have_my_librem_5_ama/)

~~~
sfkdjf9j3j
Am I reading this correctly? This is a $700 phone that doesn't have a working
camera and can't make phone calls?

~~~
fghtr
Not yet. In comparison with other phones, this one will be getting better with
time, not worse.

------
DCKing
This blogpost propagates what I'd like to describe as an urban legend about
baseband processors and main memory. The story originates from old times where
even fancy phones allowed the baseband to write everywhere in main memory. The
myth then becomes that you need the baseband physically separated from your
main application processor.

But the world's moved on since those reports were made. It's FUD:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/CopperheadOS/comments/6wtul0/on_sen...](https://www.reddit.com/r/CopperheadOS/comments/6wtul0/on_sensationalism_about_basebands_all_future/)

~~~
alex_duf
I know very little about the topic so bearing that in mind:

We're already in a world were we can't quite trust our CPUs, so why trusting
baseband chips?

If it does make the design more complicated, it may also reduce the potential
attack surface.

~~~
DCKing
We can't fully trust the correctness of modern complicated CPU designs,
leading to problems like <insert all speculative bypasses that have affected
Intel CPUs the past 2 years>. But despite their complexity, CPUs and the CPU
part of a smartphone SoC are usually extremely well understood (relatively
speaking). The reason is that you _actually need to run your software_ on
these CPUs, so they need to be understood rather well. With better
understanding comes better trust.

On the other hand, the baseband processor is mostly unknown, black box
hardware, running unknown black box software, that completely controls the
transmission of cellular data. Of course it would be horrible if there was no
separation between the CPU and baseband. You shouldn't trust that setup. But
as it turns out, separation does exist!

~~~
ptx
> But as it turns out, separation does exist!

The article you linked to says: "There can be an IOMMU with very tight
restrictions providing proper isolation or a setup where the IOMMU is
effectively not doing anything and permits access to all of the memory.
Determining that requires real research."

So it sounds more like separation might or might not exist and you're not
likely to find out if it does on your particular device.

------
kulahan
I'm glad they put out this article - I've been thinking about picking one of
these up, but the price surprised me. I wonder if the same reasoning holds
true for their laptops? They're really nice, but the $1400 starting price is
pretty steep considering the specs.

Side note: this is the strangest font I've seen in a long time. Why is the
lower-case "t" smaller than every other letter? It almost looks like one of
those fonts designed for dyslexic readers, but with no variations in the width
of the letter strokes, I don't think that's the case. Anyone know if it was
just a really strange choice, or if it serves some greater purpose?

------
Aeolun
I don’t think a $700 phone is terribly expensive. I mean, yes, it is, but as
long as they stay below iPhone pricing I don’t see how anyone can complain.

~~~
mattkevan
The Librem is $700 and, at launch, doesn't include basic functionality like
calendars, calculators and notes.

Sure I'm comparing apples to lemons here, but the first iPhone was $500,
twelve years ago, and much more functional.

~~~
jancsika
Yes, the first iPhone was $500 12 years ago. And today, through the miracle of
the free market an iPhone will only cost you... $599 with trade in.

 _adjusts glasses, shuffles papers_

Gotta be missing some pages here...

~~~
mattkevan
To be fair, the iPhone 11 is well over two orders of magnitude more powerful
than the iPhone 1.

Not bad for another $99.

------
gorgoiler
Naive question, but with a commercial product like the i.MX8M from NXP
Semiconductors, is there really not enough in it for them to develop Linux
support for their product, rather than leaving it to other parties? Presumably
some OS supported things like the i.MX8M’s accelerometer from the launch date,
or are these chips shipped to OEMs on the basis that the low level functions
work, but all OS support has to be created by someone else?

~~~
teddyh
For some reason, every hardware company, without exception, it _terrible_ at
software development. They just can’t do it right. It’s probably a cultural
difference, somehow, with the developent style and/or NDA requirements
possibly having their impact.

~~~
sildur
Apple too?

~~~
NateEag
Lately, Apple does kinda suck at software development.

I spent days hunting down issues in the launch iOS 13 simulator that turned
out not to happen on real hardware (and had never happened worth the iOS 13
launch).

Their UX is on a downward trend for several years now, IMO.

Historically I've heard Apple described as a software company that uses
hardware to achieve competitive advantage.

Apple sucking is relative, obviously - their stuff is still better than most
other products, but it's not add good as it used to be, IMO.

I wonder if the iPhone's success has transformed them into more of a hardware
company?

~~~
lonelappde
Name a good piece of software of similar power

~~~
FpUser
What software are you talking about? If it is the whole OS then it is a matter
of user's preference and telling Mac user that PC is better and the other way
around is the best way to heat air without any useful outcome.

------
skinnyasianboi
I love the software part in the article. Basic GTK apps just need a few
changes and they start working seamless on both Desktop and smaller displays.

------
baybal2
You can definitely make a cookie cutter 65nm SoC under $1m.

SoC has a gigantic cost advantage over discrete parts, let alone PCIE cards.

The only showstopper is the 4G radio. _There are no IP vendors for it at all_
, and that is very much a result of things antitrust regulators should've been
taking care of.

------
shmerl
_> and that we would never make it with GNOME. Well, here we are, we are
shipping with GNOME / GTK+_

What's the reason not to use Plasma Mobile though? I'd prefer investment of
effort into that.

~~~
amiga-workbench
I cant speak for them, but Gnome is far ahead on UI polish and general
tidiness. I keep checking in on Plasma Mobile every few months and how nobody
has fixed the god awful interface proportions yet is beyond me.

I see the same problems on desktop Plasma, wildly inconsistent padding, UI
elements not lining up and bits of the interface crushed and cramped, while
100px below you have gigantic elements.

If you're going to take a swing at doing a FOSS phone right, you really need
to avoid the wonky programmer art or you are not going to convince the average
user that its any better or more polished than previous failed attempts.

~~~
shmerl
In desktop case, Plasma is ahead of Gnome in features and functionality. Not
sure what you refer to in regards to padding, but Gnome has its own UI issues
like lack of server side decorations for SDL windows and such, due to Mutter
being very limited.

Can't say about Plasma Mobile though, but that's the point why investing
effort into that would be useful. The base is more promising than Gnome one.

~~~
ptx
> Not sure what you refer to in regards to padding

I can't find a good introduction on the topic at the moment, so I'll just
quote Microsoft's succinct answer: "Alignment makes your UI look neat,
organized, and balanced and can also be used to establish visual hierarchy and
relationships."

They also have a nice illustration: [https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/uwp/design/layout/a...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/uwp/design/layout/alignment-margin-padding#alignment)

This kind of thing matters for usability. KDE has always been ahead in
technical features, but GNOME has for a long time been way ahead in paying
attention to basic principles of visual design.

~~~
shmerl
Look-n-feel issues sound very subjective to me. And I don't like common
Gnome's attitude of _" We know better than you what's good for you, because
that's what some new theory dictates, so we'll make it hard for you to do it
differently"_. MS suffers from exactly the same mindset.

Personally, I never had problems with KDE design. If anything, I prefer it to
Gnome's. Plus KDE is so customizable, that if you don't like something, you
can find a way to change that.

------
cryptozeus
Its only $699, why are they calling it expensive? I paid $1100 for unlocked
iphone.

~~~
TylerE
Because the specs are much lower. You can buy an Android phone with the same
or better specs for $50.

------
ForFreedom
I need bitcoin to purchase the phone

~~~
RandomBacon
They take Monero, so you can try
[https://LocalMonero.co](https://LocalMonero.co)

or if there isn't anyone you want to buy from, you can try LocalBitcoin and
then convert.

------
cryptozeus
Great idea but man what a missed missed opportunity on the naming? I do not
want to but a phone called librem.

------
jokoon
How about you make a cheaper product without software bloat? I don't think a
smartphone requires 3GB ram to work. Those smartphones are not high end, but
they have incredible specs and yet I don't see any logic that justifies them.

There should be a market for electronics that goes against planned
obsolescence. Build a device that runs a good enough OS, with low specs, that
doesn't require fast hardware, make it sturdy and last at least 3 years, and I
would buy it.

I refuse to spit more than $200 for any of those devices. People say "but I
used it everyday, it is my main computer", well with all due respect you are
addicted to your phone.

The smartphone industry is bizarre. Of course you can accuse Apple and google
ecosystems, but still.

~~~
evolve2k
Excuse my comment if I’m incorrect, but did you read the article?

“How about you make a cheaper product without software bloat” To me this was
very clearly answered with we broke new ground building the right system from
the ground up and that was expensive.

And we used our existing OS as the base and we’ve achieved true mobile <> PC
converance.

Give the article a full read and please consider editing this comment.

The reason for the cost was literally what was covered in the article.

~~~
jokoon
I doesn't warrant 3GB of ram, sorry.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
But RAM is dirt cheap, so why not?

~~~
jokoon
3GB ram will greatly increase the size of the SOC, and ram increase power
usage

------
gwd
This is an amazing effort, but I think...

> Well, here we are, we are shipping with GNOME / GTK+

...this point is I think quite unfortunate. I tried to write a GTK+ program a
few years ago and it was completely impossible. Using GNOME / GTK+ will surely
limit its attractiveness of a development platform. It's too bad they couldn't
have done something based on Qt instead.

EDIT: Rather than downvoting, why don't you post your contrary experience with
GTK+?

~~~
aflag
I think you're being downvoted due to the broad, unsubstantiated, statement
that it's impossible to write code with gtk. It's obvious that gtk is a very
successful platform. If you want to make such an extraordinary claim, the
burden of proof is on you. It requires more than "I tried to write an app a
few years ago"

~~~
gwd
Thank you for the explanation. It's not so much that I don't understand why
I'm being downvoted, or even complain about it per se; it's just that it's not
terribly informative, either for me, or to anyone reading.

Strictly speaking, everything I wrote was about my own personal opinions and
experience. I did try writing an app; I did find trying to figure out was was
going on impossible (and switching to web development much more fruitful). So
it's natural for me to think that lots of people will have similar
experiences, and that if they do, it will limit the growth of the platform.

I knew that what I wrote might be controversial, and I'm willing to take my
downvotes like a man. But I'd rather be shown other perspectives.

