
The Librem 5: A Matrix-Native FLOSS Smartphone - Arathorn
https://matrix.org/blog/2017/08/24/the-librem-5-from-purism-a-matrix-native-smartphone/
======
jph
Massive props to you all -- thank you for this step for freedom.

Purism is doing some of the most exciting work in the field of personal
privacy and consumer computing.

The tech blog is terrific, the laptops are coming along nicely, and the team
is making inroads deeper into the chipsets and drivers.

Librem 5 crowdfunding:
[https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/](https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/)

Matrix on Patreon:
[https://www.patreon.com/matrixdotorg](https://www.patreon.com/matrixdotorg)

Purism blog posts: [https://puri.sm/posts/](https://puri.sm/posts/)

~~~
aloisdg
Matrix on Liberapay:
[https://liberapay.com/matrixdotorg/](https://liberapay.com/matrixdotorg/)

------
morganvachon
If this campaign is as sketchy as their laptop was, no thanks. I already don't
trust them because of their misdirection in that project, they have a ton of
goodwill and trust to rebuild before they can be taken seriously.

[https://hackerfall.com/story/the-truth-about-purism-why-
libr...](https://hackerfall.com/story/the-truth-about-purism-why-librem-is-
not-the-same)

[http://www.pcworld.com/article/2960524/laptop-
computers/why-...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/2960524/laptop-
computers/why-linux-enthusiasts-are-arguing-over-purisms-sleek-idealistic-
librem-laptops.html)

~~~
ZenoArrow
Let's put it like this... many laptops can run a FLOSS operating system, but
how many smartphones can you say the same about? There's only a handful I can
think of, and most of those are no longer produced. Even if not every binary
blob is removed, the opportunity to kickstart a FLOSS-based phone ecosystem is
not one that comes along that often.

~~~
morganvachon
My problem isn't that they couldn't pull off a fully open laptop, it's that
they lied and said they would, knowing from the start they were dealing with
chips that were impossible to open source. Then, they doubled down and lied
again. If I contribute to a campaign that says they will give me something,
and they fail to come through not once but twice, I expect my money back. They
are scam artists as far as I'm concerned.

If one guy[1] can pull off a truly, fully open hardware and software laptop,
you'd think a fully funded startup could do better. It's embarrassing.

[1] [https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-
kosagi/novena](https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/novena)

~~~
jancsika
bunnie didn't pull that off. I don't remember the exact details, but there was
some piece of hardware on that machine that kept the FSF from endorsing it, as
well as an additional piece of hardware (perhaps the GPU?) that bunnie said
the FSF hadn't even considered such that he didn't pursue the endorsement any
further.

Also, the Novena isn't really a laptop, but more like an all-in-one with a
hydraulic arm that raises the screen while exposing all the innards to the
open air to accommodate tinkerers. The laptop bunnie offered was somewhere
around $5,000 with an enclosure made of wood that was designed by a guest
artist. I don't remember the final tally but I think there were less than 10
built, and that was it.

~~~
davexunit
The Novena has a Xilinix FPGA that can only be programmed using proprietary
software. I own a Novena and only run free software so I don't use that
component at all.

~~~
jancsika
Do you use the GPU?

------
mrhigat4
I have doubts, but I've been waiting for a phone like this for a long time. I
hope it works out and gets enough funding. I'm glad they didn't make
compromises on the OS, hardware switches, etc. I wish more companies would
cater to passionate yet non-mainstream markets. It's crazy a truly hackable
linux phone doesn't exist today.

------
Accacin
That looks really interesting. Their funding target seems quite high so I'm
not entirely convinced that they'll be able to meet it.

I will definitely try and support this project as I'd love to be able to move
to a more open phone.

Link to their crowd funding page:
[https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/](https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/)

~~~
bradfa
I'm surprised you think that the funding target seems high. I personally
believe their funding target is in the range of 10-20x too small to actually
make a smart phone, especially when they plan to make all their own software
and not simply reuse Android/Sailfish/Ubuntu as a starting point.

I expect that just the certifications for the radios, both for various
countries/government agencies and various phone carriers, to cost them many
hundreds of thousands of dollars. And that cost has nothing to do with
actually designing any of the hardware or software.

~~~
pfooti
There are two ways to interpret their funding goals: based on projected cost
and based on projected backers. 1.5 million dollars may not be very much money
for smartphone development, but it is very ambitious as a crowdfund goal. It
basically requires around 2500 backers ($1.5MM / $600) to pay $600 out of
pocket for a device that, at best, will be delivered in 18 months.

Given the success path of _most_ hardware kickstarters, I'd be surprised if
this fully funded. The price point is relatively high (even though it is a
whole phone, I get that, it is just a lot of money). I'd also be surprised if
it actually delivered in 18 months. That's basically saying: "we have the
design all done and are in our final mass production engineering phase right
now". I mean, if you follow any prior hardware kickstarters that include
significant production parts (pebble, keyboardio to name just two), the one
major lesson is: mass production takes a _ton_ of time and money to get right.

~~~
bo1024
> the one major lesson is: mass production takes a ton of time and money to
> get right.

True, but that said, Purism has plenty of experience with this entire process
through their laptops. Hopefully the lessons they've learned there will help
them a lot here.

I'm very happy with my Librem 13 laptop so far and pre-ordered a phone. I know
there's some risk of failure but I'm happy to put my faith in Purism here,
based on what I've seen from them so far.

------
pfooti
I am sort of troubled by the crowdfund page. It is obviously designed to look
like a kickstarter page, but it is in fact not a kickstarter. Say what you
will about kickstarter, but I have questions.

Will the campaign charge you even if it doesn't reach its goal? There is no
indication one way or the other on this page.

What are the refund / delivery guarantee policies here? KS ones are
potentially controversial, but they at least are written down.

Are those pictures of the phone actual pictures or renders / mockups? KS has
explicit policies about that, but this context makes that unclear.

~~~
icebraining
_Will the campaign charge you even if it doesn 't reach its goal? There is no
indication one way or the other on this page._

Just scroll down..

 _" What if you don’t reach the funding target?_

 _It will show that there is not enough interest in producing a device that
focuses on security, privacy, and digital rights, which will be a tremendous
social disappointment. If we don’t reach our target then all contributions
will be fully refunded. "_

~~~
pfooti
Hmm, interesting. I will admit I missed that (as it was halfway through the
FAQ, and I've got to say: passive aggressive). That said, they make it sound
like you get charged up front when you back, and will get a refund if it fails
to fully fund. This is a pretty significant departure from traditional
crowdfund platforms (ks, igg) where you're charged when the campaign ends,
only if it succeeds. Adding an extra two months of lockup to your money and
"we promise we'll refund" just feels ... sketchy.

I mean: I like what the purism people are doing, don't get me wrong. I'm a fan
of their librem stuff, ever since the crowdsupply days. But like: is there a
reason they're not doing this on crowdsupply? Again, it just feels like a dark
pattern to use these visual cues to suggest kickstarter while not adhering to
standard crowdfund policy.

~~~
throwaway613834
I feel like on every Kickstarter I've tried, I've gotten charged the first
moment. Are you sure this is not the case?

~~~
icebraining
No, they may ask for an authorization of funds, but they don't actually charge
unless the project hits its goal:
[https://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/backer+questions#faq_41...](https://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/backer+questions#faq_41760)

(Scroll a bit up, it seems their fixed header hides the question when directly
linked)

~~~
throwaway613834
Thanks! I guess I must have never noticed the charges when the campaigns have
ended so I'd always assumed it was in the beginning. That's good to know!

------
mrhigat4
I support the whole idea, but I think it's premature.

The Riot app in my experience has a pretty unwelcoming UI/UX experience and is
still insanely buggy. Things like Jitsi integration, widgets and a phone
partnership should be after a solid, stable 1.0 MVP IMHO. Encryption is still
opt-in and beta.

So super supportive of the environment, the momentum and a native matrix phone
partnership is the right move eventually, but please get it stable, fast and
polished first before branching out too far.

~~~
orblivion
> Encryption is still opt-in and beta

This is the part that concerns me.

[https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-
moving/](https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/)

Moxie lays out a challenge to federation enthusiasts to prove him wrong that
federated chat can be secure and have good usability. I would respectfully
note that Matrix seems to be responding to the challenge with a chat client
that is neither. Instead they seem to be doubling down on federation and
integrations. Usability can be fixed, but the federation and multiple clients
makes it a challenge. Security on the other hand is, again, concerning because
it feels tacked on. It's not on by default because, again, it makes it
complicated when you have multiple clients. Last time I tried, you could put
in your password on the web client (browser encryption!) and join an existing
conversation, and see all future posts by the people in the conversation,
because suddenly they've accepted your new public key. I had to dig a little
bit in the configs to find the current public keys for the clients in the
conversation. Either they have to make a UX-friendly way of warning everybody
that there's a new client, or accept that stealing an account password will
let you snoop on conversations. I really appreciate their enthusiasm, and I
hope someone gets federation right, but it just seemed like a mess.

By contrast, I think that Signal recognized that you can work around the
security vs usability tradeoff by trading off on a third vector: feature set.
I think that we won't get a federated system until someone heeds Moxie's
warnings and does some careful, creative thinking.

~~~
Arathorn
> It's not on by default because, again, it makes it complicated when you have
> multiple clients

This is simply not true. The reason it's not on by default is because we're
still developing it and it's in beta. It's not tacked on; we've designed in
E2E from the outset - but implementing it well in a decentralised manner is a
huge amount of work; probably 5-6x more than in a centralised system like
Signal. We're not going to enable it by default until we are 99.999% sure that
it won't cause regressions over the non-e2e client.

> Either they have to make a UX-friendly way of warning everybody that there's
> a new client

I think you must have tried it a (very long) while ago - we've had the
UnknownDeviceDialog since February. It looks like this
([https://matrix.org/_matrix/media/v1/download/matrix.org/mOOj...](https://matrix.org/_matrix/media/v1/download/matrix.org/mOOjVegIyiNaqJdLapRgfref)),
and warns you every time a new device is added to the room, and gives you the
option of blacklisting it from receiving your messages if you don't trust it.

Now, totally agreed that this UX is ugly and needs work, but this is _NOTHING_
to do with the decentralised or federated nature of the protocol. It's simply
that we currently are very resource constrained currently for working on web
front-end issues.

That said, if your ONLY priority is security, then Moxie's "the ecosystem is
moving" probably has a point. After all, in an open ecosystem like Matrix,
it's possible someone will fire up a buggy/malicious client and inadvertently
compromise a room. However, if you value freedom as well as privacy, Matrix or
OMEMO are basically your only choices.

~~~
solatic
> After all, in an open ecosystem like Matrix, it's possible someone will fire
> up a buggy/malicious client and inadvertently compromise a room.

Isn't this a case for building in some kind of system whereby clients can be
signed and have their signatures revoked by their creators or, for lack of a
better word, ostracized by the wider community? Sort of like a web of trust
model, but for clients, not just users, to make it more clear when somebody is
joining with an untrusted client and perhaps allow moderator control over
whether to allow untrusted clients to join.

~~~
Arathorn
Possibly, but this is heading into seriously DRM territory. one would need to
be running the app in some kind of secure enclave that could attest to the
authenticity of the app (e.g. via SGX on Intel). There's something a bit
unsavoury about saying that "only truly official signed apps are allowed to
participate in this open network", and it gives a huge amount of power to
those responsible for the secure enclave/trusted computing stuff. (There's
also the approach that djb mentions in
[https://twitter.com/hashbreaker/status/732912508089032706](https://twitter.com/hashbreaker/status/732912508089032706))

It's possible that just relying on social mechanisms may be enough to
discourage people from running known evil apps (similar to educating users not
to install malware today, or do trusted operations with cybercafe computers,
or whatever). Effectively, the verification process when going and explicitly
trusting a new device needs to explicitly prompt the user to consider where on
earth this app came from, and if it should be trusted.

The only alternative is really DRM, which just feels wrong.

~~~
solatic
>There's something a bit unsavoury about saying that "only truly official
signed apps are allowed to participate in this open network", and it gives a
huge amount of power to those responsible for the secure enclave/trusted
computing stuff.

Maybe it's a bit naive, but isn't that what federation is supposed to solve?
People who are more security-paranoid can forbid clients which don't have the
highest security certification, and operators who aren't so diligent will be
fine with signed clients being run on untrusted hardware.

I mean... is there any open-source software being developed today which
enforces key security in secure hardware enclaves? Verifying the GPG
signatures on binary packages is "good-enough" for most operators. Build
reproduceability will help to further reduce trust of unverified hardware.

It seems to me the job of the protocol, and baseline/recommended UI/UX, is
merely to help users make informed decisions. Security is a spectrum, and if
signed clients improve security (while not fraudulently representing itself as
perfect or near-perfect security, if it were running on trusted hardware),
then that's a net benefit to the open network.

~~~
Arathorn
I may be missing something, but how do you prove that an app is running a
trusted codebase? I know of no PGP clients for instance that sign messages to
try to prove that they were sent from a trusted app (as opposed to a trusted
user). The only way I know of to do this would be to hook into a trusted
execution environment of some flavour like Intel's SGX or Apple's Secure
Enclave, to let effectively the chip vendor sign off that you are running an
official app installed by official means. You /could/ do this, but you are
putting a lot of trust in the secure enclave implementation and those
controlling it, and essentially putting all your eggs in one basket. It might
also lure users into a false sense of security: just because a user is using
an appstore signed copy of an app doesn't mean that app is actually
trustworthy or bug free. And it would also artificially discriminate against
legitimate apps which aren't part of a trusted execution environment, which
seems dangerous - and effectively promoting DRM at the expense of FOSS.

This certainly needs more thought :)

------
INTPenis
I remember jumping on the N900 bandwagon.

Hardware wise, for its time maybe, it was perfect with its full qwerty
keyboard.

Software was so bad it was tragic. You couldn't even trust phone calls to
work.

Clearly I want a FOSS phone to work but the market is miniscule and therefore
the product quality will likely remain on a hobbyist level.

Furthermore I tried the Jolla phone and that wasn't exactly FOSS but the small
team could be compared to what you might see in a FOSS phone. And again it was
barely useful.

I also tried the ZTE Firefox OS phone, it felt like a toy and the OS was
crippled.

~~~
JoshTriplett
I used an N900 for years as my primary phone. It worked very well for me,
including for calls.

I eventually gave it up, solely because I wanted the ability to run specific
Android applications.

But honestly, if I had the power of a full Debian-based system, I wouldn't
need that.

------
AdmiralAsshat
[https://matrix.org/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2017/08/purism5.p...](https://matrix.org/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2017/08/purism5.png)

Is this what the actual phone will look like? Some kind of context photo with
a reference hand would be great, because the dimensions and shape otherwise
suggest this would be comparable to holding a Kindle or Nexus 7 next to my
head!

~~~
robto
The details are available on the Purism[0] site. I really like that they are
adding physical switches to control the microphone, camera, baseband, and
bluetooth. And that they are giving a lot of thought to separating the
baseband procecessor from the cpu. And that it will be an ip-based phone
handset, which means I can use a regular linux os that respects my freedom.
I'll have to learn more about PureOS!

With matrix's e2e encryption based on the OWS system, we may see the first
reasonable take on a privacy conscious smartphone.

I was looking at the Dragonbox Pyra, but this seems even better. I'm pretty
excited, I may actually upgrade from a dumbphone for the first time now if
this comes out.

[0][https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/](https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/)

~~~
nathcd
> I was looking at the Dragonbox Pyra, but this seems even better.

I've been following the Dragonbox Pyra for a while too -- I actually just sent
a link to a co-worker this morning.

The Librem 5 does seem really awesome, but what I really like about the Pyra
is the physical keyboard. If I could have the Librem 5-alike in a Blackberry
KeyOne or Pyra-like form factor, I would be one happy camper.

In other words, I really want a device that could replace both my laptop and
phone, in terms of productivity. It seems like the Dragonbox Pyra is more
closely aligned to that ideal than the Librem 5.

~~~
robto
Well the nice thing about that is that this project will bring a nice
telephony stack to all of linux, so if they succeed you can do exactly that!

------
xoroshiro
As much as I want a FLOSS phone to succeed, I have my doubts. Then again, I'm
not sure how all the Matrix stuff works, but if I can't simply give someone my
phone number and expect it to just work, I don't see how this can happen.

Can someone explain it more simply? Does it completely forego SIM cards? Will
it 'just work', or is it more of a 'we made progress in this area, but not a
lot of people are going to find it practical' thing like Replicant?

~~~
icebraining
In the crowdsourcing page, they say it can be used with a regular carrier
number, or with mobile data plan + VoIP, or just WiFi + VoIP (see section "A
No-Carrier Phone?").

------
grizzles
I wish these guys would just use android from the get go. It's already running
on i.mx6, so by switching now they would at least have a chance of making a
decent product.

They are literally throwing away hundreds of millions of dollars of excellent
work that has been put into power optimization for no good reason. I've told
the ceo there this like at least 3x but he is stubborn.

> “Android is so frustrating! Trying to remove Google’s privacy invasion bit-
> by-bit removes functionality bit-by-bit, and you end up with a non-working
> phone. Purism will solve this by putting your privacy protection and
> security first.” — Zlatan Todorić, CTO

This quote is nonsense. There are at least 3 projects (replicant,copperhead &
another) that are shipping trees like this.

It will be so much harder for them to create a phone that stays alive for more
than an hour or two running a full linux desktop.

~~~
geocar
Whilst I don't agree with the reasons either, I do agree with the conclusion:
I think Android is a dead-end architecturally.

If we want a secure and user-friendly phone, it won't be Android.

> It will be so much harder for them to create a phone that stays alive for
> more than an hour or two running a full linux desktop.

This is of course nonsense. I've run a "full linux desktop" on 1000mAh for
more than a few hours, and I did it a decade ago.

~~~
bitmapbrother
>If we want a secure and user-friendly phone, it won't be Android.

I don't think you realize what it takes to keep an operating system secure. If
you really think this project is going to be more secure than Android then
that's a wager I would take all day.

~~~
davexunit
By using a real GNU/Linux distribution like Debian you can have up-to-date
software with all known vulnerabilities patched. On Android, all the apps
bundle dependencies which house tons of unknown vulnerabilities and then the
phone vendor stops updating your phone when it's no longer in their business
interests. Any GNU/Linux can be more secure than that terrible baseline.

~~~
bitmapbrother
And who is going to patch all of the userland exploits? The radio firmware
exploits? The driver exploits? Keeping a phone secure is so much more than
just downloading the latest Linux kernel security patches. Unless you have a
large team of security engineers that dedicated to patching and enhancing your
OS then you're going to be in for a world of hurt once your platform gains any
popularity and, thus, nefarious interest.

>On Android, all the apps bundle dependencies which house tons of unknown
vulnerabilities and then the phone vendor stops updating your phone when it's
no longer in their business interests.

The same is true for any device that has been determined to be end of life by
the OEM. Yes, it would be nice if devices were supported to perpetuity, but
even Apple ends support for their devices after 5 years and more than 10
percent of their current install base isn't even on the latest OS version.

>Any GNU/Linux can be more secure than that terrible baseline.

Perhaps, but saying it and doing it are two very different things. I hope it
works out because I think there's a niche for a phone that is always up to
date and never written off by the OEM.

------
XorNot
Gotta say, I would buy this. Android is android, but a phone which ran Linux
and Gnome I'd happily switch to at this point.

~~~
dwhabcdefg
/me raises a glass to the dearly departed N900

~~~
knewter
best mobile experience of my life. saved many a flailing server from mine
while my now-wife was in the bathroom, avoiding destroying the date
atmosphere.

the n9 debacle cemented my hatred for ms

------
Nelkins
Just pre-ordered one. These folks have done a great job on their Librem laptop
line, and I have wanted a "FLOSS-ier" phone for a while now. And if it goes
nowhere I get my money back! (allegedly)

------
skierscott
The details: [https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/](https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/)

> that can also become a full desktop computer with an option for a compatible
> keyboard, mouse, and monitor ... It can be a desktop computer and phone all-
> in-one.

I'm interested to see their solution. How useable will the interface be?

~~~
flashdance
Probably pretty good because it comes with GNOME

------
swiley
If it really can run fully open GNU/Linux it's worth what they're asking.

~~~
ramshorns
It sounds like they haven't decided whether there will be free WiFi and
Bluetooth drivers or not, and that would make a huge difference for me at
least. Everything else seems to be totally free and open source, except for
the baseband, which is separated from the system, can be disabled, and doesn't
really have an open source option.

------
jancsika
> The CPU will be an i.MX6/i.MX8, where we can separate the baseband modem
> from the main CPU, digging deeper and deeper to protect your privacy and
> isolate components for a strong security hardware stack.

I'd like to know more about this separation. For example--can the phone boot
without the baseband being powered on?

~~~
ansible
It isn't hard to design a phone with a completely separate baseband processor
and wireless subsystem.

People don't do it because it is more expensive than the integrated solutions.
It also takes up more precious real estate on the PCBs. And uses more power.

So if you're willing to compromise on all that, it can be done.

~~~
JoshTriplett
> It also takes up more precious real estate on the PCBs.

There's no _fundamental_ reason you have to use any more space to have the
correct architecture (baseband as subordinate peripheral with no access to
host); it's just a lot harder than buying a stock modem peripheral.

~~~
adamweld
The fundamental reason is that no chipset mfn is going to separate the modem
from host on a single IC. Thus you are adding a second complex BGA package and
interconnects that take up space.

------
theEXTORTCIST
This seems like a really cool device. One that I would certainly purchase.

What weird stretch goals they have. I wonder if these are jokes? "$8m =
Signatures of entire team printed inside the phone case $10m = Free encrypted
VPN tunnel service for all backers for 1 year $20m = Candy Crush (clone)
available for free"

~~~
mixedCase
Jokes that I'm certain they would fulfill if they were to receive that much
funding. I'm pretty sure they're simply not expecting those numbers.

------
Hasknewbie
> "The specifications are continuing to get pinned down, and will not be
> finalized until after the campaign ends"

Big red flag right there.

In my opinion it is unethical to ask for money via crowdfunding when you
haven't even bothered with finalizing the spec first.

~~~
fosco
as other sibling threads have commented I agree.

I am really rooting for them and hope they get this right, being able to hack
my phone like a desktop/laptop has been a dream of mine.

I really look forward to what the end result is and I hope they knock this out
of the park!

------
akavel
Do I understand correctly that it would be purely VoIP over GSM/2G/.../LTE?
Where the particular VoIP implementation of choice is this "Matrix"
protocol/ecosystem? Which potentially at some point (with enough financing?)
may get some gateways enabling calls between Matrix phones like this one, and
regular GSM/2G/... mobile phones?

~~~
Arathorn
The phone will have normal GSM in it, as well as being Matrix native when on
IP (i.e. shipping a native Matrix.org client as the default dialler/messaging
app, which will work whenever you have IP connectivity).

A stretch goal is to also provide Matrix<->PSTN connectivity, so that if
you're on IP but don't have GSM (or don't have a SIM in the phone), then you
could also place/receive calls with the PSTN from Matrix. (Obviously this
would then be also available to the rest of the Matrix ecosystem too).
(Source: I work on Matrix)

~~~
ThatGeoGuy
For those of us less informed: assuming a Matrix <-> PSTN bridge exists, does
that mean that one would be able to send and receive phone calls and SMS to
existing GSM numbers via a dedicated VOIP number? I don't understand PSTN at
all, but wouldn't giving all matrix users dedicated VOIP numbers be difficult
and costly?

~~~
Arathorn
Yup, that's the idea. Given this was the Matrix team's dayjob before getting
sucked into Matrix, it's something relatively easy to do - although yes, we'd
have to pass through the call/SMS and numbering costs. Now, if only Matrix had
a payments ecosystem... [https://matrix.org/blog/2017/08/22/thoughts-on-
cryptocurrenc...](https://matrix.org/blog/2017/08/22/thoughts-on-
cryptocurrencies/)

------
everheardofc
>The whole idea of the phone is to provide unprecedented privacy, security and
autonomy by running an entirely FOSS Debian-based GNU/Linux stack (even
including CPU & GPU drivers!)

Call me pessimistic but I don't think we will see a FOSS GPU driver anytime
soon.

~~~
petecox
The reason for choosing i.MX is that it can boot with a mainstream Linux
kernel.

[https://github.com/etnaviv](https://github.com/etnaviv)

------
ZenoArrow
I can't really afford a new phone right now, but I really want this to be a
thing, and I think we're running out of chances for a FLOSS phone to take off,
so I ordered one. I really hope it meets its target.

------
moosingin3space
Their UI looks like it's based on Gnome -- I wonder if they wrote some
extensions to make Gnome more phone-friendly.

IMO great idea to use Matrix as the communication layer -- especially when
double-ratchet is stable, it'll be able to provide the good UX of things like
Signal on Android, iMessage, Google Duo, and FaceTime, but built on an open
platform. Hope it does well!

~~~
swiley
A Decade ago there was a sort of gnome for PDAs. I don't know if that's what
this is.

~~~
micheljones
Qtopia?

~~~
swiley
That's QT not GTK. Also QT is still used while the toolkit I'm thinking of
isn't.

~~~
hedora
You might be talking about Enlightenment (not dead yet) or the openmoko gtk
ui, though I forget its name too.

------
unknown2374
I couldn't find the single most important piece of information for me, the
battery life. Is that not decided yet or has it been omitted for marketing
convenience? I was thinking of signing up to get one but with that missing bit
I don't want to take the risk.

~~~
Brakenshire
They don't know the SoC / processor yet, no way they could say battery life at
this stage.

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toolibre
The first shots of the phone in the video have it surrounded by logos for
Fedora, Arch, Suse, PureOS, etc.

First sentence of second paragraph of text: "based on Debian"

Why are you promoting the phone with a bunch of unrelated logos?

~~~
Arathorn
I think the whole point of the phone is that it's a FLOSS-friendly hardware
platform which can run whatever Linux you like (even if the default supported
one is PureOS, based on Debian).

------
recorpse
That's pretty exciting considering the Blackphone is proprietary and Replicant
isn't available for newer phones.

------
white-flame
This phone's software may not track you, but the cellular network itself still
does.

~~~
robto
What's nice is you can turn off the baseband processor and make voip calls if
you're on a wireless connection, so you can work around that.

