
The Sad Saga of Purism and the Librem 5 - hlandau
https://jaylittle.com/post/view/2019/10/the-sad-saga-of-purism-and-the-librem-5-part-1
======
teddyh
Part 3 quotes /u/whiteinge on reddit¹:

 _Let 's assume the company is in jeopardy. Let's assume the project is over-
promised and will be late and under-deliver. Let's assume the CEO is a fuckup
and the Marketing Director is a liar. None of that is as bad as NO smartphone
alternative to Google and Apple, let alone an open and privacy-focused
alternative. I'm a Linux user and I very much want a Linux phone. And there
has been so, so many false starts and near misses over almost a decade. My
patience and goodwill for Purism and the Librem 5 is effectively infinite.
It's not over until they shutter the doors or can the project. Until that
happens I will continue to hope they limp over that finish line no matter
what._

1\.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Purism/comments/dm2smy/is_the_libre...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Purism/comments/dm2smy/is_the_librem_5_being_targeted_in_a_viral_media/f54gaur/)

~~~
wvh
Meego, Jolla, Puzzlephone, Firefox phone, Ubuntu phone, Librem, etc... Is
there really that little demand that it's a nearly impossible task to get any
"alternative" phone going?

~~~
dredmorbius
It's exceedingly difficult to get traction and buy-in. As a freestanding
effort, all but impossible. I'm holding out hope that as a side-gig / loss-
leader (that is: rather unlike Purism's model, unfortunatley), it _might_ be
tractable.

Keep in mind that _Microsoft_ and _Facebook_ failed at this. That former
industry giants Nokia and RIM were felled. That Sony Ericson is no longer
free-standing. Palm has died.

It's a ruthlessly competitive market with huge winner-take-all dynamics. Apple
and Google are the current incumbents. History's lesson is that they will
probably fall, but only to be replaced by equally oppressive monopolies. This
to me is not progress.

I'm hoping Purism _does_ succeed.

~~~
nradov
Apple and Google will only be replaced when there is a disruptive innovation
in the hardware form factor. Maybe AR goggles or something like that. As long
as we stick with flat rectangular mobile devices there's just no room for
other major competitors in the market.

~~~
dredmorbius
Disruption, yes. Form-factor: not so sure.

The first mobile phones ... _worked_. Barely.

Innovations have come in service coverage, quality, pricing (flat-rate,
unlimited calls, is now the norm), early app phones (Palm PDAs making the
transition), integration with corporate email (RIM), Web access (from early
on, but Apple made the breakthrough), and what really underpins the present
mobile devices world: _advertising_.

It's the fact that Google can haul in about $100 billion a year in ads sales
that makes Android viable. Apple is profitable on hardware, but even there,
struggles to match in technology (though it's vastly ahead in UI/UX), and has
a small fraction of the market of a niche it had created.

Microsoft lacks the ads tie-in, and faces obstacles to positioning itself as
sole gatekeeper to its remaining desktop / enterprise software empire
(practical, political, legal). Amazon's strength might be in leveraging
devices as extensions of its storefront, but that's _precisely_ the aspect of
its devices that I found so off-putting. They've all the warmth and personal
appeal of a third-tier shopping mall. Though _if_ the company can get that
right, and avoid Microsoft's 1990s antitrust experience, they're a
considerable competitor.

Facebook's failure may be due to growing distrust of the company and of its
second-tier status (after Google) in ads. There's not enough draw to the
device, and not enough revenue to support development.

What opportunities this leaves for new entrants is an open question. It also
raises the issue of Purism, or any other pure-play device firm's, future.
Almost certainly aquisition by some party which is tied to a revenue or
related-services or -systems model.

Given the incumbents, my bet would be first Amazon, secondary, if it is truely
embracing Linux, Microsoft. Though there might be others. I discount Google or
Apple. Facebook is a possibility, though given Purism's focus on freedom and
privacy, would be fatal.

Outside the US: most device manufacturers are too strongly wedded to one of
the incumbents to make a plausible play as this would imperil their Android or
iPhone contracts, which would rule out Samsung, Sony, LG, etc. A non-US telco
aquisition, possibly in Europe guided by privacy regimes, could be an option.

On reflection: focus on form factor is almost certainly a red herring. Look to
the sustaining business model _and_ positive/negative appeal factors.

------
RandomBacon
I don't think they're trying to be malicious, I just think that they have
piss-poor public relations and are digging themselves into a bigger hole.

I understand that they're worfully behind schedule and that some people are
mad, but...

I wish people would just let them focus on building the phone rather than
hounding them which might cause them to cut even more corners and result in a
worse product.

I paid them $600 or whatever two years ago, and I say let them keep building.

It's okay to be critical, but it seems like some people are bullying/trolling.
Even in HN threads from months ago before shipping was even an issue.

~~~
mondoshawan
When you've been doing development in consumer tech, some of these missteps
are glaringly obvious and having proper engineering in place from the start
would have avoided much of the problem. I, too, am a backer and keep hope
alive, but I, too, am a hardware developer and half the things they are saying
don't jive with the facts, or are omissions critical to the product's success
(RAM timing, FCC certification, etc). Have to say, I'm a bit jaded now, but if
it comes out, it comes out, and I'll be happy regardless. Doesn't mean I'm
going to keep my trap shut when something is fishy, though.

My big concern right now is that they're pushing hard to release before things
are ready, and with this SOC, that can easily be a death knell for the product
they release.

~~~
RandomBacon
> My big concern right now is that they're pushing hard to release before
> things are ready

Because people keep hounding them!

Do you do your best work when people keep interupting you asking when it'll be
ready? You would still complete your task if people weren't interupting you,
right? The interuptions might cause you to say 'fuck it' and just ship just to
get it over with, even though you wanted to spend 10% or whatever more time to
make it 50% better.

That's what I'm getting at.

~~~
mondoshawan
Usually you dont bypass engineering practices because customers are hounding
you. The best way is to answer, demonstrate, and improve customer relations by
showing them the facts. Answer a critic and you will better improve your
relations. Customers can and do wait when the waiting is warranted.

Thus far, Purism has been _omitting_ facts such as RAM performance, and
sidestepping directed questions. These don't instill confidence in customers
for an "open" company.

Moreover, hardware _cannot_ be shipped this way. Schedules and the needs of
the hardware _dictate_ the control of the schedule. You literally cannot ship
a PCB until regulatory requirements are satisfied and the boards are
assembled.

~~~
mondoshawan
I should also note: RMAs are literally taken off the profit line as a total
loss in manufacturing -- if you ship something that doesnt work or has major
issues, you are throwing money away.

------
mondoshawan
There have been some interesting technical developments with regard to the
points Jay is making. For one, FCC certification should only be necessary for
the baseboard -- the SOM and PCIe devices should carry their own
certification. The fact that they are supposedly sending these out without
certs for the baseboard is hugely concerning -- and illegal. If anything, this
is the core reason why nothing has left their hands yet.

What else is concerning is that they are shipping the SOM without schematics
or documentation -- even the dev units have no details on their construction.
For reference, Purism only made the baseboard and mechanicals -- the actual
SOC and RAM are on a module made by Elecom. I asked about this in their matrix
channels and the best answer I could get was "it will be made open" \-- a tall
order, given the past history of Elecom keeping their designs close to their
chest. This is most likely the core reason why their thermal and RAM
performance sucks -- the community can't get in there to help.

Note that they aren't even running the RAM at full speed -- that's not
something you can easily change without re-generating the training programs,
and locking that in without proper burn-in or huge amounts of QA to validate
is going to likely be the biggest hurdle they will face. Especially given the
requirement that the program not be updated.

Source: built and shipped SOMs using the i.MX8MQ in the past and still
supporting them now: RAM training is a _huge_ problem.

~~~
awinter-py
what is RAM training? I googled this but google thinks 'training' means
'documentation' apparently

~~~
letstrynvm
Fast buses operate at some multiple of a reference clock wired up to both
sides, it's often 1/2 or 1/8th of the actual data rate which each side arrives
at by feeding the reference clock to an on-die pll.

This can create ambiguity in which bit of the 2 or 8 or whatever is on the
bus, and temperature, board design, bus length, humidity etc change the phase
where the best sampling place is for the data signal. So there is 'training'
to test which fine delay between the receiver pll clock and the data gives the
lowest error rate when used to sample the incoming data. Periodically some
buses must pause and do retraining to account for, eg, temperature changes.

~~~
wiz21c
That seems so awfully analogue... :-/

~~~
letstrynvm
It is... underneath all that shiny logical digital it's analogue all the way
down in any real implementation.

~~~
akimball
Pace Fredkin.

------
kiba
_it has now been made clear that the phone will have to use proprietary
firmware blobs for a variety of onboard devices._

They worked with the FSF to make it certified. To my understanding, it's
basically an impossible tasking to write open source firmware, not if you want
to throw additional million of dollars(this is just a guess).

The compromise is that you basically cannot update those binary blobs.

~~~
mike-cardwell
It was always my understanding that some of the hardware would not be open,
but that hardware would be sufficiently isolated from the core of the device.

~~~
herogreen
Agreed, having modems not sharing memory with the CPU would already be a big
progress.

~~~
mondoshawan
Sadly, the modems are on PCIe, so this means they are sharing memory and
address space with the host iMX8.

~~~
moosingin3space
You can use an IOMMU to isolate DMA to a separate security domain. This is how
Qubes OS works.

~~~
mondoshawan
No iommu on the imx8mq.

~~~
moosingin3space
That's unfortunate, since an IOMMU is an excellent solution to this kind of
problem, especially when one considers all the potential Linux USB stack
vulnerabilities that can be exploited if you assume the modem is
untrustworthy.

------
bo1024
This link (Part 1) is outdated due to Purism's blog post the same day:

[https://puri.sm/posts/supplying-the-demand/](https://puri.sm/posts/supplying-
the-demand/)

I am an early backer of the Librem 5 and have been following the campaign as
well as comments of jaylittle and others on related forums.

I think I speak for many users in feeling that jaylitte's somewhat extreme
reaction is counterproductive. But at the same time we have been disappointed
in Purism's lack of transparency bordering on deception regarding Aspen. We
have been waiting a long time for this phone and are okay with waiting a bit
longer, but not so okay with being deceived.

------
djsumdog
I recently put in a pre-order for a Librem 5 (like a month or so ago) based
off the fact that their previous batches were shipping. I realized it might be
6 months to a year, but I recently have been really frustrated with my mobile
experience and want out of the Android/iProduct ecosystems. My attempt to
source an old Nexus 5X to run KDE Plasma off of eBay ended in a canceled
order.

I am totally prepared to support a phone that runs Linux and would rather
spend time writing my own apps to fill in the gaps of my needs for either
PureOS or Plasma. I had seen Purism 5 development boards on my
mastodon/fediverse feeds, so I was confident they were out in the wild (Purism
does have an official fediverse server; although they were given flack for
some of their code modifications).

PostmarketOS has done some amazing work, but it's still a long way from being
able to run open operating systems practically on mobile devices. I don't even
really care about the binary blob firmware honestly as long as I had a
reasonable level of introspection on the rest of the operating system.

This post makes me really sad and wonder if I should have backed this project,
or tried to keep sourcing old Nexus 5Xs or wait for the PinePhone. I hate how
shitty of a (non)-platform ARM is, which makes it so difficult to just port
Linux to it. Microsoft at least had mandated ARM+UEFI. There are people who
have gotten past their bootloader locks, but there are still no FOSS drivers
for any of the hardware. If Microsoft actually gave a shit about open source,
they'd release kits for getting Linux working on their old mobile devices
instead of letting them end up in landfills. I've done a full post on this
before: [https://battlepenguin.com/tech/android-
fragmentation/](https://battlepenguin.com/tech/android-fragmentation/)

I know Purism has hit a lot of controversy before. I'm not all that mad that
they can't make totally open hardware ... that is just plain difficult only
any x86 hardware today because of all the stuff Intel/AMD will simply not let
go of. But it is sad if they're being dishonest about their progress or
outright lying to people. Most of their customers are engineers and people
close to the software field; people who understand the unrealistic
expectations of marketing and management--people who put up with enough
bullshit as it is.

------
codedokode
What I don't understand is why Purism and other vendors try to invent their
own operating system instead of using Android or its parts which is:

\- designed by smart engineers from Google

\- well-tested and maintained

\- well-documented

\- has development tools and debuggers with GUI, not text-only GDB

\- uses GPU

\- has permissions and isolation for apps which Debian doesn't have

\- has several app stores including FDroid and lots of apps made by
independent developers

Why don't they want to use at least Dalvik and userspace software like Phone
or Calendar? Nobody is going to rewrite thousands of applications like
Youtube, Telegram, Maps or Happy Farm for Debian. Debian is nowhere near as
polished as Android.

For example, I watched a video about Pine64 which uses Ubuntu and UI doesn't
look well-designed, the icons are hidden away from desktop, the thing that
pulls down from top of screen looks inconvenient to use etc. It would be
better if they just ripped iPhone's UI.

Are there some technical or licensing issues or is it just because someone
doesn't like Google and everything they do? Is writing in Java less productive
than in C/C++/GTK or whatever they use in Ubuntu?

UPD: Also 3 Gb of RAM might be not enough for Debian/Ubuntu based OS.

~~~
swiley
1) 3 Gb of RAM is plenty for debian. I own lots of machines with less and
they're just fine (just don't do anything stupid like running GNOME)

2) Android is a fucking awful mess: the whole thing is a single monolithic
project that in general doesn't accept community contributions and is
extremely difficult to build yourself. It's built expecting the user to be a
danger to them self and handicaps them in ways that make it very difficult to
run useful software. The devtools are pretty awful compared to what you have
on GNU/Linux IMO, which is quite the achievement.

3) the people buying these phones are buying them _because they don 't want to
deal with "polish"_ and are happy with something like debian or alpine.

4) there are almost no apps on android that are actually useful or can't be
replaced with the companies web page or a small piece of (already available
and much more mature) community maintained software that runs on debian.
Youtube is an absolutely fantastic example of that, if I _really_ want
something native I have youtube-dl and ffplay. graphopper (the engine used on
the librem5 for mapping) is arguably an improvement on google maps (except for
geocoding heh. that's a different thing anyway and google's solution was to
just pay people to drive around and collect house numbers which no one is
probably going to volunteer for.)

5) f-droid is amazing compared to the play store but sucks compared to a real
distribution package manager.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
> google's solution was to just pay people to drive around and collect house
> numbers which no one is probably going to volunteer for

While Google’s Streetview cars were pretty nifty things, apparently the
Streetview cars were not the source of house numbers in many countries.
Instead, Google simply bought the rights to existing sources of information.
National postal systems and municipalities had quietly created their own
databases over the years.

People do volunteer to add house numbers to OpenStreetMap. My own city of half
a million people got house numbers precisely because our local OSM club
organized weekend outings where we would walk around town and add all the
numbers. Then, when I moved out to the countryside, I would bicycle around to
add all the house numbers for the surrounding villages.

------
baybal2
I watched a lot of initiatives for community developed hardware, starting with
FIC 1973.

The community people are repeating the same issue as the industry: too much
time spent on drama and talks, to little on doing stuff; 40+ years old men
with attention span of an infant; people being too absent minded.

It require some willpower to forcefully kick detractors from opensource
projects, as much as kicking out bad managers in a commercial enterprise.

The Silicon Valley and the culture there does not teach people any good
entrepreneurship. VCs and allegedly competent mentors do not really know how
to run business properly, which in my understanding means running them
profitably.

I had a talk with Tapabrata (Vathys) about the case of MP3 codec chip
companies still making many megabucks of pure profit on relatively simple
stuff. It was very good demonstration how most of "tech" industry looses out
to plain, sound entrepreneurship:

The few remaining standalone MP3 decoder chips are a very good business for
whomever is making them (chips sold at $10,) and it's an easy grab for just
any fabless outfit, but not many people can pull even something this simple.

It is for the simple reason that "people who will screw up running a billion
dollar tech startup are equally capable of screwing up a $10M a year
business." Even simple, and easy business require solid executions.

~~~
denton-scratch
"40+ years old men with attention span of an infant"

When I was 40 years old my attention span wasn't too bad; I was managing a dev
team and a support team at the same time, and earning good money for it. I
reckon a 40-year-old woman could have done even better. The dev team was not
meant to be a profit centre; but it's easy to run a profitable support
operation.But that was working as paid help; my one (youthful) attempt at
entrepreneurship was a washout. I didn't have the temperament for it.

------
jaylittle
Wow. Didn't realize this story was getting so much play over here. It has
essentially failed to have an impact on reddit as nobody there apparently
wants to be told that they are likely part of a Ponzi scheme.

Regarding the 502s: I was attempting to enable IPV6 and HTTP/2 for my website
per a request I received from a fellow nerd over email. After two hours of
pulling my hair out over intermittent non-availability, I just reverted back
to my good ole trusty IPV4 non-HTTP/2 config and all is well again. Except for
that guy. Sorry dude, maybe some other time.

Anyway, I would encourage everybody to read all three parts. Barring that,
just read part 2 as it covers what my anonymous in-the-know source shared with
me and my attempts to verify their claims with publicly available information.
That's the real meat of the piece (at least it should be as I spent hours
researching and cross checking data for it).

Thanks again for the support!

~~~
riazrizvi
Ponzi Scheme? It’s a major engineering project going over schedule. What do
you expect them to say? I am so glad they have stepped up to try and get this
done. As someone with a phone on order, I do appreciate you flagging the
problem. I’d appreciate it more if the tone was less alarmist.

------
ddevault
I've worked directly with several people from Purism. I can confirm hearing
about similar internal issues from first-party sources, as early as well over
a year ago. I cancelled my Librem 5 pre-order several months ago, and it'd
probably be wise for anyone who doesn't want to lose their money to do the
same sooner rather than later.

~~~
teddyh
> _anyone who doesn 't want to lose their money_ [would be] _wise_ [to cancel
> their] _Librem 5 pre-order_

Anyone who has sent money to anyone has already “lost” that money, in a sense.
What those who have pre-ordered expect is a _phone_. Are you claiming that
Purism won’t ever send anyone a phone? Even the person who wrote the article
doesn’t go that far.

~~~
ddevault
Did I not open by saying that I have more context than most people would? I
have a Librem 5 dev board, too. They may end up shipping a phone to at least
some of their customers, but it's going to be a disappointing product with
crippling problems.

~~~
teddyh
Please don’t keep us in the dark, then. Enlighten us with your secret
knowledge, instead of giving us your conclusions of what you think everyone
should do.

------
joecool1029
Anyone remember Neo900? That was the last project I saw that actually had some
potential of being made into a working phone supporting its own OS. I threw
them 100EUR for a device that was anticipated to balloon to 1000EUR in cost.

Why did I believe it was possible? They had a base to work on with the N900.
Ultimately, hardware is hard and it never shipped. I don't regret plunking
down as it was an attempt in the right direction, I see it as support for
projects like that. The people running the project were at least transparent
about delays and problems. They never said the deposits weren't a 'risk-buy'.

I can't tell you how many people came to me and were like 'hur durr, just buy
the librem 5, it's a real FOSS phone that's going to ship'. Yes... _soon_.

The Purism can join the textblade as hardware projects that will ship _soon_.
Don't let anyone tell you hardware is easy, it's not. Pebble went under with a
device that's a lot more simple.

------
yepthatsreality
I have also been wondering about the lack of shipment and post regarding it.
Some of these issues seem like they should have had a plan before announcing
models.

I’m still hopeful. And for the record it looks like Librem has indicated some
of the reasons Aspen and Birch models aren’t shipped to customers in a recent
blog post (memory, performance, and battery issues). [0]

[0] [https://puri.sm/posts/supplying-the-
demand/](https://puri.sm/posts/supplying-the-demand/)

------
jchw
Unfortunately the article is down, but I am deeply saddened to hear there are
issues with Librem 5. I mean, I know its behind schedule, and that’s fine. But
I really hope it comes to market.

It’s actually funny. Seeing Gnome 3 run on a phone made me reach an epiphany:
I actually don’t like Gnome 3 as a desktop environment, but it seems pretty
decent as a phone environment.

I’m currently running an iPhone because Apple makes good hardware. But I am
pretty much ready to take any compromise to get a phone that can ship
conventional Linux out of the box. I know it’s not everyone’s favorite, but
with the Linux desktop I feel in control.

The second best thing would be a phone running postmarket OS, but I don’t see
too many promising options, and frankly I think in 2019 it’s unfortunate we
can’t have a phone with mostly open source firmware.

~~~
jaylittle
My apologies. My posts have been largely ignored on reddit and I don't
frequent ycombinator so I didn't realize that it was getting such play over
here. Thus when some fellow nerd emailed me a few hours ago asking if I'd
enable ipv6 for my site, I figured "Why not?"

Well the answer to that question turns out to be: I just spent the last few
hours of my life dealing with intermittent website availability issues on
nginx after attempting to configure ipv6. I have now reverted everything and
we are back online.

Sorry :(

------
skinnyasianboi
I have so much hope in this project. Linux apps adding support for libhandy is
so full filling to see. A long time dream seems to become true.

My thinking might be way to posetive but the fact that the post gets a lot of
attention on HN might even help the project instead of letting it die.

------
nickodell
>So if you've been paying attention to Purism's website and do some digging,
you'll realize that they've never actually [filed a Social Purpose Report]

>I filed a complaint with the State Attorney of Washington over the issue

>So yeah Purism is going to skate by on yet another clear and obvious lie.
They are pretty much going out of their way to take advantage of people at
this point. On a side note, its really sad and pathetic how little the state
of Washington is willing to do to try and compel Purism to live up to their
legally mandated expectations as an SPC.

Um, what were you expecting? The State Attorney is going to view this as
"someone forgot to file a form." That isn't exactly priority #1.

~~~
Mathnerd314
Publicly traded companies have to file 10-K's, and failure to file ends in
delisting. Similarly nonprofits have to file Form 990 or get their tax-exempt
status revoked.

Meanwhile "the failure to furnish a social purpose report does not affect the
validity of any corporate action"
([https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=23B.25.150](https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=23B.25.150))
and the sole remedy is for a shareholder to request production of a report
after 2 years.

But failure to pay the annual filing fees is grounds for immediate dissolution
([https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=23.95.255](https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=23.95.255))

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

------
shmerl
From all the previous failed crowdfunded hardware projects (like KDE Spark
tablet, Jolla tablet and so on), I know one thing. Making mobile computer
hardware is hard, when such companies depend on third parties for assembly and
manufacturing. Those can pull the rug from under you at any point without even
a blink. Especially when it's a tiny fish, which is nothing for them in
comparison with clients that order magnitudes more.

So when dealing with such crowdfunding, don't get frustrated, treat it as a
high risk investment and learn to be stoic. Most likely it fill fail. But if
you are lucky, it won't.

------
voltagex_
From the other parts, it sounds like you might not have to worry about
firmware at all - you won't get a phone.

------
wiz21c
Well, while we're at it, any news on the PinePhone front ?

~~~
megous
Supposedly, HW will start shipping in a few days to devs.

------
KirinDave
I really hope more folks talk about how deeply disappointing the hardware of
this company is relative to their price and sales pitch.

You can't overprice your goods AND be a transparently unethical company
betraying the values you claim to uphold on your sales pitch. But that's
precisely what Purism has become. When you compare the quality of their goods
and software to other competitors, they often fall short even on the stated
extra goals (e.g., privacy).

I'm not sure how Purism's brand ends up being so untouchable. It's sort of
like Brave, I think it just isn't popular enough for folks to remember exactly
how ridiculously badly the company ends up behaving.

------
noobermin
As someone who didn't back it (I got burned by the pandora people a few years
ago and have shyied from helping people like this), it seems very possible the
issues in producing a FOSS phone not only faces lack of will but really faces
systemic challenges that have a price tag, like producing a phone with parts
that don't require blobs just adds that many more constraints.

After seeing so many failures in this space, it's clear it might take
something beyond the mere "backers-to-a-start-up-like-company" model. I'm not
sure what that will take but it's happened enough that it appears it needs
something more.

------
eptcyka
I've seen the phone actually make a phone call at the chaos camp this year.

------
awinter-py
Maybe the right starting point is to build a fully open USB cellular modem,
rather than a fully open phone. You serve the same values and get to focus on
the hardest part of the problem.

~~~
letstrynvm
That's not really solveable.

Their focus has been okay... the foss os stack, the gpu driver the apps...
even if they fail other projects can pick these up.

It's just very difficult to get to the point you have enough pieces in good
shape for a minimal usable set of functionality in 2019. A month or so ago on
a devkit, the browser was crashy and juddery scrolling, not janky but going
away to think on things for a bit, failing to update any more etc.

They're kind of responsible for all the pieces in the stack, unlike a normal
phone company who get OOT kernel and drivers and gpu pieces handed to them all
good by the soc vendor. if they can hold out and keep their nerve, it shows
signs it will get there. But maybe in 2-5 years for the software imho.

------
ldarby
For the people complaing about closed firmware, remember that obtaining FSF
certifcation can be achieved by e.g. cutting off the hardware pins to make
upgrading it impossible, turning the "firmware" into "hardware". This is what
the OpenMoko project did
[https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/task2-openmoko](https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/task2-openmoko).
Is this what you would prefer?

~~~
seba_dos1
GTA04 isn't an Openmoko project (it just uses Openmoko Neo Freerunner's case),
and the firmware injector project never went anywhere AFAIR.

------
alasdair_
Annecdata: I ordered the laptop a couple of years ago (with qubes installed).
They missed SIX month-long deadlines to ship it before I finally gave up and
asked for a refund.

------
mlinksva
Part 2 says (emphasis added):

> Purism has long since spent all of the initial crowdfunding income and is
> _depending on new Librem 5 pre-orders for most of their revenue_.

Is it possible that a healthy laptop business is subsidizing phone
development? Presumably not if Purism is turning to Kickfurther, but it seems
like a possibility that ought be analyzed.

------
marcan_42
The Librem 5 has long since gone off-course. Even before all of these
supply/deliverability issues, they have never really attempted to deliver a
"free" phone. What it seems they're actually trying to do is deliver a phone
that the FSF will certify as "Respects your Freedom".

Unfortunately, that certification is not just complete snake oil, but actually
encourages devices that _reduce_ your freedom. I made a Twitter want about how
the Librem 5 is doing entirely the wrong thing here:

[https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1040626210999431168?s=19](https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1040626210999431168?s=19)

TL;DR the FSF lets you have blobs as long as the user doesn't see them and the
main CPU doesn't touch them (not run then, like, it can't even touch them/set
them up/upload them to another CPU). This means that not only are you running
proprietary firmware, you also don't _know_ you're running it, you can't _see_
it, you can't _change it_ , you can't _audit it_ , and you can never reverse
engineer it and replace it with a free version.

Having a pile of blobs in /lib/firmware respects your freedom a hell of a lot
more than that nonsense.

------
grizzles
I feel for the backers but this was entirely predictable:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16182968](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16182968)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17913940](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17913940)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15090567](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15090567)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17140823](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17140823)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17913700](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17913700)

I even tried to warn Todd off his approach before the crowdfunding campaign
kicked off. I knew no good would come of it.

~~~
grizzles
Brutal interview here with the former Purism CTO:
[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)

------
newnewpdro
For someone so critical of Purism's dishonest PR, jaylittle should probably
check his own hyperbolic grandstanding of being an "investor" entitled to
internal information.

------
gridlockd
There's a stark economic difference in producing hardware versus software. A
single person fueled with nothing but instant noodles and energy drinks can
produce software that changes the world. There's no significant upfront costs
and lots of room for mistakes.

Libre hardware can only work if there is strong and stable demand from users,
and those users need to adjust their expectations. Writing long-winded
critical blog-posts, burdening Purism with refunds and investigations on
formalities unrelated to the phone - that isn't going to help. If anything,
it's poisoning the well. It should be obvious that most companies aren't
interested in pandering to FOSS-enthusiasts.

------
rdiddly
A shitstorm must be a-brewin', because the "my account" pages at puri.sm are
giving 502s right now (2019-10-27 12:59 PST).

------
mattl
No way this phone ships on time and working

------
whydoyoucare
Is it just me or is everyone hitting a 502 (Bad Gateway) error?

~~~
jaylittle
Should be resolved, sorry ;)

------
frittig
I just get a 502 error

~~~
jaylittle
Should be resolved, sorry ;)

------
Kenji
[https://web.archive.org/web/20191027144805/https://jaylittle...](https://web.archive.org/web/20191027144805/https://jaylittle.com/post/view/2019/10/the-
sad-saga-of-purism-and-the-librem-5-part-1)

~~~
teddyh
Part 2:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20191027153729/https://jaylittle...](https://web.archive.org/web/20191027153729/https://jaylittle.com/post/view/2019/10/the-
sad-saga-of-purism-and-the-librem-5-part-2)

Part 3:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20191027165020/https://jaylittle...](https://web.archive.org/web/20191027165020/https://jaylittle.com/post/view/2019/10/the-
sad-saga-of-purism-and-the-librem-5-part-3)

------
kd3
Sounds like a serious case of Elon Musk time and planning (missing deadlines,
bad time estimates etc.). A small company like Purism delivering an ambitious
first time project like the Librem 5 phone on time would be nothing short of a
miracle. The clouds would have parted and jesus himself would have come down
to congratulate them. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and
have some more patience.

------
mlthoughts2018
It gives me a 502 bad gateway error if (and only if) I try to access it when
connected to vpn.

~~~
ncmncm
Perhaps ironically, I get that error when using the Librem VPN. I got through
to parts 1 and 2 a short time ago, but cannot see part 3 -- nor parts 1 and 2,
now.

