Awesome site, great philosophy

Hey guys.

I just kinda stumbled on this site while reading a completely random article about using Linux on Macs.

I am very impressed. I have not yet found a company that goes in depth with the security for their customers both on the hardware and software side. It’s pretty awesome.

I don’t know much about Linux based OS’s or security, but I’m gonna apply for a position anyway. Really awesome stuff what you’re doing. Keep it up guys.

I know that quite a few people here in Taiwan and Japan would be very interested in learning more about your PCs.

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Hello Nathaniel!

Thanks you for your interest in Purism. You can find more about our philosophy by reading articles on our website, I suggest the following:

https://puri.sm/philosophy/
https://puri.sm/warrant-canary/
https://puri.sm/pureos/
https://puri.sm/posts/petition-for-intel-to-release-an-me-less-cpu-design/
http://www.fsf.org/
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

You can check out our products here: https://puri.sm/products/

If you have any other questions or suggestions, feel free to write us more.

Cheers!

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hi. i would like to subscribe to the same apreciation as the op.

what i don’t undersand is why aren’t there yet any manufacturers that manufacture libre hardware by design. so to say - why do companies like Purism have to spend their precious time going backwards on other walled off manufacturers products in order to slap libre software on ?

it is a waste of time and resources always trying to backtrack or chase the train that somebody else is driving. why not simply go from scratch ? is there no manpower or is there a lack of manufacturing equippment or knowhow in order to build hardware that is actually built from the ground-up for libre software ?

i might also jump a little further and say WHY hasn’t anyone with the knowhow and posibilities made any endeavor so far for such usefull tools to exist ? so far i have only seen starving minds that live in a poverty induced by lack of proper tools to build proper hardware.

it’s a shame that we have to pay so much for backwards engineered hardware when we could be using those resources in order to steer the industry to a future that doesn’t have a monopolistic proprietary hold on the market.

we’ll it’s not all lost ! we still try at least … but it’s really hard to succeed when you are served scraps under the table !

Engineering even a “simple thing” like a wireless chip is far beyond the reach of a small company like Purism.
However, Todd Weaver often speaks about “gaining leverage in the industry” in his interviews. As Purism grows, they’ll have a stronger negotiating position and can push for libre-by-design hardware. That’s the plan :slight_smile:

Further, as the reverse engineers gain experience, maybe they can help engineer new hardware. Who knows?

that just sounds like wishful thinking to me. we act and speak as if the proprietary industry is sleeping and will do nothing to hinder any real progress. we speak of reverse engineering experience when AI is just arround the corner. it’s like we imagine that we live in the 90’s and we have all the time in the world.

we live now. in 2018. things are much worse than they were in the 90s. people who ask me about software alternatives don’t even know what Libre means. let alone do something about it. and the rest well … they don’t even want to known or seem to care about alternatives.

oh and what am i even saying - alternatives - Libre computing shouldn’t be an alternative it should be THE STANDARD. i’m not talking about forcing anyone to anything i speak of EDUCATION.

how many schools do you know of that TEACH in their curiculum about Libre computing and the histroy of computing besides maybe UNIVERSITIES ? or maybe we just come into FREEDOM when we PAY for HIGHER EDUCATION and we’re allready neck deep in DEBT ? ignorance is bliss …

not sure why you quoted me, too. I know that reverse-engineering knowledge does not bring us closer to libre hardware. I also know that the thing they currently hype as AI is not even close to do reverse engineering, so I don’t agree with you on that. And in 20 years from now, AI will still not do that. I’ll bet on that.

Anyway, what I said is, you need market pressure to change the fate. Purism is building this pressure. That is exactly their plan. If they order 10,000 chips, the manufacturer might politely deny libre firmware. If they can order 100,000 it is more likely that the manufacturer will agree to open the source. That’s the way to go.

If you really think a small company can design and manufacture such chips on their own, that might be your wishful thinking. If it were that easy, they’d do it already.
I mean, it’s not completely out of the question, but it has a similar prerequisite: To develop such chips on your own, you need to grow the business first, because this is very expensive and complicated.

However, @TungstenFilament worded that much better than I can:

market pressure happens only through educated people. that is all i will say. the rest IS as you said.

about what you said on AI. you probably meant general AI. I was reffering to specialized AI. the likes of which develop new materials and through different algorithms provided by humans design complex aircraft designs (last i heard it was reducing the weight of separation panels in Boeing commerical airliners an that wasn’t 2018)

look up what Elon Musk declared about AI and then cassually say “20 years”. don’t want to link to that because we’re going to derail into religion/politics/armagedon.

Well, I can say that this is the first time a thread that I started has been resurrected after two years.