Interesting.
I disagree. However, I’ve found many of your posts to be toxic with ad-hominem insults. For example, there is no need for you to have said “no clue about anything” or referred to “intellectual grade”. Without specific examples, it’s just name-calling.
This post brings back memories of a similar period when the Librem 5 was not yet released, and there were many questions with few answers. It’s likely that many didn’t think the Librem 5 would ever be made, or especially delivered to the people who supported the campaign. But time passed, and Purism delivered the phones, a unique device with a Free and Open Source Software mobile operating system. I hope this time is like the past, with Purism in a “hibernation” mode to see their vision come to life.
I still use my Librem 5 every day. I do not have many complaints. Calls and messages are reliable. The network dropouts while traveling are rare. The lack of updates recently is a bit worrying, but the phone is free and open, and it can keep going with a different operating system if PureOS fails.
I understand your feelings @flanders51 , I’ve had similar myself.
From my perspective, I believe in the product and the company. The company may be going through some tough times right now (I honestly don’t know). It’s more that we need to be looking out for ourselves while also supporting initiatives and efforts that we value. In my life, I’ve never done things the easy or simple way, and I have a lot of respect for Pursim for bucking the trend and trying to do the right thing as a business. In a similar way I try to support Bcorp’s and other businesses that value sustainability, people and our planet.
I’m looking at my foray’s into Mobian or pre-Crimson as explorations. I do believe a stable Crimson will come at some point. But, as of today, while the L5 is my daily driver and does mostly the things I need it to do, it is a bit frustrating. I’ve had to incorporate a lot of workarounds to compensate for really old software. I figured out how to install flatpak apps on the microSD card so it doesn’t take up space on eMMC. I had to create my own desktop launchers so I can start them. This is functionally viable. Albiet performance isn’t the best, but I can get by.
So, doing this exploration of Mobian and pre-Crimson is my approach for Staying In :). My threat model (for now at least) allows me to be ok with blob’s in Mobian (I think). But, also, I’m very good now at reflashing and restoring my phone to byzantium if needed. I have backups, etc. So, if Mobian or pre-Crimson don’t work, I can go back to stable.
So, what this comes down to is where each person is at in their reliance or dependence on L5 as a daily driver today. But, you also make good points from a corporate perspective. I have been the laughing stock of my friends and family because I had to wait so long for my phone 
I can take it, because I do things differently and everyone appreciates it. But, I have been very quiet about the struggles and frustrations at getting the L5 to be a daily driver. So, I’m not promoting it amongst my friends and family anymore.
I think of the corporate side similar to the situation with Boeing. Boeing used to make some of the best planes around. They had a culture change at the top when they bought McDonnel Douglas in the 90’s. And since then, they have gone down. Today, I am no longer confident about flying in a Boeing plane. I think Purism did some amazing work since 2014 with laptops, then servers, etc. and actually producing a viable Linux smartphone. So, I think this is a sort of watershed moment for them in terms of how their business side handles the current situation. I’m not writing them off, I do have confidence, but I also see disturbing signs. Boeing is in a situation where they are too big to fail so the government will bail them out probably, or something. But, how consumer confidence will evolve for them can’t be predicted. Also, I’m wary about investing now (I had thought about it previously), even for the other thread about crowdsourcing. We could crowdsource our own efforts, but in my mind, Purism still owns the keys to the kingdom of releasing any new code. I think of it as we are on a Bus. Purism is driving the bus. We can offer to help navigate, take the steering while while they still sit in the seat and handle the brakes and gas, etc. But, the ultimate decider of whether we go or stop, or where we go will reside with Purism. Unless I’m mistaken on this?
My only question to you @flanders51 is why the Xperia (that is the Sony phone right) as opposed to something like a Pixel phone with GrapheneOS. This was my approach to try and maintain a semblance of privacy and security while I waited for the L5. And if Purism and/or L5 don’t survive that would be my fallback. I do really like GrapheneOS (with no microG).
Anyhow, thanks for sharing!
Xperia Lena(10 III) it is my main daily driver phone for long time while i waiting Gnu Crimson to finally moving for Librem 5. However for a better experience for sailfish i advise you to get Xperia Murray which a.t.m i testing with Sailfish Sauna. However Sailfish is obsolete and hardcored through L/Android/Linux aka AD.
Yeah Sailfish OS and Sony Xperia is the best and smart option after Librem 5. 
I do not like Wayland either, Thanks to Linux Enterprises Opensource via Fedora.
It has been a while since the last update and gnome 3.38 certainly is getting a bit old. Switching everything over to flatpak more or less has kept the phone functioning properly for me. The problem for me is mostly related to nitpicks that haven’t been fixed on the driver/hardware side and that I think are somewhat independent of the shell version. So I don’t see why work would, or should be stopped on that e.g. wake up from sleep reliably (arguable though linux across the board is terrible in that respect), phone specific options and power save modes, building software/apps to make use of the smartcard (for the average user), updating the matrix server to allow for all the new interactions that are not supported by purism one, porting over apps to flatpak (pureos VPN for example) etc…
There was a major update to Crimson slightly over a week ago.
DId you end up reflashing to Crimson after I provided instructions to you in the thread?
I did on my spare L5, but I am not a fan of the experience and prefer byzantium and how everything scales a little better.
I appreciate you providing feedback on your Crimson experience. I recently added the gnome-nightly Flatpak repository and picked up a few new favourite apps there:
I learned that Epiphany (Dev) works fine compared to Crimson’s Epiphany, which still does not work at all.
For me, when I think about the pressure to stop using my Librem 5 as an almost pseudo-conscious digital entity or series of entities constructed with machine learning outside of my immediate sphere of knowledge, it really makes me enjoy trying to use Librem 5 instead of any other “smart” phone whenever possible. In that kind of goal oriented thinking against us, maybe convincing you to give up is a big gain for them. Any knowledge that you have about how to make a Librem 5 work, which you take for granted as common knowledge and something discussed on the forum, will be knowledge that new folks don’t have if there is turnover in the Librem 5 users.
I did that also few weeks ago, and I find experience to be better than “good enough”. Battery life is excellent, as is Android compatibility, I can make calls over Bluetooth in my car, and I can live with minor bugs SFOS has, it doesn’t ruin the experience.
L5 has been shelved the time being, or maybe indefinitely, time will tell. I just hope that money I paid for it paved the road to eventual manifestation of usable Linux mobile phone.
Yes,
SFOS works really well for all daily use and also in the car.
But You will ever find people which are embarrassed about the “non-OSS” parts of Sailfish OS.
AFAIK they have also binary blobs for modem and other hardware components. And also “Silica” is closed source.
But it runs stable and satisfying. With wayland as compositor since years
I hope that for me SFOS is just a stepping stone to something more open. It’s definitely a step forward from Android.
In retrospective, it might’ve been better to accept more compromises and go with less open hardware, using some compatibility layer for drivers, like libhybris or something. It would leave more cash to direct towards getting the userspace done, and having a fully functional phone, with better battery life.
IMO, it would be better to have something like that, than the current situation.
Please don’t assume that everyone else is in the same boat, it depends on the usage. Personally, I prefer owning a computer phone that I can (mostly) trust and in my humble opinion, those looking for less open hardware and software should buy an Android smartphone instead. The more compromises you do, the most end users you lose because at the end, you lose those who expect the Librem 5 to be as comfortable as an Android smartphone and you lose those who expect free hardware and free software.
If Mobian or PM-OS does not really work on the L5 ind an foreseeable timeframe, I will also go back to SFOS…
The phones are not expensive and are of really good quality
As I said, IMO.
The L5 AFAIK also contents critical drivers or components in a black-box mode ???
If all of the code for L5 was upstreamed, than I might have a different stance towards it. This way, if Purism ends support for it, we’re left with software to maintain on our own. And they aren’t currently communicating their plans and timeline when we can expect anything.
Updating to Crimson is nice, but we will still be in the same situation sooner or later, if out of the tree patches to kernel, NetworkManager, and whatever else, aren’t upstreamed.
In the end, we didn’t get what we were promised. I’d love to have working Librem5, and I don’t care about Android ecosystem and what not. I was daily driving it for about a year, and was OK with its drawbacks, thinking that at least the basic phone functionality will get better.
Well, it didn’t. I can’t rely that my phone calls will work properly, that caller will hear me, or that the bloody buzzer will stop buzzing when I answer the call, and sometimes I have important calls to take.
I daily driven it for about a year, lugged an external battery around, lived without a practical GPS, went through many hoops to use it, and now Purism is again playing dumb and quiet, without any explanation on when and if they are planning to resume improving the software.
I am aware that there are different strokes for different folks, that’s why I’m using SFOS until a better solution comes by.
SFOS is also heavily community driven and they have made a real noticeably reliability and usability over all the years.
For the L5 the situation is “like always”:
Big promises, a half or a little more ready system and then nothing more.
Compared to SFOS I am really some kind of shocked how Purism communicates for their customers. … barely nothing 
I think that the only chance we have to get a better phone is to support Mobian and PM-OS.
On Purism I would not bet 1 cent for the L5