Is there any news on the Fir batch?
I read Purism news from time to time to see if I am to expect my phone any time soon but I haven’t read nothing about the Fir batch (though it’s possible I missed it).
Has Purism communicated anything about it? Is it still expected to happen? Is it possible to fallback to an Evergreen phone otherwise?
No.
Depends on whom you ask.
Likely, you’d have to email purism support to find out for certain.
I would say very likely but only Purism can say for sure.
I would also say that, given the absence of news on Fir, this might be a sensible course of action. I guess it depends on your goals and your personal situation.
Make Librem 5 more Delicious on Fir.
Librem 5 a GNU-LEVEL Phone by Purism. = )
The options for Purism are:
If Purism wants to sell the Librem 5/Liberty as a convergent PC, it should consider option 1, but it doesn’t address the poor battery life, high heat and poor processing power of the i.MX 8M Quad.
Honestly, the amount of engineering for options 2, 3, 4 and 5 is significant and I doubt that Purism has the financing to attempt them, because I don’t think Purism can ever do another crowd funding campaign due to the bad publicity it received from the crowdfunding of the Librem 5.
Switching to the i.MX 8M Plus would shrink the process node from 28 to 14 nm and reduce the heat, while improving the processing power, but it cuts the GPU processing power in half and eliminates the video out with USB-C DisplayPort Alt Mode (although a separate chip could be added to provide that). I have no idea if the NPU in the Plus can be run without blobs, but the Librem 5 doesn’t need an NPU in my opinion.
I’m really annoyed that none of the chipmakers are bothered to make a competitive Linux chip for phones, except Qualcomm, and you need a bunch of blobs to run the QCM6490. However, I don’t see much difference in terms of freedom between running blobs on separate WiFi and cellular modem chips and running blobs on an integrated SoC like the QCM6490, although there are security/privacy differences because you can cut the power to those chips with hardware kill switches.
The 8nm RK3588 with four Cortex-A76 and four Cortex-A55 cores is a fantastic chip for a Linux laptop, and maybe it can be downclocked to fit within the power envelope of a phone, but that will give you a hot phone with a short battery life, like the PinePhone Pro, which is hardly ideal. The performance of the 22nm RK3566 with four Cortex-A55 cores with a max of 8GB RAM isn’t very impressive, and I don’t see much point in Purism using the chip when PINE64 says that it will use the chip in the PinePhone 2. There is no way that Purism can compete with PINE64’s low prices, and the chip doesn’t have good enough performance to bother, and you need blobs to boot the Rockchip chips.
It kills me that NXP gave the 12nm i.MX 95 six Cortex-A55 cores, but not a single Cortex-A78 core. NXP seems to have purposely crippled the performance of the chip, but it still looks like the best option to me.
Another option is for Purism to go to Fairphone or SHIFT and work out a deal to sell a Linux phone with their hardware containing the QCM6490 chip. Of course, it would have to run blobs on the main processing cores. I can’t see Purism doing that, because it goes against the company’s ethos and brand image, but I would love to see the company do it, because we really do need a Linux phone that can be used as a full Android replacement. The advantage of this option is that Purism could roll it out quickly and it wouldn’t require that much investment.
Given the financial realities of the company, I think that Purism should do both options 1 and 6, because both can be done for limited investment, and I think both would be profitable. Purism would be able to offer one phone for people who want the freest phone possible and a convergent desktop, and it can offer another phone for people who want a decent camera, good processing power, good battery life, etc. to replace their Android phone and don’t mind the blobs.
I’d like to add that for future endeavors, a preferred modem family should also be selected. There are now more options available than before but they can be finicky and need support - and instead of one single supported modem, a family line would be better. Some future proofing for “LTS phone”.
As far as I’ve kept track (which is not as extensive as some), I think the Quectel line (what was already tested via EM12-G and was preceded by EM060-GL) would be a good fit. There already exists linux support and the line (meaning here variations that use the same size and commands but have increasing features) has variants for different levels of use and price ranges. The current L5 size (which could also be made bigger to allow for current and bigger sizes) doesn’t have a full 5G card at the moment but there is new RedTop-17 spec model that may allow for upgrading to 5G already - and it seems likely there will be future models. I think this is important for the longevity but also to give options for upgrading the modem, from about 40 to 400 coins (€,$,£).
As has been seen, options in this area are needed, but they also need support to get full and perfect use, and that is why a clear choice would be good for concentration of efforts (while not excluding any other potential modems… or any other cards used in m.2 slots). Newer modems would also help a bit with battery life. I’m not aware if there are any major differences in “blobbiness”, but that should be moot, given L5 structure. 4G antennae is the minimum and alternative choices could be to include 5G regardless of modem (or even pre-emptively option for even 6G [the additional freqs at around 7Ghz, not all]) or develop a changeable back cover that has that additional antenna (but that’s theoretical and a bit iffy).
Please improve L5 FIR.
i.MX 8M Plus still 4k,30fps capable.
Librem 5 a GNU-LEVEL Phone made in-house by Purism. 
What is this?
It is an Open Source organization that certificate Open Source Hardware. As for some reason I DO NOT support anything from Opensource.
About OSHWA
The Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA) aims to foster technological knowledge and encourage research that is accessible, collaborative and respects user freedom. OSHWA’s primary activities include hosting the annual Open Hardware Summit and maintaining the Open Source Hardware certification, which allows the community to quickly identify and represent hardware that complies with the community definition of open source hardware.
Okay I thought something in this direction, but thanks to explain in detail. Just one further question: I know you do not support Open Source, but is it a problem to have an additional certificate? Could be a kind of advertise to catch up some people - and more sells = more money for development.
Having that certificate as something additional is not a problem, however oshwa cert it is not mean free of blobs hardware. Most companies it using oshwa cert to make them user believe that they are free hardware of blobs.
As i am a Free Software user what i wish it is that L5 get FSF RYF Cert, which means Libre hardware in the sense Libre of BLOBs including ‘Bootloader and OS’ even without oshwa pass cert. Most oshwa hardware never go for FSF RYF which is the most important cert for real Gnu+Linux device.
I see no issue having both certifications on the Librem 5, so Purism should acquire them towards full-stack liberation.
There is conflict to get both cert, if so Purism will violate FSF is user harware protection rules.
There is real benefit to getting OSHWA certification. I would not necessarily lump them together with the OSI organization as the certification process seems more in line with the FSF in many ways.
In order for your project to be OSHWA-certified, you need to attach an open source license to the hardware components. This license will provide the specific permissions and information downstream users need to make, use, remix, and build upon your work.
In order to receive OSHWA certification, all software that is necessary for the operation of your hardware must be licensed under an OSI-approved license.
Having this OSHWA certification ensures a certain level of openness and (usually) repairability is provided. Purism has already publicly released the source files for the Librem 5 earlier, though because some of the firmware is proprietary, I would think that the Librem 5 currently would be somewhere in the middle of the certification spectrum (click “Spectrum” on the page). The FSF’s main missions focuses on software and not hardware; currently the OSHWA organization is the only one I’m aware of to push people and organizations to make their hardware open rather than proprietary.
The FSF has historically done amazing things with FLOSS, especially with the advent of GPL, etc, but is and has always been incredibly divisive with its rhetoric. If you do not check 100/100 of FSF’s boxes, you are an antagonist and are shunned.
This is not realistic; this constant infighting harms the ethos of the community, potential adoption, and momentum of the FLOSS movement from creating something truly revolutionary.
I see FLOSS not as a binary label, but more as a number line, or a ladder. We must gradually climb the ladder to hardware/software freedom. It may not be ideal/perfect right away, but it is progress nevertheless. It is impossible to jump directly to the top of the freedom ladder, since that requires either a) a miraculous gift from big-tech, or b) an astronomical grant/investment.
If Purism approaches technology in the FSF’s preferred way, progress would be glacial and it would be many years or perhaps decades before achieving significant market share advancement. Take the Steam Deck for example. It is proprietary, yet you can see what good it has done in increasing Linux’s global market share, compatibility of gaming on Linux, enthusiasm and adoption of Linux in general… Linux being a first-class citizen in devices outside the scope of the typical FOSS/enthusiast markets.
When reaching out to investors, if Purism said “our primary competitors are System76, Tuxedo Computers, ThinkPenguin”, etc… You would see a couple hundred thousand dollars of investment, and that would net… a few months of development. You’ve got to target the large companies that have significant market share. Potential target disruption means significant investment. Yes, it’s a high-risk investment, but investments like this have created countless millionaires.
The FSF focuses primarily on software, hence the name and clear messaging up to this point in history. Purism is dedicated to climbing the freedom ladder, but this takes strategy, funding, and time. Purism strives to make the best products it can which respect the user by prioritizing freedom and security, mainlining and releasing as much hardware/gateware/firmware/software as legally possible.
Taking a step back for perspective, there are no certifications for liberated firmware, so even if the Librem 5 acquires both the mentioned certifications, that is not enough for user freedom. RYF only addresses a small subset of firmware, mostly surrounding the CPU.
FSF see it in the same way:
https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/the-journey-begins-with-a-single-step-climb-the-freedom-ladder
Thanks.
To be honest i am really disappointed with: jonathon.hall, jcs, randy.siegel by abusing evil term: FOSS, FLOSS to Gnu Pure OS. So ATM i not supporting Purism anymore, and i am going to slow down activities here to prevent be a Troll by anthogonizing Open Source. Under FLOSS, FOSS peoples it gives me a predictive estimate of the poor quality of work that is coming for L5.
Do you have some examples you could cite of the FSF being ‘divisive?’ In my own life, I am not super strongly well informed about the FSF and mostly only read a few portions of their website.
But what I saw made me divisive (sometimes even internally divided) because it caused me to think more for myself. When I look at the FSF, what I see is that before I was born, somebody decided to make a system called GNU that already solved (or provided the option of solving) the vast majority of the worst and most horrible feeling problems that I have had with technology in my life. Then, from the moment I learned to use technology, nobody informed me about the FSF solutions and so I lived a life of being super uninformed about them, outright ignoring them, and then venting to other people in my life about the problems that arose in my lifestyle of ignorance, and pretending to fight the system which had from the moment of its inception been in violation of FSF principles that anybody could have researched online.
How is that divisive for them to post on their website, “Actually, if you follow these rules with technology, you won’t be abused,” if in fact they are right about it?
Why is that good to make people use Steam Decks? I don’t personally have one, so I am relatively uninformed about it. But if we wanted to increase “Linux market share” on Planet Earth, we could encourage people to buy more “smart TVs.” That doesn’t change the fact that people with “Smart TVs” are probably suffering somewhere deep inside, and these devices usually or always violate a small set of four rules that basically states, “actually, if you follow these rules with technology, you won’t be abused.”