FSF workers are UAW (united auto workers took them under their unbrella) 
1 Like
Considering the pinephone will have a retail price of ~$200 this isn’t really accurate
1 Like
I see what you’re saying. I guess my perspective is different from yours. They’re letting users beta test their hardware, and it appears that while you may not have a problem with that, you dislike that they’re trying to expand in other areas while the phone still isn’t ready for mass production. I think this is an underestimation on your part, perhaps brought on by impatience, which has been demonstrated in this forum to be the source of a lot of negativity. I don’t have much to offer you except to relax and be patient. There’s no evidence they’re going under, and the bug trackers posted around the forum show that they are still actively working on the software. Them expanding at the same time isn’t a bad thing to me, I see it as them not struggling as hard as you might think. This apparent perception of yours is the hazard of a growing business running what is effectively a public beta of hardware.
6 Likes
well it is, because pinephone falls into category
as it’s really just a lowspec unlocked andorid phone, which just happened to be finally mostly mainlined after almost decade.
1 Like
I don’t like assuming things either, but aren’t we both assuming some things in order to have this conversation? You have conjecture in some of your conserns, but not evidence from first hand reporting, right? Not that it’s bad to make conjecture from past experience and so on, it does lead to public discourse that often finds truth.
1 Like
That is a relativistic position though. Perhaps it would be enlightening for you to describe what you expect a new project to be like because the words we use to round off or summarize an opinion like chaos or great hide the metrics that landed us at that conclusion. I saw another reply to this by @Gavaudan which I find matches my position on your concerns.
While trying to do my suggested homework in your linked reply, I followed through to this link:
https://0net.io/1EwAh4KUfGgRw1re7uyrmTUWKZYV9SHVcW/?Post:45:The+Librem+5+phone+is+still+at+an+early+stage
and it didn’t give me pause. The things that were inconveniences for the reporter detailing his first hand experience are troubles I have had with large producers of hardware. My Nexus 6p spy brick just gives me a, “fuck-off, I’m rebooting”, every so often, sometimes more than a few times a day, sometimes none. I’ve had a Nexus 7 LTE tablet on it’s own decide to not wait to be on WiFi to synch video of a wedding to the cloud and because the file was to big for the remainang free storage repeated the loop of uploading it my entire long drive home resulting in a potential $250 data bill by Google FI because Google fucked up with their software; they didn’t admit fault but did credit the charges and changed their software. I have had LG’s in the past with removeable batteries that would freeze and need the battery removed to reboot. I have many friends who were so frusterated with their smart phones provided by Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile, etc. that they literally destroyed the devices out of frusteration. They have a different bar for their expectations than I do because I just swear aloud like an angry truck driver.
7 Likes
Thread Hijacking
Them’s is Fightin’ Words!
Oh don’t you dare disrespect my hero John Maynard Keynes!
1 Like
Sorry, the lolz should have had an explaination. I loved the modification of Kickstarter. Thats a type of perfect joke, e.g. when a writer reveals a greater truth of life in a way that you can’t trim off any more words without destroying the message.
I feel so ignorant and enlightened at the same time.
6 Likes
I feel the same - this means I could invest in purism and get around 1,4 times the money back later??
1 Like
The post stated add x amount for kill switches etc etc so what I stated was accurate
1 Like
Yes. That’s mostly my concern. Also it bothers me the fact that Purism did not care about getting Ubports on board to work on this project together. Some people in this forum pushed them to finally send one or two devkits (leftovers) but it was kind of late since Ubports was working with Pine64 on the Pinephone project already. That’s something I don’t understand. Linux community is better than that. It is like Purism is looking for the total glory in this case. It was said L5 will be able to run UT or Plasma besides PureOS and to me we were talking about being able to install your OS of choice when you receive the phone. Well… It is not going to be ready for UT if Purism doesn’t share the work load with Ubports in the proper way. Hopefully whatever Ubports is doing for the Pinephone may be applicable to L5 some day in the future. I don’t know. I don’t feel comfortable with the way Purism is handling this project. Maybe I need more information and I am not capable of getting it or if I do I am not capable of understand it. There is an old saying in my culture: the dog has four legs and yet it takes one road. This company has no time to keep backers informed because they are just a few people dealing with an enormous task. All of a sudden there’s time for expansion and that’s OK? Let’s finish what we’ve started first and then let’s take care of other things. That’s my point.
3 Likes
It may be that the expansion could get them some more money or contacts with other knowledgeable people for something down the road, y’know? Granted what I’m about to say is giving them leeway, but I trust they do know what they’re doing. This is evidenced by the progress they’ve made to this point. It may not have been the smoothest of roads, even for us, but look where it is. By a (admittedly very basic) definition, there exists a Linux phone. According to the bug tracker it is already functioning as such. No one here can argue that it’s perfect, but it’s there. For me, that, and the documented progress being made, is enough reason to trust that success will be achieved. Barring some cataclysm, of course.
As for ubports and plasma, I haven’t seen the whole story yet. Maybe they got overlooked. Maybe they insulted Todd’s mother. Maybe their was a logistical dispute. Maybe one of the execs decided to just give them the finger. I dunno. I feel like purism wants to get their ducks in a row before bringing outsiders in to add complexity to this already complex endeavor, which would be in line with what you and others say they oughtta do.
I wish I had more information for you, but that’s what I’ve got and how I see it. Hopefully it’ll help ease your mind a little bit.
6 Likes
(We don’t know that the second sentence is false. “will” is future tense. It may turn out to be true.)
Let’s be clear on what “X random hardware can run Y random operating system” really means, and what the opposite means.
The opposite means: we lock the hardware up so that you can only run one operating system, namely the one that we provide. That is the Apple approach. Noone in the free software world wants that or would endorse that.
Equally however, noone could possibly believe that “X random hardware can run Y random operating system, for all X and Y”. Given the quirks of individual hardware components, the lack of standards, … a lot of the time “Y” operating system is just not going to work - unless someone puts in the time and effort, and sometimes that time and effort will have to be substantial.
Here are my opinions about the situation.
- Purism won’t do anything that deliberately makes it difficult or impossible to install another operating system.
- Purism will upstream as much as they can - hence ports that are derived from a common parent code base will have some stuff working automatically. (They may also provide documentation, beyond the code, but it wouldn’t surprise me if documentation is not as far advanced at this time as they would have hoped.)
- They may try to help other groups with their ports to Purism hardware, to a reasonable extent, as time allows but there’s no blank cheque.
- Given that this project is clearly running behind the originally envisaged schedule, Purism is right to prioritise delivering on their own product.
I don’t speak for Purism and the above are just my thoughts, as is the following.
It is easier to guarantee quality and support if you control both hardware and software. By all means install UBports on your Librem 5 when UBports is ready but if something isn’t working right, there are limits to the support that Purism would, could or should provide.
4 Likes
China … China … China …
For me as a European this is funny.
For a European the US is somehow in second place, after China.
For a European, in the US there are the companies that have ruined the internet.
Those companies that carry out the most surveillance and spying worldwide, whether for advertising purposes, political influence or intelligence support.
I am talking about those specific companies that make the Librem 5 necessary and that also make some of the Kill-Switches necessary.
That is why it is somehow a real funny joke for a European if a Librem 5 of American production is offered here at a price tag of 2000 USD.
For a European that’s looking like 1400 USD, adding for a Patriot Act Risk.
The whole thread does not even mention the NSA, not even the Patriot Act. Tomorrow your FBI comes, and forbids you under threat of punishment to report about which and how many of your US produced phones are or were manipulated.
I think you hardly learned anything from Snowden and that’s sad.
This is really the first time that Purism is a bit unsympathetic to me.
Good luck with your US edition, I wouldn’t be that sad, if it would be a flop.
I think there are more and other “secure” places in the world, when it comes to “secure” Production.
But of course, if you want to “make America great again”, go ahead with your 2000 USD device 
I stay with my nasty Librem China 5 - which I hopefully will get in March now.
3 Likes
It’s not that the USA is simon pure in this regard.
Far from it.
But China is vastly, vastly worse.
3 Likes
China is vastly, vastly worse
@SteveC Okay.
But is that an argument?
If “most worst” is not okay, why should “worse” be good enough?
Not really, if one gets a rootable phone, as one can just install a ROM without Google Apps. One must trust the manufacturer to not install hardware or firmware backdoors, though.
2 Likes
First, Rooting a phone and installing non Google apps is not what most of the ppl are equipped to do. It also comes with risks of bricking a phone/some functions not working properly or at all, etc
Also, you lose frequent security patches (if not altogether) which address different vulnerabilities discovered in Android as well as OS support. One can argue that they are unnecessary, but it’s another fact to discourage some people.
What I was talking about is available Android phones to buy and use right out of box, not some tinkerer toys with special requirements. You know, like finding a well supported device , preferred AOSP fork and willingness & knowledge to install and manage it Not saying it’s terribly hard to do, but hard enough to dissuade people from even considering.
1 Like