I don’t think we have the same definition of transparency. Kyle gives us the information he has. That’s what I call transparency. That doesn’t mean that things will go according to plan.
Let’s say I order an item from you. You plan is to order parts A and B, assemble them together and ship the assembly (the item I ordered) to me.
On Monday I ask you when you can ship the item. Supplier of part A promised you that you would have it by Tuesday and supplier of part B promised you that you would have it by Wednesday. So you say you expect to be able to ship my item on Thursday.
On Tuesday you receive part A. But on Wednesday you don’t receive part B. The supplier informs you there was a problem and you will only receive it on Friday.
On Thursday i ask you if you have shipped my item. You say no and I complain and accuse you of not being transparent.
Ok so to answer the hypothetical, by telling me all these. Tell me the parts that you are waiting for, the assumptions you are working with, better yet understand what a conservative estimate is so I don’t have to care about any of this. What is the chance of a one week delay from suppliers? The practice of calculating that at zero percent then be surprised every week that it isn’t clearly not working out.
I am also waiting for my Librem 14. I understand that you cannot share more information than you have and also not all information about the total sales and so on, but what I would love to see is something like a short video where you can see Librems running around in the production hall, similar to AstraZeneca and BioNTech has done it with the Coronavirus vaccine. That would make us customers see that there is some progress while you would not share exact details about your sales.
Based on what Kyle has provided they are waiting for the fully assembled laptops. They did point to the missing component (the laptop) and did say the shipper is where the delay is at. So the information was provided. Not in the most timely manner and not with the more conservative estimates, but that horse is pretty well beaten.
Provide an update on Wednesday when the product didn’t arrive instead of waiting for the customer to ask me about it the next day.
Also, I’d be having some very frank conversations with my supplier about the delay. If the delay is that they’re on one of the container ships at anchor waiting for a spot at the port I’d say that and that I can’t give an accurate estimate of when the ship will be allowed at the port because the port authority doesn’t know.
Transparency is already at another level. I get wanting more, and I do think purism should arrive for more, but they are already in the top % of their competition. The way your message reads to me implies a lack of transparency instead of room for improvement.
N units will not be provided and has been addressed. You can want it for more transparency, but that decision has been made for the time being.
In X weeks was originally provided, not sure what more your ask is here.
I can see the desire for the tracking information, but that is a moving target and unless you tie that into your erp system this is just not practical as more orders come in to keep updating.
V will also not be provided for the same reason as N.
To me the actual ask is more akin to what I have pointed to in the past. Be more conservative with the estimates, set expectations you can meet.
In this case it does sound as if there’s a communication issue between Purism and their supplier. If purism is taking their shippers date at face value and passing that along with minimal to no buffer, that is not a conservative estimate. Though it is quite possible that even a reasonably conservative estimate would be missed if the ship sits anchored for a month waiting for the port authority to let them unload (this has and can happen with minimal information the shipper can provide beyond “we’re waiting our turn”). And it is on this front that I think Purism could improve the transparency. This far we’re guessing at shipping method, but pallets can be air dropped as well.
This however reads as if the shipper was delayed picking up the shipment and that a new shipper is being contracted. If that is the case then the previous delay of a couple of days into April was lacking some detail that was available to Purism.
All of that said, Purism should be applauded for the progress in communication over the last 2 years. Purism also has room for improvement, but that does not negate the progress made. I look forward to continued growth from Purism.
Well,
There is a small hole i am pointing, you missed.
Lack of planning.
Whenever i produce gods for clients, i am creating a plan.
Good plan assumes delay from very beginning, so i have margins that i can move.
Here we here until end of March units will be shipped (Now in April) we hear that original supplier didn’t sent units. That doesn’t stick to original line in communication, proves my point.
No company that respects own clients work in such way. and even if Purism work that way, they were fully aware fact that this deadline is impossible to meet.
It’s simple, you need to get units from original supplier, additional work need to be done, (packaging labeling, possibly QA) packages need to be packed secured, sent.
if i say “i will ship it till end of X” that means i will have packed unit days earlier so courier will pick up at last day of the month.
now the bomb, small information that never was exposed, but can be checked if you wish: librem 14 is nothing more that Clevo Design made laptop, librem don’t produces them at all. (same suppiler that delivers system76 laptops btw.) Librem only delivers OS and firmware here, hardware design is done by clevo.
system 76 don’t have delays on they laptop lines, how is that possible that librem have problem with same supplier? even if technically librem is easier to handle client, no additional branding required, no custom molds … ?
The question i am leaving here open for consideration.
There was a plan, that’s not what was missed. Timely updates (not counting the last update that couldn’t have come any more timely) when the plan had issues, well that’s another matter.
Your perspective is that of hindsight. You don’t know how much delay was accounted for in the original plan. I agree that in the delay there was insufficient buffer time, and already pointed that out.
Whether it is a clevo design or not is irrelevant (the delay does not appear to be related to the design process). Whether a competitor is having delays or not is mostly irrelevant and not constructive feedback. There are a myriad of ways for a company to have delays that their competitor doesn’t even when using 1 of the same vendors I’m not going to speculate on which of the infinite possibilities might apply here.
system 76 is not competitor… it’s cooperator here in many aspects:
see information about “liberation of EC” firware was done in coop… actually system 76 devs did id
well you seem don’t know how laptop market works.
tehcnilally there are 4 vendors of laptops. Clevo / Compal / brand owned by MSI/ and one Apple uses, that name i don’t remember.
no matter if you are buy dell, hp, apple… youa re buiung laptops from oen fo these vendors.
Trick is, that motherboard, display,case came from one factory group. they will even print your branding… and box it.
so process looks like: design (look and feel- those can be done by vendor, or took from company - go to clevo site and search in ready to use designs, you will find 14 there…) -> design of electronigcs (that is also done by clevo, based on specs from Librem) -> (couple phases of Enginering evaluation) -> mass production.
while i can understand some delays on Engineering verification phase - problem with ram, problem with battery…
We are (at last Librem statment was saying) at mass production phase.
i can uderstand delays, related to cpu shortage , battery supplier problem, and even dewsign problem that was reproted with ram. taht was Engineering phase. but at production stage you should have clean flow.
you can project: how many units you will have per month, so you can provide information to the client with quite acurate estimates. or even system that will able answer to the users when this laptop will be produced/shipped.
Anwyay… i am working with clients for years, i never shoot in my foot because i assumed something will happened on time.
in shipping estimates i have 4 week buffer, where when i am in a half of this buffer i am starting gently talking with clients , that there is a chance that there will be a delay. it’s better to supprise client with earlier delivery than late.
One good sign i see.
4 days ago purism published librem 14 bios. that means they are getting ready to deliver.
So whatever we as a customers are unhappy… Things are going right way.
Some patience.
I am waiting , and even while not happy seeing delays… Excited.
Fingers crossed.
We have received part A but we were also supposed to receive part B on Wednesday, there is a problem with the supplier and according to him, we will receive it only on Friday. For example?
There is only one Clevo model on the Clevo web site that is close to the specs of the Librem 14, which is the N141CU, but:
its keyboard doesn’t match the L14,
the shape of its case doesn’t match the case of the L14,
the shape of its webcam in the lid doesn’t match the L14’s webcam,
the ports on its sides don’t match the L14,
it has a Thunderbolt port, which the L14 lacks,
it doesn’t have a TPM chip, which the L14 has
Frankly, I don’t think that you know what you are talking about, but feel free to prove me wrong. By the way, laptops often have similar designs because they are based on Intel reference designs, so just because you see a similar layout in a Clevo motherboard doesn’t mean that Clevo was necessarily the designer.
Yes, Purism is using System76’s ec code, but the EC in System76 laptops are either the ITE IT8587E or the ITE IT5570E. The Librem 14 uses the ITE IT8528E and “IT8528E” does not appear in the source code for System76’s ec, so Purism had to do some adaption of the code. Purism promises to work with System76 to upstream its changes (which is how FOSS is supposed to work).
The different 8051 chip in the L14 is further evidence that Clevo is not the ODM of the L14.
There are a lot more than 4 ODMs of laptops. 80% of the world’s laptops are produced by Quanta, Compal, Wistron (part of Acer), Inventec and Pegatron (part of ASUSTeK), but there are a lot of other ODMs like MSI, Clevo, Benton, TPS Best, Shenzhen South Digital, Hasee, Gigabyte, Getac, Tongfang, Elitegroup (ECS), Foxconn and Flextronics, and we have no idea which ODM Purism is using. Apple laptops have been manufactured by Quanta, Pegatron and Foxconn, so I’m not sure which ODM you are referring to.
Apparently it always takes then nearly a week to write their emails. You would think they could just start copying and pasting the same “sorry we’re delayed again” email and just change the month names
By the way has anyone that ordered in August or later even gotten the address verification email?
This is a common misconception. A lot of people (including you apparently) confuse us with System76 in this regard. We don’t use Clevo designs, but perhaps your confusion is based on the fact that our Librem 13 and 15 cases were based on public laptop molds (so we didn’t waste money on a custom mold we didn’t need) and standard reference motherboard designs (because they suited our purpose) and then we customized from there with HKS, etc. So we don’t use Clevo, which would be obvious to anyone who has looked at laptops from the two companies side-by-side.
I would appreciate if you would apologize for spreading incorrect misinformation.
In any case, the Librem 14 is another step forward in this regard as it’s a complete redesign we’ve done based on all the lessons we’ve learned with the past iterations.
By the way, if this thread continues to just be a place for folks to bash me, or dream up odd conspiracy theories and call me a liar, as I try to share information and answer questions in good faith, then I think it’s time to close it as it demonstrates the thread is past serving its purpose as a discussion area for our last blog post.
Kyle - Do you have any update on the shipping situation? Also, is this an issue with getting the shipments in from the vendor or getting the shipments out from your warehouse?
While it is unfortunate about the delays (thank you for the updates @Kyle_Rankin) , I don’t think this thread is serving any purpose other than shooting the messenger and voicing more negativity and misinformation at this point.
That being said, maybe it’s time to close the thread @Kyle_Rankin. It’s probably about time for a new blog post anyways?
