Nonsense!
This refers to backers that have been promised 17 months. I made that explicit at the beginning of my statement that I am not. I could have expected a close to final product when stating to be delivered within 3 months. And now knowing what happende in the meantime reflecting that back to the point in time I ordered.
Honestly, back than Purism had nothing. Nothing. Barely nothing. But still claiming on their homepage that delivery starts in 3 months. This tells a lot to me.
That link explains why it all happened like that. The reasons sound solid to me.
I don’t want to argue here (see above). Let’s assume you are right. But right now Purism has the design, the delivery started, people around the world confirm that the phone works. What else do you need to calm down and wait for your order? Purism do not know when they can do it for reasons not depending on them.
I would say you have a valid grievance. And it is a valid example of purisms optimism biting them, an example of a trend that could be used to show the malice that I personally do not believe is there.
I believe at the time, they hoped the process would go much faster than it did and for the challenges they were facing to be resolved much more quickly.
Does that make your specific instance any less valid? no. Does it make the current communication from purism invalid? not by itself, no.
Pointing to a past statement, that turned out to be untrue, to say a current statement is untrue is a logical fallacy. Using past statements to show a trend and then being skeptical of a current statement because of a past trend is not unreasonable.
I get your frustration, and your skepticism, and it is valid. I’m just not convinced that it shows malice on Purisms behalf not that it shows the current statement to be intentionally misleading and untrue.
I think purism could be much more transparent and upfront with customers and potential customers than they currently are, I just don’t think their intent is malicious.
LOL. Upper case not warranted. 
Apparently you haven’t been involved in many untidy IT projects …
Given Purism’s record of optimism, I remain uncomfortable with “a few months” as the current published delivery estimate for new orders.
I look forward to the day when shipping parity is reached and only normal delivery delays arise because orders are fulfilled from stock. That is what mainstream customers will expect.
In the meantime … to all 265 posts in this topic: The phone is real (I have mine, as do many others) and we will all get there in the end.
Please do not mix up things. I am not talking about impatience. It is, what it is!
We were discussing the phrase “a few”, while knowing (or at least guessing very good on basis of self / forum created transparency) how long it will last until delivery would start, when ordering now.
Basically the same situation I was in 2 years ago. And it does not seem fair to me for others taking into account to order a device now.
Plus, it somehow hurts how Purism is discussed in other forums (as already mentioned here), while being the only organization or “project” that really brings FOSS in mobile device context ahead. And mirroring that here also to Purism associates is also one of my intentions.
They changed in Nov 2020 the waiting time of new order from 6 months to “a few months” knowing that their “a few months” means at least 6 months. The English language gives “a few months” to be less than 6 months.
EDIT: This is a frustration rant for things the way I see them now:
It’s not the first time they are doing this:
- "shipping starts in January 2019" - “but we are not telling you we are talking about a fucking prototype that we’re soldering it manually. Don’t hold your breath to get your 3700th order. Haha.”
- "Here are our production batches - choose which one you’ll like" - “but we are not telling you that only Evergreen is a mass-production batch and basically everyone will get it, since the others are very small. Haha, fools! Come on, order some more. Show me the money!”
- "We will be shipping 50,000 phones before the end of Q1 2020" -“You guys are so gullible. Yes, order more! Let’s them come, baby!”
- "Hey, we release the Evergreen the mass-produced Librem 5. Come and order it, it’s hot and you get it in a FEW months. Haha." - “But we are not telling you that it doesn’t have the necessary certifications (FCC, CE) and when you import it in your country you’re breaking the law. Well we are telling you that, but only after you pre-order it. Yay!”.
Proof?
@Calliga above showed that it can be more:
If you try to put words into Purism’s mouth, please at least back them with some proof (URL, archived web page, at the VERY least a screen shot). Unsubstantiated claims may be seen as FUD and get you booted off the forum.
Take this as an official warning (which will be reverted if you update the post to remove the aforementioned problem).
Nevermind covid, right? Or are you suggesting purism saw that coming?
Frustration is being criticized here because actual justification for delays are not being taken into account while opinion is insisted on as being valid evidence for argument. There is no actual evidence here in this thread, just feelings and rants.
I finally received the long-awaited email (yippee!):
Ordered: 27th September 2017
Shipping estimate email: 1st February 2021
Shipping estimate: 15th - 19th March 2021
I think. in November, a full year after initial Covid transmission in China, and 8 months after Global lockdowns started Purism could have foreseen the effects of Covid-19 in their update, release November '20
or in short, yes, I really think that three months ago Purism should have been pretty au fait with the affects of Covid on their supply/manufacturing chain since that’s been an excuse used for failing to meet the initial deployments almost a year before the update was given.
and they only removed the link to the everything is great now November notice on the “buy now” page yesterday…
I know it is a difficult concept. - but up until yesterday Purism were saying buy now, get a phone in a few months, they were linking to a post that said the phones were shipping, they talk about reaching shipping parity (for some models) within a couple of weeks of now. it is really clear that you’re buying a device, on back order.
This is vastly different from those who threw money at an idea three years ago.
People buying (up to yesterday morning) weren’t buying an idea, they were buying a product, on back order that would be made and shipped to them “in a few months”
And can we stop all this bull about “a few” being as much as nine.
this whole “if I was told someone I’d sell then a car for a few grand and they came with $1k or$2k” works the other way too. If I told you I was selling you something for a few grand, and when it came to it, I wanted $9 - $12 thousand, you’d be righteously pissed that I wasted your time.
It’s incredible the amount of people who are rushing to defend the poor communication and poor sales practices that have been on display.
What will your work life be like 3 months from now? How many other things have to align properly for your answer to come true?
Really the amazing thing here is (as I said) the reliance on opinion and interpretation to justify “logical” arguments. I know it’s a difficult concept, but what is needed is something other than "well, I think should be defined as " in order to take the statement as anything meaningful.
Give us facts, not “This is BS because I say so and I’ve found others who share my opinion.” If something was really wrong, it would be pointed out, not what the ambiguous word “few” should mean to a handful of people.
I think an interesting parallel is Mycroft. They’ve been meaning to ship their open source home assistant Mark II, which will be delayed by at least a year now too. They initially had it estimated for early last year but in the end had to go right back to the drawing board and are only now this month shipping the first dev kits, with consumer devices presumably still a few months away at least, and that despite having a successfull “Mark I” run and using relatively well known components (raspberry pi based).
New hardware project estimation seems genuinely difficult.
Just my first comment after I ‘lately’ ordered my L5 in Sep 2019 and ‘soon’ started finding the shipping estimate is changed from email to store, and then the forum.
CEO must be hard working to give us all the information. However, my feelings are:
- shipping estimate is like weather forecast because one can only ‘hope’ the estimate becomes true for tomorrow
- shipping estimate is worser than weather forecast because the former has no history as of the latter for more accurate prediction and therefore the information is likely not true
- as a customer, when talking about ‘truth’ or ‘information’, I prefer listening to the ‘fact’ which never go wrong. I think customers would like to hear my order is packed and just shipped / picked up, like those updates from DHL which is the ‘fact’ and in most cases, customers treat this ‘fact’ as ‘information’.
Communication is two-way while one says he’s best and the other one complains about it, it’s mutual.
Rather than listening to more ‘information’, I hope CEO can just give out the ‘fact’ to all customers because:
- backers are your fans who would accept whatever you present and you can give them special ‘information’ individually that other customers wouldn’t want to hear to get disappointed
- customers just care about the deal and only think if it’s a fair trade or not. in this case, you’re damaging the company’s reputation and no one could help, which in fact hurt all customers because potential buyers will run away and the company business model may need a change to survive.
Have you ever noted that Purism has always, almost always been wrong in estimates. How can you be so consistent in being wrong in estimating something?
As I have voiced earlier, it is very frustrating that they always play and twist with words to get away on technicality. Kyle Rankin denied it but time and again, it has been the same story, get away on technicality.
Another thought. I wonder if Purism had genuinely known everything upfront (magic crystal ball maybe) and/or been super pessimistic and said from the beginnning it will take 5 years + and $800, and even now said on their order page it’ll take maybe another year etc to even ship you a device in beta quality (no camera, mms etc)
How would that have affected orders? Would most customers have been prepared to wait that long if that’s how it was phrased? Would the entire device have become financially unviable to even start? If so, then selfishly, I think maybe I’m ok with them tending to project optimism.
This is about software. Hardware is harder.
You want facts? I posted the dictionary definition of a few, synonyms are “two or three”
We don’t need to argue about the meaning, because the dictionary is an authoritative source.
Same as we don’t need to argue about the meaning of the word lie. - it is defined. -“an inaccurate or false statement; a falsehood.”
Whilst Purism say “buy today and get it in a few months.” - that statement means, “buy today and get it in 3 - 4 months.” (that’s a fact)
That’s not possible, and Purism know that is not possible, so the statement is “an inaccurate or false statement”., other wise known as “a lie.” (that’s a fact)
When purism state that they are, “conveying a false impression” - the dictionary definition of lying. (that’s a fact)
It was three weeks ago that eugenr brought this point up. (scroll up to confirm this fact)
the shop was updated yesterday to remove the link to the November update post 3 weeks after the post was superseded by new information. (also a fact confirmed about)
but they chose to keep that “buy now and get it in a few months” lie. (fact confirmed by going to the shop now.) purism lied (fact), they are still lying right now,(fact) people keep telling them that it’s a shitty business practice. (fact)
I asked earlier (last time you objected to using the word lie):
“What would you call it when a company tells new customers information on their sales pages that they know isn’t not true?”
Why don’t you try disputing the facts instead of putting your own opinion of the definition of words forward to pretend that Purism aren’t lying, in the statements that they have in their shop right now.
You may see nothing wrong with this (opinion), you may think it is perfectly normal (opinion) for businesses to pump up sales with lies, but it really should not be (opinion)
You know how public statements work right? you put something in writing, and that is your current statement, and that’s the statement that you make to people every time it is read (i.e it stays current). and if that statement becomes untrue, even through no fault of your own, and you choose to let the inaccurate statement stand, and choose not to correct it. that’s a lie. (because you let the statement stand, it is still current.)
we can argue the semantics over whether company people reading this thread should have a duty of care to ensure that the sales information is correct.
we can argue the semantics over whether this false impression of the shipping readiness of the product leads to sales that wouldn’t have otherwise been made.
we can argue whether it is ethical for a business to continue to let false statements stand etc.
we can argue whether this is good customer service or not.
we can argue about whether the statements are intentionally false, or accidentally false.
we can argue over how soon the company should have known, and what they should/should not have said.
We can argue about whether project backers who funded and idea, should be considered differently from product buyers, who read that they’d get a phone in a few months.
We can argue over what updates are relevant to what class of buyers.
We can even argue about what I’ll be doing in a few months if you really want, (and I’ve actually got a fairly good idea, because project pipelines are well managed where I work.)
but what we cannot argue is to re-define words, to attempt to make a false statement true.
You did not even link to your post and I had to search for it. This is not very generous. Now, after I found it, I have to tell you that your link is misleading, because it does not show the actual numbers, it just says that it’s “not many”. It does not make a distinction between “few” and “a few”, which are not the same thing:
- Without the article “a,” few emphasizes a small number of something.
- Adding the article removes the emphasis— a few means some .
Now, if you want to have actual numbers, I suggest that you consider the context of the phrase. For exmple, “in a few days” would mean less than in a week, because otherwise you would not use “day” as a time unit. “In a few months” means in some months, but less than in a year, analogously.