Heh, you are assuming we aren’t already doing this! 
There have been so many times throughout this process where problems cascade far past even conservative estimates. We are doing very difficult things, things in some cases we were told would be impossible to do. It’s incredibly difficult but then we intentionally chose the difficult path. It has its rewards of course.
You were, but perhaps you didn’t know it. Companies are made up of people so typically when you criticize a “company” and don’t feel too bad about it because they are a nameless entity, you are often actually criticizing an individual or small group of actual people within the company. This is especially true for small companies like ours.
In this case I wrote the post and collected the info on estimating when the emails should go out. So in this case I suppose you and anyone else who are disappointed that “you didn’t keep your promise” can be disappointed at, and directly criticize, me.
I think it’s been really difficult for people not directly familiar with the field to grasp just how much work you guys are doing. I know you’ve done your best to write blog posts, code repos and pull requests are there for all to see etc, but it just seems a context gap too far in some cases. You don’t know, how much you don’t know.
It’s threads like this that keep me entertained while I wait for my L5.
Cheers
Might be true. BUT. As you said, you were collecting information to pass them to us. You are not the one being accountable that the promise is not kept and are not accountable that @todd-weaver decides for silence and let you do the job. Again, I really appreciate that.
I did not comment on this overall news post so far. Now I quickly do: While having read that I was laughing and shocked at the same time. Dealing with production systems for more than 10 years it is just pretty obvious to me that talking about a “Just in Time Production” in your ramp up case being delivered from overseas is just wrong and misleading. That was when I was disapointed deeply again but did not react here. What I just read before answering a couple of minutes ago just surmounted it and I could not hold it back.
All of us live in uncertainty and it’s difficult to get away from it. Your responses are polite and measured. Thanks for your communications. I certainly appreciate it.
Purism is a really really small company. That’s what I’m telling myself lately… to forgive them…
Perhaps I’m late to the party…
I would suggest that a part of being transparent would be, when you know something you said previously is out of date that you should update the original posts with a big red notice saying “This is out of date, please see…”
If in November you were able to say “we should be here” it seems that in January you could say the same kind of thing, "our current component supply chain will allow us to make… X orders, (in total, or per month etc.)
People here are either product funders, or new customers that are ordering a released phone (not pre-order, and the order page makes no mention of shipping delays (as of today.)
Either way, whether financial backers, stake holders or customers, honest and transparent indicative estimates for shipping dates does not sound like too much of an ask.
I bet you wished you hadn’t started this thread. Opened up Pandora’s box. Don’t go for the complainer’s bait. I go for it every so often in a weak moment
There is plenty of argumentation based on superficialities of communication regarding this. I’ve tried to look past the daily infos and arguments on what’s really going on. Some partial musings:
As things are, communication (including both, factual and the meta feelings connected to it) is not in a normal state between Purism and it’s active audience (supporters, customers etc. - there are separate external audiences too). Although it can be argued, that communication is never in a equilibrium, and crisis may be too strong of a word currently (as comparatively, the orverall situation has improved immensely, as has the communication effort, but also because there are bigger crises), this is not a neutral situation. A mistake would be to think and respond as it were. Hence, the expectations, methods and processes need to be adjusted accordingly.
So, tenets of crisis communication should be observed, or would most likely be appreciated by the audience. One of them is to communicate more, not less, which has been done, but apparently just not enough. Hence, I’d argue that there is room for improvement, as with most things, and it is not a sign of failure. This does not mean giving up for instance specific numbers. One area seems to be planning of communications, although it’s hard to plan when it’s so tied to the uncertainties of production - yet there is still plenty to do there (but that too would need resources, people, time - luxuries at this point, if I’ve assessed the situation even half right). One other thing is to understand that complete and timely, and fully internalized communication, is not possible - choose one of the first two, the third is not completely in anyone’s control (but can be helped).
Normalization of situation and normalization of communication go somewhat hand in hand. Meaning, to Purism “hang in there” and “work will get you out of your hole”. Meaning to us, the audience, hopefully some good communication practices become of this even for normal times. It also means, that over time (and it does indeed take time), people begin to understand and adjust expectations regarding communication and it’s message (intended, unintended, obvious and abstract). In good, this means people begin to be less ready to have tantrums and be more thoughtful, as every detail isn’t as shocking. Those who’ve been here a few years had their (me included) meltdown moments (here or elsewhere) some time ago. So, we’re not in sync, as it were. So, a cycle or a wave repeats, as new people join. Things are better now. For a time, it seemed things were going really bad, leading towards apathy, less engagement and disbelief.
Right now, it seems the similar arguments are repeated about every 3-5 months. Sometimes with some new ingredients, but the same base elements. And even with the nastier exchanges, the undercurrent is one of expectation and support. The community created within this audience hasn’t been given enough to work with to create anything much else to support, so only thing left is to react to the infos and provide feedback. It’s sometimes energy not so well spent, which is a shame, as there is all this energy just looking for an out. With enough resources, a community coordinator (again, a luxyry) or such, we’d had time to have an L5 coding academy or translate everything to all the languages or something like it (wiki and some info threads are also examples). The energy is there (which I see as being better than not having it, apathy), it just isn’t efficiently managed (and may not be possible to manage but a part of it).
There are enough events, twists and forks in communication from the past few years that I’d hope to see someone writing a paper or thesis about it - maybe a case report as part of academic studies or some such.
Sorry about the long ramblings only tangentially connected to the topic.
You’re too intelligent. We need more emotion here!
Technically, according to your link, shipping parity is only going to be reached in February for the Librem 5 USA only. The order page for the regular Librem 5 states, “order now, get in a few months.”
LOL no worries Kyle, at the end of the day, you should feel confident that most here, while not always as patient as we can be, support you and Purism and your goals and mission to the end and understand that you all do the best you can. And none can ask for more than that, in any endeavor.
This is the Point. If the CPUs, Mainboards, Modems are on Stock with Count X. They are not tested yet. You just can assume how many of them are broken or will broke due to manufacture issues.
This is hard, to estimate. Because the right match, about the rate of fault pieces can just be estimate after you check them all.
In normal times, you have parameters like Working hours, redelivery time. But if your next CPU delivery may in 6 Month you can not estimate or calculate how many devices you finished and full tested. in Time X.
The other Way is to finish all Phones with components in Stock, before sending them and before take a Note out there.
But no its better, to deliver every phone before (after Testing). Do not care about Mumbling future Customers. Because They will get there phone sooner to. However i noticed more phones are still now out there. Cause of more Notes in Forum and more Video-Previwes in the wild.
In a small start up or a large, well capitalized firm?
It says “order now and get in a few months” with a link to an article that says they will reach shipping parity by February 2021 (middle of Q1) and be fulfilling orders within ten days after that.
Orders Placed After Shipping Parity
“Shipping parity” refers to the point in time where the backlog of Librem 5 orders have all been fulfilled so new orders can be shipped in our standard 10-business-day timeline. For Librem 5 USA orders we expect to reach shipping parity in February 2021. For regular Librem 5 orders shipping parity means not only fulfilling all of the current pre-orders, but also the flood of new orders we expect to see over the next few months. To calculate when we will hit shipping parity we will need to know our average weekly phone throughput, the size of the next flood of orders, and the size of the “new normal” stream of orders afterwards. We hope to have all of this information to project accurately by the middle of Q1 2021.
I appreciate it too.
It only says that shipping parity will be reached for Librem 5 USA orders in February 2021.
It does not say that Purism will reach shipping parity for regular Librem 5 orders. It says To calculate when we will hit shipping parity we will need to know our average weekly phone throughput, the size of the next flood of orders, and the size of the “new normal” stream of orders afterwards. We hope to have all of this information to project accurately by the middle of Q1 2021.
Ok, so I look forward to receiving an accurate update mid/late Feb? (mid Q1)
Except this thread confirms that they are having component sourcing issues and won’t be able to give accurate updates/shipping predictions in mid Feb.
It says order now and receive your phone in a few months, Accepted definitions of “a few” is more than one buy not many. people are talking about receiving orders by Christmas… - that’s not a “few months” away.
So back to what I said:
I responded to a passive aggressive about updates
People aren’t happy about the original update (which was to say, remember that promise, we’re going to break it.) and they also aren’t happy about a lack up updates since then (as promised updates further fail to materialize), there are plenty of posts in this thread that suggest Purism might just give less updates.
In this case I wrote the post and collected the info on estimating when the emails should go out. So in this case I suppose you and anyone else who are disappointed that “you didn’t keep your promise” can be disappointed at, and directly criticize, me.
I’m pointing out that the disappointment is warranted, updates went from, Early backers, US models will ship (with parity reached by February (meaning everyone who was original backer, and every USA made buyer will get a phone by then…)
To, we’ll promise some people this week, and some next (that was two weeks ago!) about the early backers… and statements about chip shortages. and then silence around any other updates.
But that information about shipping, when people can expect things is still on their website. It’s, and it seems it’s been clear for weeks that they cannot keep the promises that they are STILL making.
so as I said,
I would suggest that a part of being transparent would be, when you know something you said previously is out of date that you should update the original posts with a big red notice saying “This is out of date, please see…
And also pointed out that people who have either crowd funded, backed, or bought from the shop today are all stakeholders who deserve honest and open updates so they know what is happening with their order. (this is basic business.)
This is one of those “Trust me, I’ve seen companies do this before” things.
I’ve seen companies get in over their head on pre-orders, seen companies not update their public messaging, effectively hide order updates on user forums, waited months for a product. seen the poor service continue using systems and processes that never got better. laughed as the teams run by great engineers believed that they didn’t need to follow basic courtesies of running a business, and then cried into my hands as the business goes bust, backorders never get fulfilled and the staff working there lose their jobs. (and ultimately projects fail.)
Whilst you’re unable to fulfill orders, (which is understandable!) the best thing a company can do is be open and transparent.
My advice remains, the blog post linked at the order page makes promises that are not going to be fulfilled, - it should be changed.
Tl;dr stop bitching about people saying “you didn’t keep your promise” as if it’s past tense when you’re still making the same promises you know you won’t keep to new customers today.
I hope everybody complaining has learnt a valuable lesson about pre-orders.