This is a defconfig change. The kernel team sure applies those (they’ve done it for the Librem 5 Devkit before (Enable Librem 5 Devkit (!404) · Merge requests · Debian kernel team / linux · GitLab) and while that is nice to have merged it won’t get you a working phone as there are non mainline patches needed to e.g. get the panel and other needed things up.
3 Likes
This resonates with me.
I finally got around to considering whether to start a PureOS subscription. I’ve decided not to do it, because I don’t want to set up a recurring monthly payment in a foreign currency, due to the variability and uncertainty in the actual amount payable by me.
Changes in exchange rates, foreign currency conversion/transaction fees, and tax rules could all affect the amount I end up paying. Reviewing the likely cost of each payment in order to anticipate any rises in cost would become an administrative burden for me and it’s not clear that I could cancel the subscription in time to prevent any overly expensive payment from going through.
I realise that, in practice, a problematically large increase in the cost of the payment is somewhat unlikely. But I am risk averse and the fact that such an increase is theoretically possible is enough to put me off from this non-essential expenditure.
If I could pay for a whole year’s subscription in one up-front, assuredly non-recurring payment of 12× the monthly subscription amount, that would remove these concerns for me.
3 Likes
I suggest you approach Purism, asking for that choice. It is not as if Purism should want to turn your money down. (As a one-off payment, it isn’t really a subscription but you would still be making a contribution.)
Whether Purism should offer subscription in e.g. € as an alternative to USD is another question. That would at least put the exchange rate risk on them, not you. They can hedge that risk if they want to whereas I would not expect individual subscribers to go to those lengths.
CW says that the USD is going down over the coming months though so, if anything, a fixed amount in USD likely won’t be any increase for you … but that’s just speculation and I understand that you want to avoid risk.
2 Likes
I hear you. You can still donate once every 12 months (or whatever period of time you like). The costs should then be clear upfront.
1 Like
To add my two cents, I love the idea of the free software subscription, and I much prefer it over “fund your app”.
I think it fits better for a few reasons. Software development, especially high-quality development, is often (1) expensive and (2) boring.
Say, 1,000 of us subscribed to PureOS, at an average of $10/month. That would be a great success! And I suspect higher numbers than Purism actually has. Still, that amounts to $120,000/year. In the United States, especially after costs beyond salary are considered (payroll taxes, health insurance, etc), that might not be enough to hire even one excellent and experienced software developer to work on an operating system. Ideally, to push freedom-respecting mobile software forward, teams of top developers should be working on it. We need a lot more subscribers before we get too hasty in complaining about a lack of results.
Regarding the “boring” factor, although it would be nice for a person to be able to put $10/month in the jar toward their favorite app working on mobile and have it be meaningful, this is likely unrealistic. Purism does not really have expertise in XYZ app and its corresponding codebase, development team, etc, and as mentioned above regarding cost, it takes a lot of $10/month before it induces much high-quality software development. Like, if subscriptions are split amongst 20 different apps, and then Purism doesn’t have enough earmarked for any individual app to hire even one person specializing in the development of that technology, then that will be an ineffective system.
While it isn’t as flashy as “look at all these cool apps we are working on!”, focusing on more foundational aspects of the operating system, as Purism already has done, will lead to steady, boring progress, that will ultimately go much further and accomplish much more.
Also, Purism doesn’t have control over other projects, so there’s no guarantee they’d be able to contribute for the benefit of PureOS users anyway. Signal messenger is a perfect example. Many of the frustrations for Purism people related to Signal actually are not caused by a lack in Signal development resources (there is no such lack), but actually by anti-features intentionally created by Signal. For example, Signal tries to make either iOS or Android necessary for registering, rather than allowing a standalone GNU/Linux client. Purism could try to contribute to a standalone GNU/Linux client, but if the Signal project is not cooperating, or is even working against that effort, it could be a wasteful pursuit. So, what did this mean for “fund your app”? Signal was one of the top funded apps in Purism’s previous campaign, and what did Purism do to benefit any kind of native Signal running on PureOS? Basically nothing, and that is probably for the best, because Purism doesn’t really have the control they would need to make Signal work for lovers of freedom and free software.
No, the subscription to PureOS is better, and as long as Purism starts to produce results again (hopefully coming soon!), more and more people should subscribe to make mobile GNU/Linux super awesome 
P.S., one suggestion I have to improve the PureOS subscription model: Purism could make a commitment that all (or almost all? 90%?) of the money from subscriptions goes to PureOS development. I think that kind of financial transparency could be very motivating to people. Like, I would know for a fact that if I subscribe, then my money is going to boost Free Software in some way. I think people won’t be as likely to subscribe if they think Purism might just pocket the money or spend it to buy more hardware inventory or something.
6 Likes
I am fine to pay 200 monthly infinitely for Purism for a Highest Purity of Free Software for Gnu Pure OS.
Meaning that Firefox,Waydroid,Flatpak,SystemD,Wine,Jail,Others, it need kick out from Pure OS.
1 Like
The thing is… it is (mostly) all optional once we have reached feature parity. If you want to remove firefox, feel free to. If I want to use WayDroid, that is my choice!
So PureOS can’t remove it because it isn’t there to start with! I put it there!*
*- Example for Waydroid and Flathub only
But yes, that is a great ideal. 
2 Likes
I still don’t see the issue with having Flatpaks. I can only assume you take offense to Flathub, which isn’t Flatpak and their repositories do contain non free software. Purism has their own Flatpak repository (https://puri.sm/posts/introducing-flatpaks-on-pureos/) and I would be surprised if they were including non free software there.
Purism has mentioned that they would like to enable payments in its store and it would be another source of revenue from people that want to pay and receive something more tangible.
5 Likes
From what Jonathon Hall said, a report from the progress from last month’s efforts is coming soon. Hopefully much of it has been toward stabilizing Crimson for general use.
There have been many advancements, particularly in Phosh, that would be great to have on the Librem 5. Guido is working on making copy and paste better and currently it is a fairly large pain point affecting my experience.
Copy / paste can be fiddly on mobile. I opened an MR today to make the paste part a bit easier in phosh-osk-stub (another old branch finally cleaned up into a (hopefully) mergeable state):
4 Likes
The PureOS Crimson development report for August 2024 is out: https://puri.sm/posts/pureos-crimson-development-report-august-2024/.
A small snippet:
Responsibility
We have a responsibility to use your subscription funds in the best possible way to advance PureOS. Right now, that is moving Crimson toward release. Quality-of-life improvements to apps are great, but not useful if they’re in an unreleased distribution.
Given the circumstances, we will use the August funds in September to advance Crimson toward release. Once we do the necessary archive maintenance, ideally with the maintainer’s involvement, we will apply those funds toward these tasks that are no longer blocked. We use 100% of PureOS subscription funds for the development of PureOS.
9 Likes
Well, that is good enough for me, for now. I am glad they posted it.
3 Likes
Many inconsistencies from Purism, which makes me doubt whether to support them or not. Apparently i will end up being a Purism hater like the many already exist. = (
I feel used and stupid from purism team.
3 Likes
I thought the post was great. You don’t like it?
In particular, I love this commitment. It makes me want to add another subscription or two 
If we want Free Software to progress, we all need to pitch in and help
3 Likes
I’m very sorry that you feel this way. We absolutely do not want to create this feeling, and we’re working very hard on our communications to help all of our customers and supporters feel valued.
We made several promises:
- We use 100% of PureOS subscription funds for the development of PureOS.
- Once we do the necessary archive maintenance, ideally with the maintainer’s involvement, we will apply those funds toward these tasks that are no longer blocked.
- we will set up public milestones representing the funding for that month
- our next update […] will be in the first half of October.
If these weren’t clear, I am glad to have this opportunity to point out these commitments again, and I hope this is helpful.
I appreciate you stating this concern. Perhaps this is another blog post we should write, if this is a broad concern.
All of us agree that 100% free software is the ideal. That’s the utopia we want to build toward.
The challenge, in my opinion, is building enough momentum to get there. Many potential customers are not able to use a device without Bluetooth, or without modern Wi-Fi, or without CPUs less than 10 years old. To create the necessary pressure on these vendors to better support free software (and firmware), we need to show that the demand for free software is real and larger than the small group that is able to use a device without these conveniences. We need to bring free software to those users, so they can see the benefits firsthand and join our demand.
At the same time, we do everything we can to cater to customers who would prefer not to have Bluetooth (etc.). For example, you can order Librem 14 and Librem Mini without a Wi-Fi/Bluetooth card, if you prefer to provide your own or do not need one.
I would be happy to hear any suggestions to how we can better cater to both of these groups. Of course we value our customers who would prefer not to use nonfree firmware, we do not intend to discount them as we try to reach other customers as well. We need both audiences to generate change in the industry.
I’m sorry you feel this way, but I do appreciate you spelling my name correctly (it is often misspelled 
).
I personally have a great emphasis on quality. In my time at Purism so far, I have created detailed test plans for all of the firmware releases that I am principally responsible for, and I execute them for every release across our entire range of devices, back to the Librem 13v1 and 15v1. This takes a substantial amount of time, but is well worth it to ensure quality for our customers.
In my opinion, you can see my push toward quality in our EC firmware releases for the Librem 14 in particular. While I haven’t counted up the numbers, the Librem EC firmware had repeated regressions in the past as fixes for one issue caused another, and improvements caused unforeseen issues. I have fixed many of those issues, and by leveraging testing, have greatly reduced the rate of regressions in the EC releases. The releases have been farther apart, but they have had much better quality, in my opinion.
17 Likes
This complain is very generic and nonconstructive. What exactly didn’t you like?
2 Likes
This was clarified to an extent, but the post was moved to another thread as it was also related to an off-topic discussion that had started to take over this thread. (Thank you @irvinewade for addressing that 
) I quoted the specific reasons in my reply above, and the quote links will take you to that thread if you want to see the complete post.
2 Likes
Thanks for explaining! However, such post should not have existed anyway. It should have contained the explanations from the beginning.
1 Like
From the August update:
This blocked the planned work.
we will use the August funds in September to advance Crimson toward release.
Isn’t this just saying “no progress in August”? 
Oh, Purism, why do you make it so hard to love you? 
5 Likes
I would rather pay $240 a year, than $20 a month. I like the subscription idea though.
3 Likes
I ran the numbers and requested that they are included in monthly development reports.
- 100% of PureOS Subscription funds go to PureOS development.
- Any funding overflow is added to the following month.
- Staff itemizes PureOS Subscription development in their invoicing for easy reconciliation.
| Month | Net Sales | Subscribers |
|---|---|---|
| 2024-07 | $637.49 | 51 |
| 2024-08 | $753.41 | 59 |
Net sales are represented after processing fees by the payment processor.
11 Likes