Total funds raised now $9,657,000 i.e. over $7m in the current series of notes.
Good going, Purism!
10 Likes
Just a heads-upā¦ the current campaign is presently on day 55 of 60; if youāve been on the fence, itās time to decide. Right now, itās sitting at $9,753,000 vs. the $3,000,000 goal (or 325%).
1 Like
I beg pardon but is there any way to verify that the claimed amount has indeed been raised (as opposed to merely trust what is being said)?
Do you think that Purismās management is willing to face jail time for lying to investors? The legal penalties for securities fraud are not a laughing matter, and it should be obvious to investors in a couple months whether Purism really raised the funds from the way that the company behaves.
If Purism has over $7M in new investment, I would expect to see activity such as:
- customers who ordered before March 2020 reporting that they are receiving their refunds,
- successful payment of its Kickfurther funds,
- more hires on the companyās Team page
- more commits in the source code,
- more L5ās being delivered to customers.
- announcement of new products such as a L15 v5, L11 tablet, L5 v2 or a 11th gen Core processor in the Mini or L14.
These are things that can be verified even if you donāt have access to the companyās financial information, and if none of these things happen, then it seems likely that investors will get suspicious and start demanding to know what is being done with their money.
I donāt see why Purism would lie about raising money. In all likelihood, Purism has just made it more likely that customers will file complaints with the authorities and go to small claims court to get their refunds, because they now know that the company has the funds on hand to repay them.
3 Likes
Nah, not thinking anything about that. But I am curious what way of thinking I would need to adopt should I wish to invest. At the end of the day, those investors who trusted Elizabeth Holmes perhaps didnāt think she was willing to face jail time either?
" The case, U.S. v. Holmes, et al. began on August 31, 2021,[9] and is expected to last 13 weeks or longer. If convicted, Holmes faces up to 20 years in federal prison, plus potentially millions in restitution and fines."
1 Like
No. There isnāt any way to verify the claimed amount.
However if your concern is that the claimed amount is intentionally inaccurate then this investment is probably not for you because, in any investment, you are putting some amount of trust in the management of the company.
I donāt see why investorsā trust necessarily needs to be blind, and I donāt consider trust and verification mutually exclusive. Theyāre more alike to yin and yang actually. We trust that open source software does not have backdoors precisely because it can be verified. So, I find it rather unfortunate (than inevitable) that the amount cannot be verified.
2 Likes
I guess my point was that you are placing much bigger trust in what management does with the funds, and you wonāt be able to verify that in the simple way that you could verify the amount of funds raised, so verifying the amount of funds raised is not very important. Your access to verify what management does with the funds is basically limited to what is presented in the Annual Report, which in turn may be determined by the laws applicable to the issuing of securities and the running of a company.
I do see ātrustā and āverifyā as being mutually exclusive. You either have verified or you havenāt. If you have verified then there is no need to trust. If you have not verified then your choices are to trust, or not to trust (and hence to walk away, notionally).
I always took Reaganās comment to be a subtle dig at the Russians i.e. āof course we trust you but actually we donāt trust you, so we are going to want to be able to verifyā. Just sayinā 
Were you to invest and receive an Annual Report then it is likely that this particular figure would be verifiable.
1 Like
Trust and verification are not mutually exclusive, because nobody ever has resources to verify every piece of software they are using. You typically verify only a small part and rely on the community (not only on developers if itās FLOSS) to verify the rest.
I received the mail. And am thinking about investing. Donāt have much to invest, but I really want Purism to succeed.
2 Likes
I want purism to succeed. I wish them well, but I donāt think they have been forthcoming with true forecasts of production. They have annoyed people with refund refusals even though I think the legal system would come down on them if anyone could be bothered pursuing their interests. Therefore I have some hesitation towards getting involved further than the very first āpurchaseā that I made years ago. I donāt think they are a bad company, but I wonāt invest, and I wonāt make another purchase until the first one comes through.
2 Likes
In that case you probably arenāt eligible, technically speaking.
1 Like
I just meant I canāt buy a lot of shares. No shot of a hostile takeover by me I suppose.
If I had the money, I would invest in Purism, but not for economic reasons. I see problems with the company, but I also see Purism doing the work that I believe is necessary for a better future. Iāve spent 3 decades years watching the tech industry get worse and worse, and I fear for the future if there arenāt companies able to provide alternatives.
8 Likes
I recently received an email from Purism regarding an investment opportunity. I have no problem with that.
But ā¦
I am now also receiving āunsubscribeā replies. Multiple. Some of them quite narky and dickheadish.
The subscribers are either dumb or malicious - but I donāt think mailing lists should necessarily be set up like this, particularly not this particular mailing list. This particular mailing list should probably be set up so that only Purism can send to the mailing list and replies should either not go to the list or should be junked.
4 Likes
Iām inclined toward lazy. Reply-all is the default reply for some mail clients and many mailing lists say to reply unsubscribe to unsubscribe (or click a link) not to send a request to a completely different email address. So assuming they can reply I see as lazy as opposes to stupid or malicious. And sure some might call lazy a form of stupid, but that in itself is lazyā¦
That said, I strongly agree that the primary onus should be on purism to not enable reply-all to have this result to begin with.
1 Like
When scrolling through this thread a different view of the situation came to my mind:
Letās not look from the email and the investment opportunity at the situation.
How would a company as Purism get investment? Should they at all? How should open source and open hardware be financed?
My first thought has been that investments with a high return these days are made into surveillance capitalism and gambling. The market of selling prediction about individuals state of mind, location and willingness to give into any induced idea is the place where investment pays. Also all these shady ways of getting money from gamers by offering in-game purchases seems to be a gold mine of the days.
That is not what Purism can offer. Nor can they offer such stuff like a TV that doesnāt need power and in the end does generate power by just receiving radio waves. Nor do they offer the next thing after quantum computers, nor any other bleeding edge technology.
They offer to do it the hard way. They offer to respect the rights of their customers to privacy and not exploit them to the good of their investors.
So how should such a company attract big investment? Should people working for these ideas in the end rely on investments at all that might compromise them in the end?
We need to knit together these loose ends somehow sometimes.
For the time being I read the investment opportunity with a lot of mixed feelings and do understand the critics. I - for myself really thought about it and at some point came to the conclusion that I can only look at it as a donation for which Iād get a certificate of some kind.
I found that I shouldnāt expect any return of invest nor return of any of the money. What I would expect is that nobody would walk away with a suitcase full of money to lead a life that helps to destroy our planet and society further.
Honestly, I could not imagen that happening. Anybody can see new lines of code being upstreamed, anybody can see the struggle to support people who like the products and services of Purism and the idea behind them.
I do not think that this is scam nor that there is any bad intention around all of this.
I think investing should be understood as a donation. And maybe, maybe - after all the questions about financing technology that does not offer an easy and shady way of returning high profit - sometimes there indeed will be something returned.
But front up there will be what Purism does until now I believe: giving there best to keep the thing rolling and develop open source and hopefully some day open hardware, pushing the L5 into the market as one important corner stone to build on a mobile linux ecosystem.
Well it wasnāt Kaz. He only posted here and didnāt go to emailing. I think I was the only one he thought of as a friend here.