Please post a link to where is states I might not get a phone. I have read the Puri.sm web site and even used “go-back” web site to see what has changed. I have never seen where that is stated thanks
It is implicit whenever you back the development of a product that does not exist in any way at the time you put up your money. Projects can and do fail. It may be explicit on some crowdfunding web sites. It may be implicit. But that risk is always there if you fund in this way.
It is up to you to assess the risk - because you are taking on some of the risk: how ambitious is the project? is the project being undertaken by a reputable company? does the company have a track record of delivering on greenfield development projects? does the company have the expertise and resources to succeed? what are the challenges that are unique to the project? can I afford to lose 100% of my money? (If you assess no other thing then you should assess the last question.)
Of course the risk now is much much lower than the risk when the project was at the beginning of the crowdfunding stage.
I’ve been involved in a greenfield development project that failed spectacularly, delivering absolutely nothing after X years, and burning more money than Purism has spent on development in its entire life. 
… Risk is always there …
I know everything has a risk. I did not crowdfund I ordered after the crowdfunding was completed. In fact the crowdfunding was well over the amount requested . Call it what you like, but I was not part of the crowdfunding. In fact they offered a refund until about a year ago. I do not think you would be even offered a refund on crowdfunding. That part I agree with, crowdfunding would be like a donation to a cause that you want to support.
I am in the same boat as you. I did not participate in a crowdfunding campaign. I ordered a product with a 6 month lead time. When someone is selling a product with a 6 month lead time, the implication is not that you may get the product, or you may not get the product, the clear implication - nay, commitment - is that you will get the product but it takes 6 months to build it and deliver it to you. If it is an “estimated” 6 month lead time, that could mean 5 months or 7 months, but not 2 years after which the estimate changes to “we don’t know when”. I run a hardware business and we have to have things manufactured and lead times of several months are common, but companies (i.e. the serious, credible companies, large but also small, which stay in business, which is to say companies which keep their word = have integrity) honour their committed-to lead times. The 6 months was supposed to be for them to have the time to build the product. What we now know is that, 2 years down the line, Purism have not even started building the product yet. That’s just plain dishonest. As someone else said, Purism appears to have decided to default on their Librem5 customers, since that money has been spent and there’s no money to now actually deliver the orders, and is promising Librem5 USA customers much better lead times (and higher prices) in order to squeeze more money out of a few more mugs. They appear to be spending customer money on research, development and salaries rather than on the cost of fulfilling the orders, which is legally very questionable. Credible startups go to angel investors or venture capitalists to finance this kind of expenditure - customer orders are supposed to fund the delivery of the ordered product. Effectively Purism seems to be using their customers as venture capitalists but without the corresponding financial return which venture capitalists expect on such investments. I would be very skeptical if I was considering ordering a Purism product right now, and very skeptical of the promised “queue jumping” short lead times for Librem5 USA while Purism now making zero timescale commitment to Librem5 customers who already pair for our phones 1.5-2 years ago. The odds that those timescales will be met are zero. The odds that people paying for Librem5 USA today will ever see any phones must surely also be very low. To be honest, the whole thing has a “Ponzi scheme” smell to it. Also, creating a new and massively more expensive Librem5 USA is a con in itself: Librem5 was sold as a phone delivering privacy and that implies that Chinese components won’t be used. A phone built using Chinese components in China is self-evidently not a phone which offers privacy or security to its users, therefore I would argue that fulfilling the order with such a phone is a breach of the original terms of purchase. I was certainly very surprised to learn that my phone would be coming with a Chinese-built modem. Not what I ordered, in my book.
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If you multiply the lack of fungibility for specialized parts (no one else makes phones like this any more, integrated circuits are far more cost effective) times the number of them in this product, it only takes a few suppliers to throw things off. The solution would be to create a large inventory, but then if designs have to change, then the entire project (or company) could tank. With the pandemic, now is a really bad time to be making a product with specialized parts.
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I used to work in manufacturing too. Unfortunately “promising” a U.S. build is not the same as a “required” U.S. build sanctioned by ITAR. Funny how that works.
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Hey, that’s a fair point. It would seem you know more about this than I do. If I understand you correctly, the design choice of having functional components instead of on-board integration means that supplier choices are less numerous and (possibly) weaker in terms of delivery strength?
That is an ambiguous situation. Did the crowdfunding end just because the target was exceeded? Did the crowdfunding ever end? On what date did it end?
I don’t believe that crowdfunding ended just because the target was exceeded, not least because there were other, higher, stretch targets (which were not reached).
Regardless, when you order a product that does not exist yet, the risks don’t end (or change) just because the crowdfunding ends, if indeed the crowdfunding ended.
No, I don’t think so either but some of the more excitable users of the internet seem to think that you are entitled to a refund on crowdfunding.
If you take a look at the “wayback” page you will see the funding goal was $1,500,000 and the amount raised was $2,146,495 a whopping 143% of the goal and clearly states “Funded!”. That should take some of the ambiguity out as to when the crowdfunding ended. Also note the page has “Pre-Order Now”. I did not place my order for a year after this was published.
https://web.archive.org/web/20171027033040/https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/
This was the policy at the time i ordered my phone. Note Return Policy #1 “If, for any reason, you want to cancel your order before it was shipped, we will issue a full refund”. Very clear policy and this is the reason I ordered because of the assurance I would be refunded if I did not want to wait.
There was not an archive of the exact date
Before https://web.archive.org/web/20181002021605/https://puri.sm/policies/
After https://web.archive.org/web/20190124033110/https://puri.sm/policies/
Hope this clears up some things P.S. the starting ship date was April 2019 at order date :o
That was the go/no-go funding goal. (If they hadn’t reached $1.5m then they could have thrown away all the pledges, not charged anyone’s credit card, and abandoned the project without commencing it.)
There are stretch goals, listed on the same page from the Wayback Machine (and reproduced below), going up to $32m, although I think the last two may have been jokes. You can see that they didn’t hit any of the stretch goals. So did fundraising ever stop?
Anyway, I imagine that we could while away the 180 days in further fruitless debate or we could move on. 
Stretch Goals
$4m = VOIP phone number, call-in, call-out features
$6m = Reverse engineering faster WiFi/BT firmware
$8m = Free encrypted VPN tunnel service for all backers for 1 year
$10m = Run Android applications in isolation on Librem 5
$20m = FUN GOAL, Candy Crush (clone) 
available for free
$32m = FUN GOAL, “We did it!” (polite reference to Ubuntu Edge goal)
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When I placed my order, the product existed, albeit in “A”, “B”, “C” etc. versions, which were shipping. I placed, and paid for, an order for a product with a 6 month lead time. There was no ambiguity in the situation. I was very clearly, unequivocally, unquestionably, not a part of any crowdfunding campaign, nor was I acting as an investor - I was acting as a customer placing an order.
Also, my recollection was that I was initially supposed to receive the “D” version, but this got delayed and was later told I was supposed to be getting the (final?) “E” version - which I was surprised by, as it went contrary to the “D” version I was expecting … but I thought, fine, I’ll get a better version. But that’s just my memory, rather than having checked anything that was put in writing - although maybe it was.
I will go further than drxray. I was actually told I could get a refund by an employee of the company when I requested one - but that employee told me I’d have to tell someone else at the company (though it wasn’t clear, at least to me, who that other person was or how to contact them). However, no refund has ever materialized. Purism employees read these forums, perhaps one of them can tell us how I can get a refund and what I have done wrong not to have got a refund yet. If they do, and the money arrives, I’ll take it all back. If they don’t, it should be noted that not providing refunds which were accepted as an obligation amounts to the company “not being able to meet its financial obligations when they fall due”.
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This is not tied to the phone directly. “Lofty” is the key word. “Stretch Goals” do a search for that on you favorite search engine. I would call it “stretch the truth”. I read the following as “We can do anything if you give me enough money”
“Like any great endeavor, we have some lofty goals that could be accomplished with enough funding, so we have included our dream roadmap below. Applying funding targets to each goal, allows us to share the stretch goals and see just how far we can go with the product, based on user support:”
VOIP is a software app separate from the phone working on a cell network. Faster Wifi and bluetooth is another goal to enhance something that should already work. Free VPN has nothing to do with a working phone. Running Andriod apps is not required to a working phone. They already have their version of an App store. This is just to run your favorite apps from Google app store. I would not want to do this for the same reason I would buy this phone. I agree the last 2 items are a joke.
So back to crowdfunding, they got almost 200% of their goal before they stopped posting the results on their web site. If it worked to promise more stuff to keep the money rolling in then I would keep it going also. I just want a phone or a refund. My 180 days have been up for a long time.
I also found this on the wayback site. Even they say the campaign was complete.
2017-10-24
Campaign complete!Thank you all for helping to make the Librem 5 campaign a success. We will continue to take pre-orders, and expect to hear regular updates from our development team! You can follow updates here: https://puri.sm/posts/tag/phones/ (or https://puri.sm/posts/tag/phones/feed/)
It is in a modern world.
In my country the government imposes legal obligations to carry out certain processes and of course the needed apps are available only for iOS and Android. I expect that to become the case to an even greater extent in the future, not just government but in a practical sense other organisations too.
Then change your broken government. Or suck it up and buy the technology your government demands its prison population purchase.
I have no clue why you think THAT is in any way something that I or anyone else should care about.
Your country, your problem.
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Your government should ban any phone other than android and apple, if they have that much control over you digital phone life. The Purism phone would impose way to much freedom on it citizens if you could actually get one shipped. I would guess RONK, but their citizens for the most part do not have internet or cell phones. I have to feel a bit sorry for your situation. I hope it gets better for you.
It looks to me like Purism has no further metrics to meet, before they can call the phone complete and ready to ship. The last required metric was the camera support which works at least partially now.
This doesn’t mean that no further improvements are needed. By many standards, the phone is not complete. But none of us in the beginning who placed our pre-orders early, expected to receive an Android-like, fully developed phone when it arrived in the mail. We knew that it would not be complete but that improvements would happen over time, as Purism continued releasing newer and newer software updates and built-out a bigger and bigger app store over time. I expected to go on that journey myself as I anticipated updating my L5 routinely, each time getting new features and increased functionality. By the time that I get my phone, it probably will have a fully functional Android-like eco-system. The journey will be over before I even get on-board. This isn’t optimal for a Linux user who once looked forward to taking that journey. The idea that the phone may not be complete enough to ship right now is preposterous.
For those who’s governments require certain features in a phone, the other poster here could have been more polite about the issue. But I have to agree with the concept. Supporting the whims of tyrannical government rule shouldn’t be anything that Purism should worry about. After you get your phone, you’ll be free to write your own apps if you want to, to appease your respective governments. The Librem 5 is intended to free us from tyrannical rule, not to help the tyrants to maintain their rule over us. The whole motivational drive is different if you want a phone that forces you to comply vs freeing you from compliance from unreasonable rules. I’ll be glad to get rid of the forced Presidential Alerts which are mandated through federal legislated action here in the US. If the world is going to crumble around me and if I don’t want to be notified about it as it happens, that is my right. Maybe I will choose to move that greyed-out slider switch for Presidential alerts to the “On” position if they give me a choice and don’t Grey it out (stuck in the “On” position) as they have in my Samsung Note 9. But as long as it is greyed-out, I absolutely want to see it in the “Off” position. If they ever force Purism to update the software to track me against my will, I’ll take a hammer to my Librem 5 and put an end to it. Forced tracking requirements are immoral. I am a free person except when I am tracked against my will. With my Android phone I have somewhat traded my personal security for convenience. But that isn’t the deal with the Librem 5.
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Technically they need to complete the FCC and CE RF certification.
As far as I am concerned, they also need to implement some kind of sleep state. That is essential in order to get a reasonable time between charges.
I doubt that. I think you overestimate the level of completion.
Only if the functionality / interface is adequately specified.
That may be an overreaction, depending on what you mean by “force”. If Purism puts that tracking functionality into the software (involuntarily of course) then you can take it out, or disable it, or make it send false or misleading information.
Even if “they” ever prevent you from “interfering with” the software, it might be better to
a) sell the phone, or
b) take the battery out.
I see a troll I will no longer reply to the troll
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I guess no news is bad news. 180 days is just a lie unless they build and ship a boatload of phones as they should send out the first orders first. Any predictions on what the next excuse will be why the phones have not been delivered. i will submit this to a law firm to see if any laws have been broken on the change in refund policies after pruchase. Morgan and Morgan takes on class action cases.
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Just filed complaint at the California States Attorneys Dept of Consumers Affairs and the reportfraud.FTC.gov. Hope this will help resolve the problem a little faster than 180 days. I will contact my States Attorneys Office Monday. I recommend anyone in the same situation do the same.
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