I love this company and what they are doing which is very complicated and difficult and I have the utmost respect especially for the ideas that underlie everything. I just want a few little updates on the fact that the phone … call
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There have already been videos and apparently public demonstrations of the dev kit making calls.
I personally would like a little more communication and transparency, where and when appropriate to disclose. However, as long as there is development & progress, let’s be patient on this. It also seems to me, as others, that there is some build-up happening.
I supported this campaign not only to have the Librem 5, but to help the ecosystem grow so that such devices are more possible. This is happening. We have entrusted Purism to do it with our contributions. We are not here to make these marketing and other decisions for them, however. We can ask for more, but must let them do what they do.
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“the question isn’t who is going to let me, it’s who is going to stop me” Ayn Rand
Not entirely, we did get a possible final render in the 4th.
I’m not concerned that the Librem 5 will come too late.
I’m however very much concerned it will come too soon.
If Purism delivers purely on scheduling requirements, their main concern can’t be ironing hardware bugs out.
If they ship hardware with defects, that is final, we will get devices that are unfixable.
Purism by now have clearly recognized that developing hardware is much harder than they expected.
The devkit is not even close to what they actually plan to ship and is barely a proof of concept.
I don’t see any chance of them delivering a potentially working phone by Q3 and am very much concerned that what we will receive, if they ship prematurely, will be basically a brick, not usable for the intended purpose.
I’ve seen it before, many times, the OpenMoko Freerunner (GTA02) being perhaps one of the better examples I own.
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There needs to be a middle ground. We all want the phone to be able make calls and send text messages, but most early adopters are willing to live with some software bugs, as long as Purism is working to fix them and providing frequent software updates.
New mobile platforms are never perfect (check out the first iPhone in 2007 or the first Android phone in 2008, the HTC Dream), and few people in the community are going to start developing apps for the Librem 5 as long as it isn’t released. There costs and opportunities lost in waiting too long.
I realize that not everyone who preordered the Librem 5 see it the same way, but I see myself as a volunteer to be an early adopter for a new mobile ecosystem and all the hassles that involves. After years of installing LineageOS and never seeing much progress on that front, it is clear to me that we need to construct a new mobile OS that is based on respect for user rights, rather than trying to reform Android or hoping that iOS will be a little less restrictive.
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Sure, softwarebugs are not an issue, I wouldn’t even mind if it came with no userspace software.
But the hardware has to work properly and a working kernel is necessary to verify that.
E. g. even a minor leakage current due to a mistake in the board layout could cause the battery to only last half a day. If such a bug would slip through and a software workaround were not possible, an otherwise fully functional and solid device would be rendered practically unusable.
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Correct me if I am wrong but isn’t “transparency” on this companies mission statement?. Is anyone not the least bit worried why a company as transparent as purism claims to be, has been this tight lipped this close to shipping a product like the Librem5? I pre-ordered myself and while I am not trying to be negative, for it to not register on anyone’s radar that no further statements hardware wise have been made troubles me. I think any customer would be justified in feeling this way.
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I mean I like the openmoko but lets be serious that thing didn’t even have a standard headphone jack. the software/hardware was always buggy and adoption was micrscopic. Also at the time it released it was just doing edge/gprs networking when 4g was rolling out.
The librem 5 is way beyond anything that the openmoko was.
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3.5 mm headphone-jacks on Phones were actually relatively new, many devices before had the 2.5 mm jack OpenMoko used (due to the much smaller footprint, which is the reason why modern devices tend to not use headphone jacks at all).
True, and that’s why I’m concerned that the Librem is release before the hardware bugs are ironed out, that’s the sole reason I used this example.
The OpenMoko Freerunner came out mid 2008, exactly one year after the first iPhone which came with GSM+EDGE only, and several months before the iPhone 3G which supported UMTS.
The first LTE (4G) rollouts would start in late 2010 and the first LTE handsets were available in 2011. The first iPhone with LTE would only appear in late 2012.
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yeah it was so long ago I think I have all this stuff mixed up in my head at this point haha. I will say that with SRH the phone was fairly usable. I am pretty confident in purisms hardware chops. Don’t forget that the freerunner was basically openmoko’s only business model. At least purism is more diversified so they have a bit more expertise at this point.
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Not to resurrect a dead thread, but since the original topic is relevant, I thought I’d use this one rather than starting a new one.
We’re now a full month into Q3. While the specs being finalized is great, and very exciting, can we expect a firm release date soon? Even if Purism just sets it at September 30, it would make more sense than continuing to state “Shipping in Q3,” in the middle of Q3.
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Pre-order ends this night. You will have your answer very soon…
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I fully expect some kind of shipping announcement tomorrow. They have been hinting hard that it will happen.
If there is no announcement I will be pretty sad. My current phone is total garbage, barely works. I have been holding off on getting another one in hopes that my librem is coming soon, i can’t wait much longer.
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I think you’ll be disappointed if you expect something tomorrow. I’m thinking we’ll get news in a few weeks.
I understand your anticipation, I want to see the Librem 5 shipped too.
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I expect something tomorrow.
At least announcing when it starts shipping 
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In my experience working at a software firm, everything always takes longer than expected and nothing is truly ready even when it gets shoved out the door, so I don’t expect that Purism will be very specific about the ship date up to the last minute when it starts shipping.
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The intro pricing seems to have gone away. That might be a good sign.
I get that.
Just to clarify what I meant.
In some form they should have expected ship date. Say, while ordering it today at the full price, they should have more specific estimated shipping date. At least that’s what most serious OEMs do.
We’ll see
I would be surprised if they’d ship before the second half of September. And I expect to get mine in October.
And they gain nothing by now stating Sep 10th and then having to postpone it to Sep 20th.
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