Re: Purism Librem Phone
 

During the funding period of the Librem 15 laptop I wrote an e-mail with questions and suggestions about the hardware design.
It took some days (a week?) to get an initial reply by Todd Weaver but after that responses came quite fast. I think in the 2nd mail I asked him if I could publish the conversation publicly and he agreed.
In the end I didn't buy the device because I didn't like some of the hardware details, but I don't regret having written that e-mail.

I think I know what you mean. I have a feeling they put too much emphasis on PR, at least in comparison to their actual technical skills.
I believe so far their success is in part based on pure luck and while I wish them to continue having that kind of luck, I wouldn't want to bet my money on it, because I don't feel it's entirely deserved by their own work.
So I'd like to encourage you to write that e-mail to alleviate (or confirm) your scepticism.

Re: Purism Librem Phone
 

I think they deliberately overpriced it.
So even if the road is bumpy, they should have enough money to get through the tight spots.

Plus (unlike Jolla), they are not developing an entire OS on their own, instead they use a LOT of pre-existing software (again unlike Jolla).

So I think they have a good chance to succeed.

EDIT:
I also think they set realistic goals for the project, ie. they are not trying to enter the spec war, nor have any exotic piece of hardware which would be hard to support. (Or any complicated mechanical design.) So I believe they made a realistic assessment on what is doable and chose a form factor which would appeal to most people.

I personally would sooner buy something with a hardware keyboard (Gemini? Pocket?), but that is of course very out of scope for Purism.

Re: Purism Librem Phone
 

Well, Jolla also used a whole lot of existing software left over from the MeeGo effort and from general Linux ecosystem. But it's true they also had to develop a lot of stuff themselves (UI layer & default apps).

Still well be interesting to see how will Librem handle that - while Gnome Shell should not be that hard to use/change for a mobile device, you can't just run Evolution or Libre Office on a touchscreen phone with the current UI.

So a lot of existing software would still have to be adapted to be usable on a mobile device (basically the same problem Jolla had to solve) and someone needs to do that or people would not have any apps to run on their Librem phones.

Re: Purism Librem Phone
 

Overpriced? I doubt. Their volume will be very low that means individual components cost a lot more than if they producing 100 000 XX devices like other companies.

The iMX itself costs 40EUR-70EUR and then comes cellular and the cellular itself probably costs even more maybe double! For example a 3G/LTE modem from telit for embedded products costs around 60EUR. Sierra probably even higher priced. Ublox maybe lower but not sure they have all bands needed.

Then comes camera module, flash memory SRAM, screen. PCB design, manufactoring and so on...

I mean realistic they will probably produce around 2500 devices at first. That means not much of chance to reduce price of component.

They will probably make less devices than fairphone.

This does not include all man power needed. I guess that's why they will use the community to debug the hardware via devkit. I personally has no problem with that :D Just give me the damn devkit now :cool: but realistic they money they got will fast be eaten up.

The problem is that many people does compare small companies with huge companies and think "why should I buy a device that is double price than devices from X/Y/Z big company with better specs". That's like compare apple with oranges.... it is just wrong...

Btw. I am not sure exact what iMX6(or iMX8) they will use this is just an example or prices:

https://www.digikey.se/products/en/i...694?k=iMX6&k=&

4 days left 121% lets put it to 130% atleast damn it :p

This may be a candidate for the cellular for librem 5 I guess:

https://www.sierrawireless.com/produ...oducts/wp7700/

I don't know what it costs but my guess is more than the core CPU...

https://forums.puri.sm/t/level-of-fr...m-mdule/1316/8

Re: Purism Librem Phone
 

Don't forget Jolla are basically maintaining Mer by themselves.

Yeah but that's someone else's problem, right? Their part of the bargain is to produce hardware that can use a mainline Linux kernel, the rest is up to various other communities.

Re: Purism Librem Phone
 

Nextcloud joins our group.
https://nextcloud.com/blog/nextcloud...mobile-device/

Couple days left!

Maybe Jolla sould start thinking about porting to Purism?
Interesting setup might be if it would be possible to dual boot PureOS and SailfishOS?

Re: Purism Librem Phone
 

That's a good point - they don't need to write that all themselves but the maintenance burden is certainly significant.

That's partially the reason of using ancient non-GPLv3 software that's often no longer maintained upstream, meaning even more maintenance.

Personally, I think this another bad decision on the same level with keeping some their own code closed - it just means more work for them and hinders community participation. And as with the closed components (Silica for example) I still don't see any benefits from this for Jolla.

Sure, but do all of their backers understand that ? There is a significant amount of hype around the whole thing, so I'm afraid backers with less experience with mobile platforms and/or distribution development might be setting their expectations a bit too high for what will be possible to run on the devices on release and how well it will work.

Re: Purism Librem Phone
 

True, but the difference is that nobody else uses those pieces of software, so they are on their own when it comes to weeding out the bugs in there.

On the other hand, Gnome is used by a huge community and is well maintained and developed by other parties (not just librem)

Re: Purism Librem Phone
 

Excellent news!
partnership and cooperation, between 2 open free organizations.
If only a could get the money I wouldn't lose this chance to get one Librem-5

Luck favors the prepared mind - Louis Pasteur

Re: Purism Librem Phone
 

Okay. The NextCloud news is really interesting. Loving how this is seemingly coming together.