Even if its campaign succeeds and even if they manage to ship by January 2019 as they promised (63 months later than the original Jolla phone), Librem5 is just doomed. Even more than UbuntuPhone.

Sorry to redpill you, but you can't create a pure "libre" phone in a reasonable time. I heard too many project managers roaring "we'll slap some Linux distribution on it, add a few phone utilities, and we're go", and the last ones were those from Canonical (with more resources than OpenMoko and Firefox OS) and Samsung (have you ever seen someone happy with a Tizen phone?). Also I heard too many people entering a cellphone shop while shouting "quick! I need a phone with Whatsapp and Candycrush". I didn't yet hear someone whining about carrying two cellphones, a pure FOSS one and one supporting the usual killer apps™.

A brief reminder about SailfishOS:
- was built on promising technologies (Wayland, systemd, QT5/qml...)
- was created by people who previously worked on the only successful Linux phone out there (N900)
- delegated the hardware things to an Android layer (example: no need to debug GPS ports and registers if the OEM-supplied daemon takes care of them)
- was ready for daily usage since day one
- is not an imitation of some other product, and is not an existing desktop Linux with some phone utilities slapped onto it.

In short, the smallest reasonable compromise and the best results.

Even if some OEM released a blob-free opensourced phone, it will require quite a lot of time (and resources) to ship a daily usage ready "blob-less pure libre Linux" phone.

Will Purism Librem5 be a viable alternative to Sailfish phones? Or will it be just another platform where people will want to install Sailfish or some Android?