Purism’s Librem 5 phone starts shipping—a fully open GNU/Linux phone (Ars Technica)

Posted Sep 28, 2019 7:27 UTC (Sat) by oldtomas (guest, #72579)
Parent article: Purism’s Librem 5 phone starts shipping—a fully open GNU/Linux phone (Ars Technica)

I find this flurry of comments "Argh, it's expensive!" "Make it cheaper!" "It's for hipsters!" "But I /need/ GoogleTraps!" highly disturbing.

Folks: freedom ain't a consumable which can be produced in low-wage authoritarian countries and shipped via MalWart to you.

It's something some people fight for, putting up with various inconveniences -- ranging from ostracism to death. Exchanging OSM for GoogleMaps is the least of them (besides: would I walk the extra mile to buy a free phone to then explicitly invite an intrusive ad company into it in the first place? I think no).

I find those comments somewhat disturbing.

Purism’s Librem 5 phone starts shipping—a fully open GNU/Linux phone (Ars Technica)

Posted Sep 28, 2019 7:30 UTC (Sat) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (6 responses)

How is a device that is produced in the same authoritarian country from the same chips that have closed-source baseband with who knows how many holes any more free than the newest Galaxy S?

It's basically all just grandstanding.

Purism’s Librem 5 phone starts shipping—a fully open GNU/Linux phone (Ars Technica)

Posted Sep 28, 2019 10:28 UTC (Sat) by smurf (subscriber, #17840) [Link] (4 responses)

No it's not. You gotta start *somewhere*.
As the Fairphone people continue to demonstrate, this does have at least some effect.
Even if it didn't, the alternative is not even trying. Not for me, that.

(on Fairphone)

Posted Sep 29, 2019 13:02 UTC (Sun) by Herve5 (subscriber, #115399) [Link] (2 responses)

Incidentally, I find the Fairphone 3 specs twice better than the Purism on almost all criteria (for a similar 'high' price, fully acceptable to me).
I for one am waiting the open OSes versions on Fairphones; there are a number, and in both previous versions they were efficiently supported by Fairphone themselves.
I own a Fairphone 1 (GApps-free and rooted by default android) and a FP2 (similar). I see reasonable progress in SailfishOS on Fairphones too, although there is no option where it'd come delivered straight in the package...
I'd love to see a feature-to-feature comparison between Purism, Sailfish OSes and, yes, also a GApps-free rooted android...

OpenMoko someone?

Posted Sep 29, 2019 13:06 UTC (Sun) by Herve5 (subscriber, #115399) [Link]

Anyone here remembering OpenMoko phones?
Go figure, I still own one. THAT was the very beginnings : even simple calls were at risk of crashing the OS, the GPS (indeed, the only one fully opent at the time) needed 5mn to converge...
But it was open from top to bottom, to the extent that some years ago I still found a complete screen package to replace my broken one...

(on Fairphone)

Posted Oct 6, 2019 17:20 UTC (Sun) by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164) [Link]

Fairphone is arguably trying to solve a far easier problem, and thus can use far more mainstream hardware. It can simply use the mainstream SoC's for example... And yes, I know the problem they address isn't EASY. Just easier than what Purism tries to deal with. Now imagine a phone trying to fix BOTH problems at once... 🤯

Purism’s Librem 5 phone starts shipping—a fully open GNU/Linux phone (Ars Technica)

Posted Oct 2, 2019 7:59 UTC (Wed) by oldtomas (guest, #72579) [Link]

What I'd like to see (as a kind of "meta" hack of sorts) is Fairphone and Purism joining forces in some way.

Purism’s Librem 5 phone starts shipping—a fully open GNU/Linux phone (Ars Technica)

Posted Sep 28, 2019 15:46 UTC (Sat) by jfred (guest, #126493) [Link]

That modem is removable (so it could be replaced in the future if there were a free option), it can run with entirely free software on the main processor, and the goal is for all of the necessary kernel changes to be mainlined. None of those are true for your average mass-market smartphone, and they're all huge improvements over the status quo as far as software freedom is concerned.

Purism’s Librem 5 phone starts shipping—a fully open GNU/Linux phone (Ars Technica)

Posted Sep 28, 2019 10:30 UTC (Sat) by jrigg (guest, #30848) [Link] (2 responses)

> I find those comments somewhat disturbing.

As do I.

Purism’s Librem 5 phone starts shipping—a fully open GNU/Linux phone (Ars Technica)

Posted Oct 2, 2019 7:53 UTC (Wed) by oldtomas (guest, #72579) [Link] (1 responses)

Nice to not feel alone :-)

Purism’s Librem 5 phone starts shipping—a fully open GNU/Linux phone (Ars Technica)

Posted Oct 6, 2019 17:22 UTC (Sun) by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164) [Link]

Same here, I think many feel the same, reading this.