The important thing about Purism is that it's the only effort leaning in this direction to make it this far financially and as an entity.
The (ironically) purists started out pure and strict and refused to deviate for (decades?) and now in their pristine future what they have to show for it is extremely geriatric, expensive, heavy, bulky, butt-ugly plastic laptops that almost no one will ever want to buy. Their business model is absurd, and they will never command the public's wallets, which you absolutely need to do when your business involves physical objects. Their prices will never come down when they can't sell in quantity, and they'll never sell in quantity because the general public does not want the laptop they're selling, and neither does industry. We in the free software world contribute development for free all the time, but most developers I know do their free work on the side. They get paid through some corporate or proprietary business like most people. Some work is too intensive to do on the side (for free), and still make progress in a reasonable amount of time. Hence the 7-year turnaround coreboot devs cite, and I imagine some of the coreboot team does work on the project full time. What I'm getting at is, as a profitable entity they will be positioned to *actually pay people* to do some of this firmware work, and eventually, who knows, may even be able to develop chips themselves. So long as Purism continues to demonstrate progress chipping away at the Libre goal, let's throw some money at them, or at least support. We can revolt and pull it whenever we want anyway. gl ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ On March 8, 2018 12:28 PM, Andrew McGlashan <andrew.mcglas...@affinityvision.com.au> wrote: > Hi, > > On 08/03/18 10:05, taii...@gmx.com wrote: > > > In exchange for money they are now advertising and endorsing a maker of > > > > fake libre hardware by letting them have a booth at libreplanet an > > > > endorsing their debian copy "PureOS" > > > > https://libreplanet.org/2018/sponsors > > Really? I am pretty positive about Purism right now, I'm not sure the > > criticisms are valid. > > > Purism is NOT free hardware and certainly not "grassroots" as their > > > > mysterious founder somehow has a bottomless pit of money to burn on > > > > hardware costs and propaganda campaigns. > > Intel ME can be disabled up to a point, but some things must remain or > > the motherboard can't boot up. If you want completely new hardware and > > not hardware that is commly available, then expect things to cost > > significantly more. As much as I don't like the considerable duopoly we > > have in the mobile phone OS space, the hardware, being sold in huge > > quantity, is why we can have "super" computers in our pockets without > > the super, super pricing of yesteryear. > > Would I like Intel and AMD to provide more free hardware, absolutely I > > would. And to disable IME as much as possible, for sure! > > Purism has works in place to enable you to have a machine that you can > > control the keys (not M$, not anybody else), you load your bits and > > everything is 100% verified -- and you can update your bits by signing > > new bits with your keys and it remains verified. > > Are these things an illusion? > > https://puri.sm/posts/purism-integrates-heads-security-firmware-with-tpm-giving-full-control-and-digital-privacy-to-laptop-users/ > > https://puri.sm/posts/librem-now-most-secure-laptop-under-full-user-with-tamper-evident-features/ > > > I encourage everyone who cares about the future of free computing to > > > > contact the FSF about this. > > > > Here are posts that help explain the purism situation better than I can. > > > > https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/3anjgm/on_the_librem_laptop_purism_doesnt_believe_in/ > > In IT terms, that Reddit thread started a long time ago.... perhaps it > > is irrelevant these days? > > > https://web.archive.org/web/20161010040458/https://blogs.coreboot.org/blog/2015/02/23/the-truth-about-purism-why-librem-is-not-the-same-as-libre/ > > > > https://web.archive.org/web/20161010100959/https://blogs.coreboot.org/blog/2015/08/09/the-truth-about-purism-behind-the-coreboot-scenes/ > > Again, I would like more free and again those archived posts are from > > 2016; still relevant today? I'm not sure they are and even if the do > > have relevance, how much is subjective and how much really matters? I > > think that Purism is heading in the right direction. > > There was also quite a positive interview on "Late Night Linux" just > > recently. > > https://latenightlinux.com/late-night-linux-episode-31/ > > <quote> > > Purism > > We are joined by Todd Weaver who is the CEO and founder of Purism to > > talk about the completely FOSS-friendly phone that they are planning to > > deliver in January next year and their laptops that are available right > > now. Can they really deliver something good as well as private and > > secure? Todd certainly thinks they can. > > </quote> > > Episode 32 could be interesting too, but I haven't listened to it yet. > > https://latenightlinux.com/late-night-linux-episode-32/ > > > Isn't it strange that purism receives so much coverage in the tech press > > > > but real freedom hardware gets none at all? > > It has more freedom than many other options and it is targeted in the > > right direction, for sure, from what I can see. > > Kind Regards > > AndrewM > > Dng mailing list > > Dng@lists.dyne.org > > https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng _______________________________________________ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
