We desperately need an open alternative that puts control back in the hands of the user. I think open computing is of fundamental importance. If we lose the ability to decide what code runs on our devices, we’ll be moving a step closer towards a totalitarian dystopia where the governments and corporations get to decide what’s good for us.
In most cases, you don't have to crack anything, you can officially unlock the bootloader and flash your own OS build.
Yes, you can't touch the early boot initialization, you're still required to use vendor blobs for using wireless/modem/camera/etc things, but you can control most of the software that matters.
Still, it's bizarre considering you can install Linux on any PC/laptop you buy.
The bigger issue of course, is that you can't just install Linux on a phone. They're all random pins soldered to random chips and all use patched to hell Kernels with binary blobs. Linux distros can release images that are designed on boot on x86/x86_64/PPC/Sparc and they'll booth up and install on most of those machines. That's impossible with nearly all Android/ARM devices.
PostmarketOS is trying to change that from the other direction, but Librem is a huge step in giving developers embedded hardware that doesn't require carefully modified and patched kernels/bootloaders.
It's sort of theoretically useful whilst being practically pointless unless you want to produce your own OS.
How do I get into a Linux userland with X11 and a touch driver on my Galaxy Note 8? The answer is pretty much "write it all yourself, quickly before the hardware becomes obsolete".
I hope that the librem5 gains traction for that reason alone - producing a critical mass of developers.
There is place in the market for reggae and death-metal.
You couldn't PAY me to take an iOS device as a main personal phone.
(although as a caveat: I might consider owning one to test cross-platform mobile applications)
Xaiomi A1 and A2 come with stock android and official bootloader unlock on the website, takes 10 mins to unlock and install LineageOS. LineageOS root access is an option in the settings.
Another project which is taking on a similar challenge and is similarly open is the Dragonbox Pyra.
The Pyra is taking forever and it's pretty much a one-two men's team, which is why it takes so long I guess.
i imagine pcb layout becomes a much harder and more expensive problem at small sizes, not to mention most people wouldn't touch "only" a 720p display in 2019, even at a 4.6" display size (unfort), even if you told them it adds 30% battery life.
https://puri.sm/about/social-purpose/
More companies should follow this example.
Under what conditions can articles of incorporation be changed? Can't their investors force such a change? If so, it seems a large burden must be placed on choosing investors who are somehow legally bound under similar rules.
And what mechanism of enforcement exists? Presumably investor lawsuits are the main mechanism, which again puts a large burden on finding investors whose goals are not returns maximization. If this state statute specifies a distinct tax classification, perhaps there would then be state-level prosecutorial or administrative enforcement.
> The Corporation will release all software written by The Corporation under a free software license.
> The Corporation will release all hardware schematics authored by The Corporation under a free hardware license.
If you are talking about the IP blocks that are bought/licensed from third parties, then you are right, but I suppose that these are replaceable by equivalent blocks in future versions, without the user noticing. In other words, users don't depend on these blocks, so for all the user knows, these blocks are commodities.
And for things that might happen in future, I would leave them for future. Building hw takes time and proper dedication - all what I am saying is to be realistic towards current situation. The blocks are no commodities but some essential parts in today's use of smartphones. And no, things don't move that fast that you will just replace it.
If done right, things could finally go into right direction or at least have some new light on it.
Only the DDR4 memory training blob (which someone could eventually rewrite).
This doesn't match with my experience. Golden Week is a one-week holiday that gets you less than 5 days of vacation, because -- although companies are legally required to give Monday through Friday off -- the norm is to work on weekends around the holiday to make up for the lost time.
Does anyone have an idea what sort of Golden Week implementation Purism ran into? Why is it so different?
Is it just kind of known that things stop there for certain weeks? Or are these formally set out in schedules?
My only experience has been B2C, where the experience is generally {no response} -> {a week later: "Oh, everyone was on holiday"}
Maybe I’m alone but I wish I had more visibility into their progress. Might not be helpful for them though.
I don't have stats but I'm incredibly confident that almost no users want hardware switches.
Does your mum want a hardware switch? Does the guy working at Starbucks?
I think it might be the techheads who think that installing Linux and having hardware switches are normal - they're the ones who are out of touch with reality.
The golden week is Japanese, not Chinese. Nothing closes in China at that time. And it’s in may/april.
Mangkhut did not really hit China mainland, it was already mainly just a storm when it reached mainland, and it died in 1/2 days once leaving the sea. I guess most of the factories are near Shenzhen, they should not have really suffered from Manghkut.
Just wanted to rectify that...
>The "National Day Golden Week" begins around 1 October.
>Three days of paid holiday are given, and the surrounding weekends are re-arranged so that workers in Chinese companies always have seven continuous days of holiday.
Would I buy again? Yes, for the ethos. Would I recommend it to a casual user (the intended audience)? No. It's still very much a techie device. If I push the power button and don't see desktop within a minute, that's broken. You need to be comfy at the command line to maneouver -- which I notice has been almost entirely convenienced away in Fedora 29. If Librems shipped F29, I could at least recommend it for my partner who is the definition of a casual computer user.
The only thing I miss actually is the 16x10 aspect ratio of the MBP, where the Librem like all other laptops I know of is 16x9.
Software-wise I've stuck to PureOS (which is Debian-based) despite temptations to install Arch or something. It's worked fine for me.
I am tired of subpar battery life being a de facto industry standard
Hardware perspective: CPU cooked itself because frequency regulation was accidentally turned off, time to wait for new parts from China + assembly.
It always amuses me how laisez faire folks are about things like ESD. "It's never caused a problem before" isn't a reason to ignore best practices and not work defensively.
I wouldn't expect the same chip going into a smartphone to require a heatsink or any thermal consideration at all on a sparsely populated, open-air circuit board.
