[Arm-netbook] OT: Librem 5?

[Pen-Yuan Hsing]

On 25/09/17 21:35, Bill Kontos wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 25, 2017 at 9:49 PM, Isaac David <isacdaavid at isacdaavid.info> wrote:
> 
>> as a cellphone non-user and die-hard libre software acolyte, i don't
>> see the Purism people as enemies. they only need to reword their
>> marketing to be a bit less disingenuous. they speak the language of
>> the purists; this is how we know they _are_ aware that their products
>> will fall short of something like a RYF cert.
>>
> First of all congratulations for not using a cellphone. I literally
> can't do that. People expect to find me on the phone. I have to follow
> facebook teams for announcements and stuff. And yes their marketing
> pisses me off a lot. I wish it was more honest but at the same time
> they are not spewing lies right and left. They do have a timeline on
> what they want to do, they just don't know how fast they will get
> there. As it stands right now, purism laptops are the only laptops
> that now come with coreboot preinstalled, automatically making them
> the second most free platform after the libreboot x200s. Think about
> that.

This has been such a fascinating discussion I can't help but chip in. :)

 > congratulations for not using a cellphone

I envy you for being able to live without a cell phone (which are sadly 
all not-100%-libre atm).

A common refrain of free software advocates is that if a product is 
non-free, just don't use it. This way you don't lose your freedoms and 
you also protest the lack of it in said product.

However, I've been reflecting on this and I think the unfortunate truth 
is that software freedom is currently a *privilege*. Of course it should 
be a right, but right now it isn't.

Digital technology is so intertwined with our lives that so many of our 
livelihoods depend on it. So many people would literally not be able to 
do their jobs if they refused to use every single piece of technology 
that's not 100% free as in freedom.

I think this is where the likes of Purism can come in. Like mike.valk 
said, "It's much better than the rest. And if we're successful we might 
generate enough money the do even better next time." If we don't support 
- or even villify - attempts at *improving* and *getting closer to* 
freedom, they we are not moving at all!

And like what Jonathan said with the slavery and civil rights examples, 
in some cases it is simply more realistic to take it one step at a time 
(or, I guess in software's case, removing one blob at a time).

We can talk about the huge leaps needed to reach 100% software freedom 
everywhere, but we need a realistic way of doing that in one step. If we 
don't know how to make that huge leap yet, then taking many of those 
smaller steps (even if they don't take us all the way) **is** definitely 
better than waiting for the huge leap to happen!

I admit I don't know all the details and intricacies of Purism's 
activities, but I know there was a lot of vitriol thrown its way for its 
laptops during development. But if absolutely no one supported their 
laptop campaigns, Purism might not have had the resource to come so 
close to freeing the Intel MEs that they are working on now. And isn't 
freeding the Intel ME something worth doing?

If we think Purism's communications are not 100% accurate in saying 
their products are not 100% free, that's a fair criticism. But rather 
than vilifying them and saying they're terrible people, shouldn't we try 
our best to engage them and suggest a better way to communicate that?

Again, I haven't been following Purism super closely so maybe I missed 
something, and definitely correct me if I'm wrong. But my bigger point 
is that sometimes even small steps are valuable and we shouldn't throw 
the baby out with the bathwater!