[Arm-netbook] OT: Librem 5?

[Lauri Kasanen]

On Mon, 25 Sep 2017 22:33:40 +0100
Pen-Yuan Hsing <penyuanhsing at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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!

You make a decent argument, however all the issues were pointed out to
them during the laptop campaigns again and again, and they did not
learn; they repeated them with this phone. That's willfull ignorance if
not outright malevolence.

1. They advertised the laptop as 100% free, when it could not be so due
to ME.
2. They advertised it would ship with coreboot, when it did not until
several months after release.

Deceptive advertising, and they repeated the same thing with the phone.
Even if we want somebody to succeed in a less-free device, do we want
them to be the people who willfully deceive in order to do so?

- Lauri