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Comment by RandomBacon | Hacker News Reader

I don't think they're trying to be malicious, I just think that they have piss-poor public relations and are digging themselves into a bigger hole.

I understand that they're worfully behind schedule and that some people are mad, but...

I wish people would just let them focus on building the phone rather than hounding them which might cause them to cut even more corners and result in a worse product.

I paid them $600 or whatever two years ago, and I say let them keep building.

It's okay to be critical, but it seems like some people are bullying/trolling. Even in HN threads from months ago before shipping was even an issue.

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I don't think Purism is malicious, I just think they are just not sufficiently competent. There is just too much "fake it till you make it". I think they have had some very competent employees over the past few years, who joined due to the mission, and later left for various reasons (and they may still have a couple). But the management is not sufficiently competent with the technology. They see the need for marketing to keep the company alive, but they just don't know what claims or plans they can reasonably make.

I was a backer of the original Librem 13. I can list lots of little details which individually should be forgiven for a company like this, but together are just ridiculous. It seems like every little thing was botched at least a little. Here's a really trivial one: in the initial news posts (before anything was shipped) it was written that the touchpad driver would be licensed gplv3 and submitted upstream. I sent an email "hey, you probably want to correct that typo (should be gplv2, or maybe gplv2+, obviously)" and the response was "we will consult with the FSF". Sure, consult with the FSF in general on the project, but who could be involved in this company, announcing details like this, and not know the license of the linux kernel? On its own that is nothing, but there is so much more. When I received the laptop, it came with slightly customized debian testing, and a broken apt/sources.list so updates did not work. I can fix that, of course. But they didn't have any working repo for a couple months, back then. (Which I only really needed for the kernel builds with the rather crappy touchpad driver. Later models switched to a different touchpad, and I suspect use no drivers that required any development work.) They hired the guy who did the majority of the coreboot customization and fixing needed, after I received the laptop, like 2 years after the project started. He no longer works there. And there's more.

I haven't been following the phone project closely. I can imagine that some (many?) supporters are very familiar with these technologies and issues, and when they read the news and claims from this project, they translate it internally to what it really means, given what is plain impossible and what is very unlikely. But still, it is ridiculous, and a bit embarrassing, for others who support free software and open hardware.

When you've been doing development in consumer tech, some of these missteps are glaringly obvious and having proper engineering in place from the start would have avoided much of the problem. I, too, am a backer and keep hope alive, but I, too, am a hardware developer and half the things they are saying don't jive with the facts, or are omissions critical to the product's success (RAM timing, FCC certification, etc). Have to say, I'm a bit jaded now, but if it comes out, it comes out, and I'll be happy regardless. Doesn't mean I'm going to keep my trap shut when something is fishy, though.

My big concern right now is that they're pushing hard to release before things are ready, and with this SOC, that can easily be a death knell for the product they release.

> My big concern right now is that they're pushing hard to release before things are ready

Because people keep hounding them!

Do you do your best work when people keep interupting you asking when it'll be ready? You would still complete your task if people weren't interupting you, right? The interuptions might cause you to say 'fuck it' and just ship just to get it over with, even though you wanted to spend 10% or whatever more time to make it 50% better.

That's what I'm getting at.

Usually you dont bypass engineering practices because customers are hounding you. The best way is to answer, demonstrate, and improve customer relations by showing them the facts. Answer a critic and you will better improve your relations. Customers can and do wait when the waiting is warranted.

Thus far, Purism has been omitting facts such as RAM performance, and sidestepping directed questions. These don't instill confidence in customers for an "open" company.

Moreover, hardware cannot be shipped this way. Schedules and the needs of the hardware dictate the control of the schedule. You literally cannot ship a PCB until regulatory requirements are satisfied and the boards are assembled.

I should also note: RMAs are literally taken off the profit line as a total loss in manufacturing -- if you ship something that doesnt work or has major issues, you are throwing money away.

Are there people hounding them to release it? This series of blog posts certainly isn't. All I've seen that could possibly be construed as hounding (this post included) is just asking for the honesty and transparency that they made a big deal about in their original campaign.

I'm a backer. I have a devkit. I opted for Aspen, Birch, and Chestnut, in that order, just like the author. I had also been figuring I'd also end up buying a batch Fir (mech v2, Q4 2020) when it came out because I can't imagine there won't be shortcomings with the versions before that. I also already own a Neo Freerunner and a Firefox Flame. I say that all to show that I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is when I say I want an open source phone.

However, even I am considering requesting a refund. I've been burned on kickstarter before and this project is so far following the "this project isn't going to deliver" manual to a t.

Like at a Real Job®, the day the hounding starts is precisely the day you told them you would have it done. Or maybe a day or two beforehand: "Will it be done?"

What does every boss say? Please communicate as soon as possible if you think the date is going to slip. Then everybody can recalibrate their expectations and you might get another little period of not being hounded. Though unfortunately it won't be as free of hounding as before, because your 2nd estimate will be trusted somewhat less than your first one, which turned out to be wrong.

Some bosses, not the good ones, will say "You will meet the date, end of story." But what no boss ever says is "You need to meet this date, and if you can't, I don't want to know about it. Please obfuscate."

Everybody knows a completely open phone is a hard job, but that ironically is the reason nobody believes the happy-face blog posts saying "Hi, everything's great!" I backed this project and I smelled something fishy as soon as they announced the "iterative shipping schedule." Not because I'm a crybaby who wants his phone now (in fact I opted for the latest possible shipment knowing the earlier ones would have "issues"), but because of how they tried to cloak the obvious and expected ("We're not ready") in terms of something straight out of Animal Farm ("We always planned it this way.") You tryin' to say you ain't ready dawg? Just say that.

As usual the missing ingredient is leadership. You need somebody who's a compass needle, not a weathervane. You need somebody who's confident enough to tell the truth, warts and all, and who knows how to get everybody to love the warts. People will dump even more money and manpower in to help you if you do that.

>>> When you've been doing development in consumer tech, some of these missteps are glaringly obvious and having proper engineering in place from the start would have avoided much of the problem.

Maybe you could help them to prevent the next "glaringly obvious" issues ?

The problem isn't that they're somehow oblivious to the various problems... the problem seems to be from this guy's articles that they don't have money and manpower to tackle them.

Yep, the market just can't support this kind of product. So people who know what they're doing won't even touch it and Purism is trying to do their best with totally insufficient resources. And it sounds like their best isn't very good.

That's why they need to be super open about their technical stuff. Their experience might nurture others.

Now this whole discussion reminds me of the game Star Citizen. Piles of social money go into it. But in exchange, Star Citizens delivers great demos :-) That's to a point wher I wonder : do people pay for the final product or just ofr the show, the dream it gives them (ie. exactly what you do when you pay for a good movie)...

I would love to -- sadly, golden handcuffs and personal goals where I'm at right now make that impossible.

Sounds like "personal goals" might be misaligned with personal goals?

By "personal goals" I mean financial long term goals which take the front seat at the moment, as compared to things I would "like" to do.

> When you've been doing development in consumer tech, some of these missteps are glaringly obvious and having proper engineering in place from the start would have avoided much of the problem.

Oh sure, that's the problem. Instead of improper engineering, they should've gone with proper engineering. They really should've known better.

In all seriousness, if you expect such a small company could build a decent phone, on a new Linux platform, on their first try, on schedule, then you're divorced from reality.

Version 1 of this thing was going to suck, no matter what. Remember, the first Android handsets by reputable manufacturers were utter garbage.

> In all seriousness, if you expect such a small company could build a decent phone, on a new Linux platform, on their first try, on schedule, then you're divorced from reality.

Oh no, of course the individual(s) that promised those things aren't divorced from reality. It's the consumer that paid money and expected the product they were that's divorced from reality...

Funny how quick you are to point the blame at someone who just went ahead and thought they'd get what they paid for, on time.

What a skewed perception.

> Oh no, of course the individual(s) that promised those things aren't divorced from reality.

I didn't say that. From a business standpoint, it seems like a very long shot.

What did you expect the advertising campaign to be like?

"We don't really know what we're doing, we're going to fuck this up, give us your money!"

CAVEAT EMPTOR (Kickstarter terms of service, paraphrased)

I never expected them to build a decent phone. The Linux platform had already been out for a year prior, and yes, I did expect them to do so on schedule given the fact they have laptops that they have been shipping for some time now.

I used the original Android handsets -- the first first ones that never made it to market. I remember their quality (still have one), and I'd fully expect that as the first thing coming out of the gate from Purism.

So what do you think about allegation that they had ran out of money, and can't deliver to orignal backers, so they produce false information/hype to get more money from pre-orders to at least satisfy some of the original backers.

I mean, it can work out if they can satisfy everyone in the end, but it may also end up pretty badly, and be viewed basically as defrauding of people who're making pre-orders now, not being fully aware their money are used to get phones to someone else, now, and whether they'll see anything themselves is a pretty big gamble.

I guess if they were open about this, people may make informed decision to take the gamble, but that's not the case here.

To me that seems somewhat malicious.

As you said, it's an allegation (one I haven't heard). To me, it seems very premature to assign malice by assuming that an unproven allegation is true.

True that. Allegation is in the articles.

I don't see why people are surprised, it's hardware and that stuff pretty much never gets delivered on time. I'm pretty sure the original raspberry pi came out a year at least after it was expected to and OH MY GOSH was the original pi hardware absolutely awful. I think mine was so unstable it could only reliably run for about 10 minutes with nothing plugged in.

Now I have a number of pi3s that I permanently have installed and haven't had issues with. This is almost certainly going to go the same way and we just need to let them do their thing.

The trolling might be the case, but given how many failures occur in these kinds of projects lead people to calling BS or grift when they see it, even if the trolls are just too cynical. You can't blame them for being a little critical.

I agree, this tone has been on their forums since the beginning.

I hope that they spend their resources building the product in these critical times, and just ignore trolls.

I have to agree. Even if there are some problems with the phone, we need a good alternative to the Google/Apple duopoly. If you care about free and open communications, it's counterproductive to demand a refund at this point. An imperfect but mostly open device is better than a known spy in your pocket, and it will pave the way for future projects through Purism's software contributions.

The old canard applies here: first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. I suppose Purism is entering stage 3 right now.

> The old canard applies here: first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. I suppose Purism is entering stage 3 right now.

That applies to competitors.

When it's your customers laughing and fighting you, you're very much not winning.

stage 3 is "they fight you". (not laugh) I guess what he meant by that is that being over-critical on many fronts is a way of fighting against Purism.

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