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I applaud and support the HW side of this, this is absolutely needed and could be a game changer. Keep also in mind this is a v1. However I have reservations o

I applaud and support the HW side of this, this is absolutely needed and could be a game changer. Keep also in mind this is a v1. However I have reservations on the software choice. Mobile OSes live and die depending on the app ecosystem that is available. If you want lots of people to use your system, your need the popular apps to be on board. That will be hard with a KDE or Gnome based UI, and a second class citizen web support. The developer community has millions of iOS, Android and Web devs, but likely only thousands of Gnome/KDE ones. Getting top-notch PWA integration could ease that but that's unlikely to be a high priority. That being said, I feel they are happy with not being mainstream and that's fine too. Just different expectations.

prophesi 9y ago
Well, KDE uses QT, which has a good bit of support, and is developed by a paid team. Plasma Mobile's original goal was to support GTK/Sailfish/Android apps[0], so I have a little bit of hope. After being let down by so many privacy-oriented phones, I'm still doubtful but will back up this project. [0] https://www.pcworld.com/article/2953812/operating-systems/kde-unveils-plasma-mobile-a-free-and-open-linux-os-for-phones.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/2953812/operating-systems/kd... under "An inclusive platform that supports many apps" section.
zlatan_todoric 9y ago
In first wave we plan to have couple of working apps such as dialer, mail, browser, audio/video player but gradually community will hop on and port/create apps for it. Sure, we start against millions of apps in other ecosystem but on average people don't use more than 20 apps often and I for one dislike that every website out there has created their own iOS/Android app when I can simply use one app for all them - browser. Also never underestimate the power of GNU/Linux community - it has by far most of hackers on it and it is doing their thing for decades already without slowing down at any single point. Also, we will try to help and support any community that will work on getting their OS/app on Librem 5. It would be phone produced by Purism and supported by us, but it would truly be one from people for people. :)
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  "Sure, we start against millions of apps in other ecosystem but on average people don't use more than 20 apps often and I for one dislike that every website out there has created their own iOS/Android app when I can simply use one app for all them - browser." And yet, Windows Phone took that same philosophy, and failed miserably. It's not so much that people only use a handful of apps, but they want to know that they'll be able to use the next big apps that come out. They want to know that, when the next big social app or game comes out, they'll be able to use it. That wasn't the case with Windows Phone, which had huge struggles just getting the main apps that people wanted then on their system. And you may wish to use the browser for all that stuff, but most people don't. They like apps. "Also never underestimate the power of GNU/Linux community - it has by far most of hackers on it and it is doing their thing for decades already without slowing down at any single point." And yet, for end user, consumer software, they really haven't delivered. I feel you're overestimating that group's capabilities here.
  - carussell 9y ago
    > It's not so much that people only use a handful of apps, but they want to know that they'll be able to use the next big apps that come out. They want to know that, when the next big social app or game comes out, they'll be able to use it. This is not the market that Purism is after, which makes this slightly bothersome to read, since Purism will likely focus on that and not see that their plan is still catastrophically flawed. We can just rely on the community to do the rest is nuts. It's the kind of naive optimism that 10 years ago maybe would have seemed like it could and should work, but not today. It's like the "???" step that comes just before "Profit!"
  - zlatan_todoric 9y ago
    We are not the same ecosystem as Windows Phone and we will use different tech than they did - and even if we fail (which I don't think at all), it is part of life, work. And for the end user - I don't think community failed, it just didn't have the multibillion dollar marketing machine behind it and also GNU/Linux commercial activities went into server and rarely into end user app, we plan to change this.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Brakenshire 9y ago
I think good PWA support and Android minus Play Services support could actually cover a lot of the bases. Both of those technology stacks are FOSS; PWA's already cover services like Twitter and Airbnb, and are likely to become commonplace now that Safari intends to implement Service Workers; F-Droid has a huge back-catalogue for open source Android Apps, and a lot of important closed source Android apps don't rely on Google's proprietary API's, for instance Whatsapp, or Moovit, or indeed the random parking app used by my local town. But it seems to me the various open smartphone projects are not keen to support apps beyond the native Linux toolkits. I really think that attempting to replicate the basic functionality of the Android or iOS ecosystems entirely in Qt or GTK is forlorn. The platform will start with very few users (the Purism smartphone would have 2500 users if it meets its funding target), so companies are not going to build to it. It would rely on community efforts, but that's a huge amount of effort, and even then assumes that the API's are available. Having said that, I'm thinking of backing LibreM, as you say the hardware is very important, and to be applauded. I mostly just want good smartphone hardware which runs on the mainline kernel. Software support (for vanilla Android, Lineage OS, Sailfish or Plasma Mobile) should then follow from that by default.

prophesi 9y ago

Well, KDE uses QT, which has a good bit of support, and is developed by a paid team. Plasma Mobile's original goal was to support GTK/Sailfish/Android apps[0], so I have a little bit of hope. After being let down by so many privacy-oriented phones, I'm still doubtful but will back up this project. [0] https://www.pcworld.com/article/2953812/operating-systems/kde-unveils-plasma-mobile-a-free-and-open-linux-os-for-phones.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/2953812/operating-systems/kd... under "An inclusive platform that supports many apps" section.

zlatan_todoric 9y ago

In first wave we plan to have couple of working apps such as dialer, mail, browser, audio/video player but gradually community will hop on and port/create apps for it. Sure, we start against millions of apps in other ecosystem but on average people don't use more than 20 apps often and I for one dislike that every website out there has created their own iOS/Android app when I can simply use one app for all them - browser. Also never underestimate the power of GNU/Linux community - it has by far most of hackers on it and it is doing their thing for decades already without slowing down at any single point. Also, we will try to help and support any community that will work on getting their OS/app on Librem 5. It would be phone produced by Purism and supported by us, but it would truly be one from people for people. :)

s73ver_ 9y ago
"Sure, we start against millions of apps in other ecosystem but on average people don't use more than 20 apps often and I for one dislike that every website out there has created their own iOS/Android app when I can simply use one app for all them - browser." And yet, Windows Phone took that same philosophy, and failed miserably. It's not so much that people only use a handful of apps, but they want to know that they'll be able to use the next big apps that come out. They want to know that, when the next big social app or game comes out, they'll be able to use it. That wasn't the case with Windows Phone, which had huge struggles just getting the main apps that people wanted then on their system. And you may wish to use the browser for all that stuff, but most people don't. They like apps. "Also never underestimate the power of GNU/Linux community - it has by far most of hackers on it and it is doing their thing for decades already without slowing down at any single point." And yet, for end user, consumer software, they really haven't delivered. I feel you're overestimating that group's capabilities here.
- carussell 9y ago
  > It's not so much that people only use a handful of apps, but they want to know that they'll be able to use the next big apps that come out. They want to know that, when the next big social app or game comes out, they'll be able to use it. This is not the market that Purism is after, which makes this slightly bothersome to read, since Purism will likely focus on that and not see that their plan is still catastrophically flawed. We can just rely on the community to do the rest is nuts. It's the kind of naive optimism that 10 years ago maybe would have seemed like it could and should work, but not today. It's like the "???" step that comes just before "Profit!"
- zlatan_todoric 9y ago
  We are not the same ecosystem as Windows Phone and we will use different tech than they did - and even if we fail (which I don't think at all), it is part of life, work. And for the end user - I don't think community failed, it just didn't have the multibillion dollar marketing machine behind it and also GNU/Linux commercial activities went into server and rarely into end user app, we plan to change this.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

Brakenshire 9y ago

I think good PWA support and Android minus Play Services support could actually cover a lot of the bases. Both of those technology stacks are FOSS; PWA's already cover services like Twitter and Airbnb, and are likely to become commonplace now that Safari intends to implement Service Workers; F-Droid has a huge back-catalogue for open source Android Apps, and a lot of important closed source Android apps don't rely on Google's proprietary API's, for instance Whatsapp, or Moovit, or indeed the random parking app used by my local town. But it seems to me the various open smartphone projects are not keen to support apps beyond the native Linux toolkits. I really think that attempting to replicate the basic functionality of the Android or iOS ecosystems entirely in Qt or GTK is forlorn. The platform will start with very few users (the Purism smartphone would have 2500 users if it meets its funding target), so companies are not going to build to it. It would rely on community efforts, but that's a huge amount of effort, and even then assumes that the API's are available. Having said that, I'm thinking of backing LibreM, as you say the hardware is very important, and to be applauded. I mostly just want good smartphone hardware which runs on the mainline kernel. Software support (for vanilla Android, Lineage OS, Sailfish or Plasma Mobile) should then follow from that by default.