5 ms·

Why does it sound so much like a scam ?

AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
Not sure about the scam, but my bayesian bullshit filter is triggered by the "unlike all the evil for-profit corporations, we're a white'n'fluffy company aiming for the greater good".
- fsflover 5y ago
  They have proven this by numerous contributions to FLOSS [0], releasing laptops with kill switches [1] and neutralized Intel ME [2], FSF-approved OS [3], FSF-endorsed phone [4] and so on. [0] https://puri.sm/posts/purism-and-linux-5-13/ https://puri.sm/posts/purism-and-linux-5-13/ [1] https://puri.sm/security/ https://puri.sm/security/ [2] https://puri.sm/projects/coreboot/ https://puri.sm/projects/coreboot/ [3] https://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-adds-pureos-to-list-of-endorsed-gnu-linux-distributions-1 https://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-adds-pureos-to-list-of-endorsed... [4] https://www.fsf.org/givingguide/v11/ https://www.fsf.org/givingguide/v11/
  - AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
    Well, in this case good for them and shame on my bayesian filter. I wish I were an "accredited investor according to Rule 501 under the Securities Act of 1933", because from your links it looks like a kind of good I'd be willing to invest in.
- wly_cdgr 5y ago
  So what? You're investing to make money. For those purposes, it's much better for you if they are actually as bad or worse than any other company
- wly_cdgr 5y ago
  So what? You're investing to make money. For those purposes, it's much better for you if they are actually as bad or worse than any other company. Nobody makes big money actually respecting the principles they claim
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
user764743 5y ago
Because when you start digging behind the marketing at Purism a lot of what they say and do are often two different things.
- fsflover 5y ago
  Any particular examples?
fmajid 5y ago
Before anyone considers putting money there, they should read this interview by their former CTO. Sounds like a train wreck to me: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Zlatan-Todoric-Interview https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Zlatan-T...
- ianai 5y ago
  Reading that, I wonder whether a start up would have a better time offering OS/firmware support for already shipping, mass produced devices. i.e. Buy the latest XPS 15 and get to work making an installer that disables all the things they want to disable (intel ME off the top of mind). Doing similar with phone models, etc. I wonder whether this could be done for Windows drivers, for that matter.
  - dogma1138 5y ago
    That’s what Purism does already, they are selling bog standard OEM laptops and now “NUCs” with Coreboot at a pretty high premium. Unlike System76 they aren’t even maintaining a swanky Linux distro like PopOS.
    - linmob 5y ago
      Um, they are maintaining a distro. It’s called PureOS [0]. [0]: https://www.pureos.net https://www.pureos.net
      - ianai 5y ago
        Just to clarify, it’s possible to focus solely on providing drivers for known hardware configurations and across a variety of OSes. Deciding to fork Debian and maintaining a distribution on top of those drivers seems massively unnecessary.
  - fmajid 5y ago
    Tuxedo Computers does this.
- 5y ago
wmf 5y ago
If Purism was a scam VCs would be begging to invest. They're not evil enough to scam anyone (on purpose at least).
Jach 5y ago
Given I've had a number of non-spammy emails from them wind up in gmail's spam that I've had to mark as not so, I was surprised when I got an email about this several days ago and it wasn't marked spam. I was really tempted to mark it as such...

Not sure about the scam, but my bayesian bullshit filter is triggered by the "unlike all the evil for-profit corporations, we're a white'n'fluffy company aiming for the greater good".

fsflover 5y ago
They have proven this by numerous contributions to FLOSS [0], releasing laptops with kill switches [1] and neutralized Intel ME [2], FSF-approved OS [3], FSF-endorsed phone [4] and so on. [0] https://puri.sm/posts/purism-and-linux-5-13/ https://puri.sm/posts/purism-and-linux-5-13/ [1] https://puri.sm/security/ https://puri.sm/security/ [2] https://puri.sm/projects/coreboot/ https://puri.sm/projects/coreboot/ [3] https://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-adds-pureos-to-list-of-endorsed-gnu-linux-distributions-1 https://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-adds-pureos-to-list-of-endorsed... [4] https://www.fsf.org/givingguide/v11/ https://www.fsf.org/givingguide/v11/
- AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
  Well, in this case good for them and shame on my bayesian filter. I wish I were an "accredited investor according to Rule 501 under the Securities Act of 1933", because from your links it looks like a kind of good I'd be willing to invest in.
wly_cdgr 5y ago
So what? You're investing to make money. For those purposes, it's much better for you if they are actually as bad or worse than any other company
wly_cdgr 5y ago
So what? You're investing to make money. For those purposes, it's much better for you if they are actually as bad or worse than any other company. Nobody makes big money actually respecting the principles they claim
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

user764743 5y ago

Because when you start digging behind the marketing at Purism a lot of what they say and do are often two different things.

fsflover 5y ago
Any particular examples?

fmajid 5y ago

Before anyone considers putting money there, they should read this interview by their former CTO. Sounds like a train wreck to me: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Zlatan-Todoric-Interview https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Zlatan-T...

ianai 5y ago
Reading that, I wonder whether a start up would have a better time offering OS/firmware support for already shipping, mass produced devices. i.e. Buy the latest XPS 15 and get to work making an installer that disables all the things they want to disable (intel ME off the top of mind). Doing similar with phone models, etc. I wonder whether this could be done for Windows drivers, for that matter.
- dogma1138 5y ago
  That’s what Purism does already, they are selling bog standard OEM laptops and now “NUCs” with Coreboot at a pretty high premium. Unlike System76 they aren’t even maintaining a swanky Linux distro like PopOS.
  - linmob 5y ago
    Um, they are maintaining a distro. It’s called PureOS [0]. [0]: https://www.pureos.net https://www.pureos.net
    - ianai 5y ago
      Just to clarify, it’s possible to focus solely on providing drivers for known hardware configurations and across a variety of OSes. Deciding to fork Debian and maintaining a distribution on top of those drivers seems massively unnecessary.
- fmajid 5y ago
  Tuxedo Computers does this.
5y ago

wmf 5y ago

If Purism was a scam VCs would be begging to invest. They're not evil enough to scam anyone (on purpose at least).

Jach 5y ago

Given I've had a number of non-spammy emails from them wind up in gmail's spam that I've had to mark as not so, I was surprised when I got an email about this several days ago and it wasn't marked spam. I was really tempted to mark it as such...