3 ms·

I've followed the company for years and sometimes observing a company's behavior with costumers will tell you a lot more about them than pretty blog posts. I me

I've followed the company for years and sometimes observing a company's behavior with costumers will tell you a lot more about them than pretty blog posts. I mean, let's not forget how they lied about the phone being able to make calls for months while it couldn't. All I'm saying is I invite others do dig deeper into the company, I don't think they are as transparent as they claim.

fsflover 5y ago
I also followed the company for years. They are much more transparent than any other company, although still not 100% transparent. All software development proceeds in the open. All code is free and upstreamed. Developers and employees reply to questions on the public forum. They're having a hard time with the funds now, so they probably have to delay refunds in order not to go bankrupt. Recently they got some inestments, so it should get better: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27949435 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27949435.
- kbenson 5y ago
  > They're having a hard time with the funds now, so they probably have to delay refunds in order not to go bankrupt. That right there is a red flag. Sometimes companies don't make it. I've never heard of a story where a company put themselves above their duty to their customers in a way such as that which didn't lead to massive problems down the road. I sincerely hope your interpretation is incorrect.
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    Companies have to develop a product and then recoup the R&D from sales. If it costs $X to do the R&D and your margins are $M, you recover them after N = $X/$M sales. But then you need $X before you can make even the first sale. One way to do that is by taking pre-orders. Then you have money for the R&D before you have a product to ship. The problem comes if the product is late to market and then the people with pre-orders are unhappy. To give them a refund you have to have sold N products -- not including the one they're canceling -- or else you don't have the money because you already spent it on R&D. As long as you eventually sell N products, you can eventually give the refund, but you might not be able to do it yet. And, of course, if you never sell N products, you're in trouble.
    - kbenson 5y ago
      I understand this, and I understand the reasoning. I've just never seen it turn out well. That can definitely be a sort of survivorship bias, where I haven't heard of most the companies that did it and succeeded and that didn't have later problems where it came to light. I just think that once you've accepted money for a good or service and haven't delivered that good or service, and the person wants their money back, you should be giving that money back to the degree you're capable. That it's inconvenient and may actually lead to the dissolution of your company or result in people not getting all their money back isn't really relevant. Make a case to the people and see if they are willing to accept it or alternatives (such as waiting a bit for more of their return), but don't make decisions on their behalf when your duty to return their money is clear.
seba_dos1 5y ago
For months? The first batch (shipped to people who opted in) didn't yet have automatic call audio configuration in software, but it worked when configured manually and a software update that made it work out-of-box came in 2 or 3 weeks afterwards IIRC (Nov 2019). At that point phone calls worked on the devkit for many months already.
- user764743 5y ago
  Yeah for months. I was there at the Chaos Camps in August 2019 when Nicole did her presentation and the phone couldn't make a call. The excuse she gave was the phone overheated. It became obvious by september/october that the phone couldn't male calls and it wasn't until End of Nov/early December 2019 that you guys figured it out, but it didn't stop Purism from claiming it did for months while it wasn't true.
  - seba_dos1 5y ago
    I was there as well and I was successfully making phone calls from the devkit at CCCamp19 (in fact I actually received my devkit there so this was my first contact with it). Anyone who stayed around after Nicole's presentation could also see her placing a call.

fsflover 5y ago

I also followed the company for years. They are much more transparent than any other company, although still not 100% transparent. All software development proceeds in the open. All code is free and upstreamed. Developers and employees reply to questions on the public forum. They're having a hard time with the funds now, so they probably have to delay refunds in order not to go bankrupt. Recently they got some inestments, so it should get better: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27949435 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27949435.

kbenson 5y ago
> They're having a hard time with the funds now, so they probably have to delay refunds in order not to go bankrupt. That right there is a red flag. Sometimes companies don't make it. I've never heard of a story where a company put themselves above their duty to their customers in a way such as that which didn't lead to massive problems down the road. I sincerely hope your interpretation is incorrect.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  Companies have to develop a product and then recoup the R&D from sales. If it costs $X to do the R&D and your margins are $M, you recover them after N = $X/$M sales. But then you need $X before you can make even the first sale. One way to do that is by taking pre-orders. Then you have money for the R&D before you have a product to ship. The problem comes if the product is late to market and then the people with pre-orders are unhappy. To give them a refund you have to have sold N products -- not including the one they're canceling -- or else you don't have the money because you already spent it on R&D. As long as you eventually sell N products, you can eventually give the refund, but you might not be able to do it yet. And, of course, if you never sell N products, you're in trouble.
  - kbenson 5y ago
    I understand this, and I understand the reasoning. I've just never seen it turn out well. That can definitely be a sort of survivorship bias, where I haven't heard of most the companies that did it and succeeded and that didn't have later problems where it came to light. I just think that once you've accepted money for a good or service and haven't delivered that good or service, and the person wants their money back, you should be giving that money back to the degree you're capable. That it's inconvenient and may actually lead to the dissolution of your company or result in people not getting all their money back isn't really relevant. Make a case to the people and see if they are willing to accept it or alternatives (such as waiting a bit for more of their return), but don't make decisions on their behalf when your duty to return their money is clear.

seba_dos1 5y ago

For months? The first batch (shipped to people who opted in) didn't yet have automatic call audio configuration in software, but it worked when configured manually and a software update that made it work out-of-box came in 2 or 3 weeks afterwards IIRC (Nov 2019). At that point phone calls worked on the devkit for many months already.

user764743 5y ago
Yeah for months. I was there at the Chaos Camps in August 2019 when Nicole did her presentation and the phone couldn't make a call. The excuse she gave was the phone overheated. It became obvious by september/october that the phone couldn't male calls and it wasn't until End of Nov/early December 2019 that you guys figured it out, but it didn't stop Purism from claiming it did for months while it wasn't true.
- seba_dos1 5y ago
  I was there as well and I was successfully making phone calls from the devkit at CCCamp19 (in fact I actually received my devkit there so this was my first contact with it). Anyone who stayed around after Nicole's presentation could also see her placing a call.