>The crowdfunding campaign that was meant to finance the development of the phone was only launched at the end on 2017, estimating shipment to be in 2019. The first batch (of limited quantity, a few hundred devices) to ship materialized in December 2019. Afterwards Purism successively shipped about as many phones as were produced, and due to several reasons (COVID amongst them) it ended up being split into several production batches - last of which contained a couple thousands of devices and was shipped out in 2023. Only then it moved from being "backordered" to "product in stock".
As I said, I didn't fund a kickstarter. I placed a preorder like thousands of other people apparently. I ordered it in 2019. They did attempt to blame Covid for their long-standing production and delivery issues, despite the fact that other crowdfunded and experimental hardware was shipping with only moderate delays throughout the pandemic (such as the PinePhone!).
>The biggest mishap happened around 2020-2021, when it was already apparent that it will take a good while to fulfill all existing preorders, so Purism started setting delivery estimations far into future - 6 months at first, then 12 months - hoping that it will be definitely enough to handle the existing queue and to deter impatient people from ordering. Except even 12 months turned out to not be enough to ship some of those, and eventually people started getting angry.
People were already angry by 2020, having waited years for their phones as social media influencers were shilling them.
>As I said, I used to work on Librem 5's software (started in mid-2019) and I had plenty of internal insight.
Unless you literally worked for them, for pay, I don't think you would have that insight. And even if you DID work for them, I don't think you would necessarily know the status of all the orders, since that's not your department.
>>No, the main problem with the project was that they didn't ship the fucking phones.
>Except they did. The community at forums even graphed out their progress, doing detective's work with as little information as Purism was giving them: https://forums.puri.sm/t/estimate-your-librem-5-shipping/112 https://forums.puri.sm/t/estimate-your-librem-5-shipping/112... (it's not entirely accurate and ends at late-2018 orders, but let's say it's close enough for the purposes of this discussion - you can easily see early production batches there).
As I said, there are many people who got neither the phone nor a refund, and lawsuits are happening right now. A company that has been proven to lie is telling you that they met their goals, and you're citing them as proof that they met their obligations. Give me a break. There's no proof that they're making thousands of these phones. I will admit that it's possible that the company "just" made a mistake or a handful of mistakes (that happen to be criminal in a factual sense), and that they now have things under control. But I can't trust anything they say now and I'm not about to sit here and be gaslighted by "proof" coming from them again.
>If you ask me, these refunds should have never been promised, as at the point in time when they stopped issuing them the money was already all used on development and production - but they did promise such option, so it's their own fault that people expected refunds to be granted. Regardless, an "uh oh, so many people are requesting refunds that we don't have enough money to perform them" fuckup is still far from "being a scam".
They don't have to promise a refund. It's legally required in most places. For them to have the right to deny a refund, they would have to boldly communicate "NO REFUNDS" and only an idiot would buy the phone at that point. I'm not an investor, I just want(ed) the damn phone. And I only trusted them to sell it to me in advance like that because they sent prototypes to people I trust.
>Regardless, an "uh oh, so many people are requesting refunds that we don't have enough money to perform them" fuckup is still far from "being a scam".
That is a sticky situation. But it is indistinguishable from a scam. If you take someone's money under the pretense of it being a purchase, and subsequently fail to produce either the product or the legally-required refund, that is a scam. "We merely ran out of money" is an excuse that any fraudster could use, if they successfully dispose of the money by paying themselves or something.
>(btw. unless something changed very recently, every person who can't get a refund has now an option to instantly get the ordered phone instead, as they've been waiting in a warehouse for many months now; some aren't interested though)
I don't care if they say that they have the phones now. I can't trust them. As I said, they are legally required to issue refunds in most cases, so if someone requested a refund due to extreme delinquency of fulfillment then they cannot be legally refused the refund. If they are as profitable as they claim they are, then issuing real cash refunds to their customers instead of a device should be no problem for them.
I could consider buying a phone from them IF I was guaranteed that they would either give me the phone or a refund within a month. But given the numerous accounts on Reddit and elsewhere that they NEVER do refunds, I'm not fucking around with them ever again. I can do a credit card chargeback but that is seriously a pain in the ass. Last time I had to fax a bunch of shit to my bank. I won't take a chance on that again.
>Well, I believe he's one of the people that should be ranted at.
I can't remember if he was there at the time of the phone fiasco. He also probably took orders directly from the CEO and could not contradict him. His take is nevertheless valuable because he is familiar with the company.
> They did attempt to blame Covid for their long-standing production and delivery issues, despite the fact that other crowdfunded and experimental hardware was shipping with only moderate delays throughout the pandemic (such as the PinePhone!).
PinePhone managed to be done just in time to mostly avoid the COVID woes, it also used parts that were much less affected by supply chain disruption. Librem 5 was already late at that point for unrelated reasons, but had COVID not happened I'm pretty sure the phones would have been all shipped about two years earlier at least. i.MX 8 shortages are well documented outside of the Librem 5's context, although to be fair the fact that at the time COVID happened Purism still didn't have some of the most vital components secured yet is purely on them (as was the initial schedule being completely unrealistic).
> As I said, there are many people who got neither the phone nor a refund
...only because they didn't want the phone anymore. I understand that choice, but it's a choice they made.
> If they are as profitable as they claim they are
...because they were finally able to book the shipped phones as profit rather than keep them as liability. It doesn't say anything about the cashflow though.
> and subsequently fail to produce either the product or the legally-required refund
It's a good thing Purism did produce the product then, even if late. It would have been much simpler not to, as the unit price ended up being much higher than what most people paid for it, but in the end the difference got covered from other sources (such as sales of laptops and other products) and by cutting the costs (such as my and others' pay).
> and you're citing them as proof that they met their obligation
The chart I pointed to was made independently by the community based on customers' self-reports. The blog post I pointed to I'm only citing because it matches what I know from plenty of other sources - obviously I can only link to what's public.
> I can't remember if he was there at the time of the phone fiasco.
Yes he was, and he was still there when I joined (though not for very long). I have my opinions.
> Unless you literally worked for them, for pay, I don't think you would have that insight. And even if you DID work for them, I don't think you would necessarily know the status of all the orders, since that's not your department.
I did, I had, I've seen the production batches getting delivered from China, I've seen support requests from people who were receiving their phones, I've seen the user community grow, I've seen non-public order, refund and revenue numbers, I've seen people who wanted a refund but couldn't get it change their minds and receive the phone instead, and plenty of other things... What I'm saying isn't based on some blog post or something someone told me as "trust me bro", it's based on lots of various data points I've seen over the years, including off-the-record conversations with colleges from various departments (including some disgruntled ones, for good reasons), that were all consistent with each other.
Of course you're still free not to trust me. But that's not my problem. I just want to get the facts straight in case others read this, as ultimately I'm fairly proud of what we managed to achieve with this device. I'm still daily-driving one myself.