3 ms·

> So sorry, you don't know what you're talking about. I know very well what I'm talking about. I backed the original campaign and later used to work on its sof

> So sorry, you don't know what you're talking about. I know very well what I'm talking about. I backed the original campaign and later used to work on its software; I know where the delays came from, I know how badly managed the communication around them was, how many of its problems were self-imposed and, roughly, how much money Purism lost on this whole endeavor. Nevertheless, it delivered; the majority of preorders have been fulfilled in 2022 (3 years after the initial estimated shipping date) and all remaining ones in 2023, and there's a surplus of phones in stock since then. The only people who haven't received their phones yet are those that either couldn't be contacted anymore, explicitly asked not to ship yet or requested a refund (and that last group is who you keep seeing the complaints from). One of the main problems with this project was how stupid its refund policy was, which combined with its delays led to the company eventually refusing to issue them and scaling down to a skeleton crew just to keep afloat and deliver. It did deliver though, I still consider it the best GNU/Linux phone out there even though it's getting rather dated now.

wakawaka28 2y ago
> I backed the original campaign and later used to work on its software; I know where the delays came from, I know how badly managed the communication around the project was, how many of its problems were self-imposed and, roughly, how much money Purism lost on this whole endeavor. It's not just "bad communication" -- they broke the law. One person's "bad communication" is another person's "contract fraud." Seriously. I was totally ok with waiting several months for the product, but based on the timeline that you yourself have proposed I would have needed to wait from the time of my order in 2019 (a couple of years after they started taking orders!) to 2022 or even 2023 for my order that I paid for and was told would be delivered in 3 months. At some point, you have to pull the trigger on getting a refund, because your legal rights have a time limit on them as well. I don't think you could get a refund for something that you preordered 10 years ago. Furthermore, why the fuck would anyone wait so many years to get a phone which may rapidly become obsolete? To be clear, the time limit to get a refund on a credit card transaction is generally 6 months. My bank made an exception for my case, and might have even taken the hit out of pocket to Purism's benefit (though I think they have the power to not do it, as it's a big bank). >Nevertheless, it delivered; the majority of preorders have been fulfilled in 2022 (3 years after the initial estimated shipping date) and all remaining ones in 2023, and there's a surplus of phones in stock since then. The only people who haven't received their phones yet are those that either couldn't be contacted anymore, explicitly asked not to ship yet or requested a refund. Unless you work there I don't think you can possibly know this. >The main problem with this project was how stupid its refund policy was, which combined with the delays led to the company eventually refusing to issue them and scaling down to a skeleton crew just to keep afloat and deliver. It did deliver though, I still consider it the best GNU/Linux phone out there even though it's getting rather dated now. No, the main problem with the project was that they didn't ship the fucking phones. Purism sent phones to social media influencers, which drove people to the website that perpetually said the phone was shipping within 3 months. Meanwhile they took everyone's money and tried to weasel out of their obligations, and pissed off even the geekiest people who wanted the phone the most. That's all it takes to destroy your reputation. How many years will it be before their customer base can trust them again? I will probably never buy another one of their phones, because I can't be sure I'll EVER get it. And if you can't trust them on that, can you really trust them on any other issue? I just casually looked and found someone suing them this year for breach of contract: https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/56159803/Thier_et_al_v_Purism,_SPC https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/56159803/Thier_et_a... I didn't download the documents (I'd probably have to pay for them), but there you go. I think there is reason to believe that some people unsatisfied with what Purism is doing to this day. Lying will do that. I think the people who buy Linux phones are pretty generous and tolerant of faults in hardware and software, so it takes a lot for there to be so much bitterness against a company that allegedly does well. Here's a post about a class-action lawsuit on Reddit, not the only one either: https://old.reddit.com/r/Purism/comments/16cn3of/waiting_for_a_refund_classaction_lawsuit/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Purism/comments/16cn3of/waiting_for... By the way, I got an email like that but it did not offer store credit. It only said I had to wait an indefinite amount of time for my place to come up in the shipping queue or something, to get a REFUND (which I am legally entitled to). Here's a rant by their former marketing director about why he doesn't think it's worth buying the US version (at least): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIWYN00ssY8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIWYN00ssY8 I think he's ranted about Purism in another video, but I can't find it. Here's one from Louis Rossman, a man who initially supported Purism, in which he calls it a scam: https://youtube.com/watch?v=wKegmu0V75s https://youtube.com/watch?v=wKegmu0V75s The person he knows who has firsthand knowledge of Purism, which he cannot disclose, is likely his current employer (a pro-FOSS philanthropist and entrepreneur).
- seba_dos1 2y ago
  > (a couple of years after they started taking orders!) 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". 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. > Unless you work there I don't think you can possibly know this. As I said, I used to work on Librem 5's software (started in mid-2019) and I had plenty of internal insight. Most of that has been eventually communicated outside though, even if in a "too little too late" fashion: https://puri.sm/posts/where-is-my-librem-5-part-2/ https://puri.sm/posts/where-is-my-librem-5-part-2/ While Purism's early communication suffered greatly from "technically it's not lying, we'll just avoid telling you the bad news for as long as we possibly can" syndrome, the post above and its part 1 actually described the whole situation in a fairly accurate manner, so I encourage you to read those. Before that they used to tell you things that were technically true like "we're starting shipping soon!", conveniently omitting things like "yeah we're starting, but it will take us several months to push through the queue even if everything goes right to the plan!". And, boy, things did not go right at all. > 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/11272 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). I completely agree that Purism did a lot to destroy its reputation and it was deserved. However, posts like yours are misstating the truth to the other extreme. Purism did develop and produce these phones and invested a lot into FLOSS; it took them several years longer than expected to ship, but they already finished shipping more than a year ago. From some point in time they also struggled with fulfilling refunds. 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". (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) > Here's a rant by their former marketing director Well, I believe he's one of the people that should be ranted at.

wakawaka28 2y ago

> I backed the original campaign and later used to work on its software; I know where the delays came from, I know how badly managed the communication around the project was, how many of its problems were self-imposed and, roughly, how much money Purism lost on this whole endeavor. It's not just "bad communication" -- they broke the law. One person's "bad communication" is another person's "contract fraud." Seriously. I was totally ok with waiting several months for the product, but based on the timeline that you yourself have proposed I would have needed to wait from the time of my order in 2019 (a couple of years after they started taking orders!) to 2022 or even 2023 for my order that I paid for and was told would be delivered in 3 months. At some point, you have to pull the trigger on getting a refund, because your legal rights have a time limit on them as well. I don't think you could get a refund for something that you preordered 10 years ago. Furthermore, why the fuck would anyone wait so many years to get a phone which may rapidly become obsolete? To be clear, the time limit to get a refund on a credit card transaction is generally 6 months. My bank made an exception for my case, and might have even taken the hit out of pocket to Purism's benefit (though I think they have the power to not do it, as it's a big bank). >Nevertheless, it delivered; the majority of preorders have been fulfilled in 2022 (3 years after the initial estimated shipping date) and all remaining ones in 2023, and there's a surplus of phones in stock since then. The only people who haven't received their phones yet are those that either couldn't be contacted anymore, explicitly asked not to ship yet or requested a refund. Unless you work there I don't think you can possibly know this. >The main problem with this project was how stupid its refund policy was, which combined with the delays led to the company eventually refusing to issue them and scaling down to a skeleton crew just to keep afloat and deliver. It did deliver though, I still consider it the best GNU/Linux phone out there even though it's getting rather dated now. No, the main problem with the project was that they didn't ship the fucking phones. Purism sent phones to social media influencers, which drove people to the website that perpetually said the phone was shipping within 3 months. Meanwhile they took everyone's money and tried to weasel out of their obligations, and pissed off even the geekiest people who wanted the phone the most. That's all it takes to destroy your reputation. How many years will it be before their customer base can trust them again? I will probably never buy another one of their phones, because I can't be sure I'll EVER get it. And if you can't trust them on that, can you really trust them on any other issue? I just casually looked and found someone suing them this year for breach of contract: https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/56159803/Thier_et_al_v_Purism,_SPC https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/56159803/Thier_et_a... I didn't download the documents (I'd probably have to pay for them), but there you go. I think there is reason to believe that some people unsatisfied with what Purism is doing to this day. Lying will do that. I think the people who buy Linux phones are pretty generous and tolerant of faults in hardware and software, so it takes a lot for there to be so much bitterness against a company that allegedly does well. Here's a post about a class-action lawsuit on Reddit, not the only one either: https://old.reddit.com/r/Purism/comments/16cn3of/waiting_for_a_refund_classaction_lawsuit/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Purism/comments/16cn3of/waiting_for... By the way, I got an email like that but it did not offer store credit. It only said I had to wait an indefinite amount of time for my place to come up in the shipping queue or something, to get a REFUND (which I am legally entitled to). Here's a rant by their former marketing director about why he doesn't think it's worth buying the US version (at least): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIWYN00ssY8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIWYN00ssY8 I think he's ranted about Purism in another video, but I can't find it. Here's one from Louis Rossman, a man who initially supported Purism, in which he calls it a scam: https://youtube.com/watch?v=wKegmu0V75s https://youtube.com/watch?v=wKegmu0V75s The person he knows who has firsthand knowledge of Purism, which he cannot disclose, is likely his current employer (a pro-FOSS philanthropist and entrepreneur).

seba_dos1 2y ago
> (a couple of years after they started taking orders!) 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". 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. > Unless you work there I don't think you can possibly know this. As I said, I used to work on Librem 5's software (started in mid-2019) and I had plenty of internal insight. Most of that has been eventually communicated outside though, even if in a "too little too late" fashion: https://puri.sm/posts/where-is-my-librem-5-part-2/ https://puri.sm/posts/where-is-my-librem-5-part-2/ While Purism's early communication suffered greatly from "technically it's not lying, we'll just avoid telling you the bad news for as long as we possibly can" syndrome, the post above and its part 1 actually described the whole situation in a fairly accurate manner, so I encourage you to read those. Before that they used to tell you things that were technically true like "we're starting shipping soon!", conveniently omitting things like "yeah we're starting, but it will take us several months to push through the queue even if everything goes right to the plan!". And, boy, things did not go right at all. > 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/11272 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). I completely agree that Purism did a lot to destroy its reputation and it was deserved. However, posts like yours are misstating the truth to the other extreme. Purism did develop and produce these phones and invested a lot into FLOSS; it took them several years longer than expected to ship, but they already finished shipping more than a year ago. From some point in time they also struggled with fulfilling refunds. 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". (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) > Here's a rant by their former marketing director Well, I believe he's one of the people that should be ranted at.