Bonum Certa Men Certa

Purism's Problems Purely Boil Down to Trust and False Promises

PureOS sounds promising, just like OpenMoko, but we all want (and likely expect) to see results

Business silhouette



Summary: A promising, potentially exciting, freedom-respecting set of products would be easier to talk about than actually deliver; we take a look at what goes on at Purism

THIS is a particularly difficult subject for me to write about, having spent a number of years cheering for Librem (in its various forms or form factors) and by extension its parent company, Purism, whose goals I believe to be well-intentioned. They're a sort of privacy-first, freedom-at-the-forefront company (freedom as in Software Freedom as well as hardware freedom -- to the limited extent presently possible).



Lately I have been reading negative things about Purism. I also received messages and mail about it. I am committed to Software Freedom, but I am also deeply committed to truth, so let's put right there on the table the knowns, unknowns, and what's in desperate need of verification. Because transparency is needed for true trust; otherwise it's fantasy. Here in Techrights we're as transparent as possible with IRC logs that serve to reveal operations (behind the scenes too). We're balancing privacy and transparency, e.g. in the name of source protection. We redact some things, usually to protect identities only. But those who lurk in IRC (or read our logs) can get a pretty good idea of what's going on.

"Many companies operate at a loss and/or have massive debt. They don't like to talk about those things."Purism is different. The company isn't always upfront. Sometimes it's not even honest and some would say "misleading". I'd like to believe they're not intentionally misleading people, but over the past month there was more evidence to that effect. Are they dishonest for "the greater good"? I don't know. Some companies pretend to do better than they really do, hoping for a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy effect -- inertia built atop an illusion. I get that. I don't respect that, but I totally get that. It's quite common and many large companies -- including Microsoft -- do this. Many companies operate at a loss and/or have massive debt. They don't like to talk about those things. It might scare away those who subsidise/invest in them. Sometimes they're bank(er)s, sometimes they're so-called 'angels', sometimes they're the public or prospective buyers who raise funds for projects/products.

One person asked me yesterday: "Have you heard anything about Purism? Or Librem? Being a complete and utter failure/scam?"

"Well," she said, "from what I heard..."

She shared some discussions about this and even new memes. Moments ago someone pointed out to me this recent article that I had read days ago. It's titled "The Sad Saga of Purism and the Librem 5" and there are 3 parts to it.

“Their laptop campaign had over 65% return rate, I heard closer to 70%.”
      --Anonymous
"And no comments from @purism to that," I was told, so "seems like a really sad story to me."

Going back to that first person, "2 years ago," she said, "over 1.5 million -- I heard close to 2.5... was raised."

"But they cannot deliver on the units," she added.

"Their laptop campaign had over 65% return rate, I heard closer to 70%."

"When employees went to San Diego to the fulfillment center, they noted all the concerns - return rate, quality, etc. They wanted to work with Weaver for improvement. He would not meet F2F from what I heard but online. During that session, he went around to see what concerns people had. Quickly, 5 were fired. Another quit within a week or so."

But apparently it gets yet worse. This is the part which is mostly speculative. "From what I heard," she said, "Purism money is now going to Forbes and social media campaigns without the transparency of what is really happening. Phoronix is one of their media outlets."

I can believe the part about Forbes, knowing how they're manipulated. But I'm not sure about Phoronix.

"Media manipulation is possible," I responded, "but I won't vouch for it. Michael Larabel isn't perfect, I often wonder what he does with hardware shipped to him (among other things), but there's no evidence they pay him or are in cahoots, so that seems unfair. Please dig further with your contacts. Eventually I will write about this."

“When employees went to San Diego to the fulfillment center, they noted all the concerns - return rate, quality, etc.”
      --Anonymous
For the sake of accuracy let's just assume -- at least for now -- that Phoronix covers Purism stuff because Phoronix readers care about it. That seems a lot more plausible to me

"As we already are pretty certain," she said, that "Forbes takes money - I mean, just even looking at the content Forbes puts out about certain tech is telling. Phoronix was a question, but is looking more and more like a media outlet that takes money too based on the Purism story."

Phoronix recently did a story that's actually an interview with Purism folks. But nothing suggested that it was promotional. Nothing that I could see.

"I believe Purism is starting other services/campaigns in hopes to raise enough to fulfill those previous orders," she continued, "but it didn't work out... (social media, tablet)

"That's all the info I have on this."

From what I can gather, Purism is struggling. Also, at this stage, workers are leaving (or get fired). This is not good.

Is there something malicious going on? Probably not, but people who fund-raised for this company are being left in the dark and it's not fair to them.

The subject line of the above message was, "purism - where's the hw?" [hardware] which to me says it all.

To me at least. There's a story behind it. It's an old story.

Half a decade (probably less) ago they said they'd ship a review unit for me to write about (just on loan, for me to pass on to the next person once done). I'd never buy their overpriced laptops, but they wanted me to assess. It's them who suggested this to me; they had approached me. But it soon became apparent that they were inconsistent, unorganised, and unprofessional.

Did they ever ship?

No.

Never.

Just wasted my time.

Again and again.

Then the person was removed. The person who spoke to me. The one who approached me. The one who wasted my time.

Always excuses. Hardly any apologies.

“From what I heard Purism money is now going to Forbes and social media campaigns without the transparency of what is really happening.”
      --Anonymous
I posted online about that (at the time). Repeatedly even. It was a sort of warning. They seemed a tad suspicious to me. Trust was eroded and ever since then I never looked at them the same way. But the press carried on, then the FSF (endorsement), not to mention fund-raising for Librem 5.

At one point they said they'd connect me for an interview (to publish on my site) with the founder of Qubes OS. Did that ever happen? No.

You bet! Another round of false promises; a total waste of time.

So, in summary I view them as bad on communications, big on promises, never delivering anything. Anything. Later they make up a bunch of excuses.

And going back to the question, "where's the hw?"

I wondered that many years ago, almost 5 years ago. I've lost count.

The dreams they put forth are dreams. KDE, GNOME.... on a small device. Nice, but will that be delivered? I heard they scattered around some units recently. Then I heard about technical issues. Now I hear about staff leaving.

Deep inside I hope they succeed, but I remain sceptical based on my personal experience.

Purism needs to speak out and be frank about what's happening. I've been nothing but courteous towards them (I didn't even name the person who let me down; maybe she quit, maybe she got fired), but courtesy should be a two-way street/bridge. The very fact that a project about "freedom" does not even offer "openness" is not compatible with the spirit upon which it managed to raise millions of dollars in funds, thanks in part to endorsements/promotions from FSF, GNOME, KDE and so on. Not to mention volunteer writers like myself who have mentioned them over a thousand times over the years.

Moments ago figosdev told me: "ive always been neutral/curious about these guys, particularly with the fsf endorsement. im very curious what oliva thinks.

“I believe Purism is starting other services/campaigns in hopes to raise enough to fulfill those previous orders...”
      --Anonymous
"but with all thats happened to people trying to create real freedom lately, is it possible this is another attack, rather than a real revelation? (i dont know how i can prove im neutral, this is just my reaction.)"

Tom Grz wrote: "I’ve always been suspicious, primarily because their products are high-priced, and if they really wanted to make a difference they should move down the population curve. Also, the president is a jerk."

Some memes do target the president's personality; I don't know him personally. There's a link there to a talk from him. "Todd Weaver has more to say about himself than the advertised subject matter," Grz added later.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Rust is Starting to Seem More Like Microsoft-hosted "Digital Maoism", Not a Legitimate Effort to Improve Security
Maybe this is very innocent, but they seem to have taken a solid, stable program from a high-profile Frenchman and looked for ways to marry it with GitHub, i.e. Microsoft/NSA
Finland, Lithuania, and Latvia Fortify Their Digital Border With GNU/Linux
This month's data from statCounter is particularly interesting near the Baltic Sea
Richard Stallman Gives Public Talk at Technical University of Liberec, Czech Republic
"For programs that you could run, and for network services that could do your own computing, under what circumstances is it reasonable to trust them?"
Another Wave of Microsoft Layoffs Comes Shortly. Microsoft Propaganda Sites and Slopforms Powered by Microsoft LLMs Already Spew Out Face-Saving Nonsense.
Based on last month's leak, some very extensive layoffs are now imminent [...] Perhaps we can expect a lot of noise, some of it spewed out by bots, to distract from or belittle the impending mass layoffs
Ubuntu Becomes Microsoft GitHub, Based on Decision Made by British Army Officer
You're hopeless, Canonical
 
People Used to Talk
If pets can live a measurably happy life without gadgets and "apps", why can't humans?
Outsourcing GNU/Linux to Microsoft GitHub Promoted by Microsoft LLM Slop and Army Officers
Something doesn't seem right
Weaponisation of For-Profit Dockets - Part III: No More Media Lawsuits From Brett Wilson LLP This Year, One Can Only Guess Why
People leak a lot of material to Techrights because they know, based on the track record, that the sources will be protected and whatever gets published will stay online, in full, no matter how stubborn an effort (even lawsuits and blackmail) will be sent its way
Gemini Links 07/05/2025: Adopting GrapheneOS, Further Enshittification of Flickr
Links for the day
Links 07/05/2025: CISA Gutted, Debt-Saddled (Likely Insolvent) 'Open' 'AI' (Proprietary Slop) Faking Its Financial State Again
Links for the day
The European Patent Office (EPO) Has a Very Profound Corruption Issue, Far More Urgent an Issue Than Pronouns
a rather long document
Today We Turn 18.5
The eighteenth "and a half" anniversary
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 06, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, May 06, 2025
Microsoft Finally Admits That XBox is ****
In this case, "enshittification" is an understatement
Slopwatch: Microsoft Slop, Anti-Linux Slop, and IBM Marketing Itself as a Slop Company
Microsoft-controlled LLM spewing out garbage about "Linux"
Links 06/05/2025: Microsoft's Assassination of Skype After Years of Failure, Slop Hallucinations Are Getting Worse
Links for the day
Links 06/05/2025: Changing Places and StarGrid for PalmOS
Links for the day
Windows and Microsoft Causing Serious Data Breaches, Media Rushes to Blame That on "Linux" Somehow
While selling us some rusty old propaganda about how moving to Microsoft GitHub (Rust) will improve security
Making Site Archives More Easily Accessible (Approaching 50,000 Blog Posts)
Efforts to censor us have always backfired badly
Weaponisation of For-Profit Dockets - Part II: Hiding Behind Lawyers and Barristers Who Lack Standards so as to Engage in Classic Corporate Extortion
They're trying to scare people and they misuse their licence to operate
Links 06/05/2025: LLMs/Chatbots Attract More Scrutiny (Getting Worse Over Time), PwC Has Many Layoffs
Links for the day
Thanks for listening. How can this Morse feed be further improved?
Right now any and all feedback on the audio would be helpful
statCounter: Bing's Market Share Lower Right Now Than It Was When LLM Hype Began (With "Bing Chat")
If anybody gains at Google's expense in search, it is BRICS' alternatives such as Yandex
Gemini Links 06/05/2025: Failure and Proxmox Cluster
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 05, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, May 05, 2025
Weaponisation of For-Profit Dockets - Part I: Hiding Behind Lawyers (or Guns for Hire) After Abusing Many People and Even Strangling Women While Microsoft Paid Salaries
This whole thing is very typical of the Microsoft and Bill Gates mindset
From EPO to "MAGA Regime": A Shift Away From Reality to Fake News and False Metrics
Disbelief in itself isn't a bad thing; but the problem is that people are taught to believe rich people in suits more than they believe others
Skype is Officially Dead Today and This is Why People Should Use Free Software Instead (Goodbye, Microsoft)
It's also a good reminder of why people should move to GNU/Linux
'Simple Articles' in MyGemini Just One of Many New 'Sites' in Geminispace
Geminispace has grown fast lately; it's turning 6 next month
Links 05/05/2025: TikTok Still a Romanian Woe/Foe, Signal Perils Showing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/05/2025: Debian and GNOME and a "Welcome to Simple Articles"
Links for the day
Links 05/05/2025: US Economy Shrinks, US Presidency Spreading Deepfakes
Links for the day
Links 05/05/2025: Breaches, Environment, and Conflicts
Links for the day
SUSE the Company Now Uses LLM Slop to 'Write' Its Blog, What Does That Tell Us About SUSE?
There are many giveaways
Richard Stallman is in Alicante Today to Give a Talk, Czech Republic in Two Days (Wednesday)
Of course he can deliver the talk in Spanish
Gemini Links 05/05/2025: XL Bullies and Luddites
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 04, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, May 04, 2025