Comment by fsflover

1 month ago

Why are all commenters on HN ignoring the only smartphone running an FSF-endorsed [0] operating system, Librem 5, and only list everything else? I just can't get it.

Even the FSF themselves didn't mention it or provided any reasoning for choosing a Google-controlled operating system - despite recommending Librem 5 earlier [1]. What am I missing?

[0] https://www.fsf.org/givingguide/v11/

as someone who has followed this phone for a long time, it has had an image problem - fairly old hardware, early software/buggy, and bad customer service experiences.

i'm still pretty tempted to play with one.

  • > fairly old hardware

    How new do you think the chosen Android hardware will be at the end of the promised reverse-engineering efforts?

    See also: https://puri.sm/posts/the-danger-of-focusing-on-specs/

    It's fast enough and stable enough to serve me (and many other people, including in the HN comments) as a daily driver.

    > bad customer service experiences

    This depends: Purism is a quite small company, and sometimes they take time to reply, but the community at forums.puri.sm has been really helpful. I'm a happy user.

  • We are talking about the FSF here, not Apple. The former concentrate on the user freedom, not modern hardware or polished experience (which is a good thing).

We know that you will post something about Librem 5 so there is no need for anyone else to do it.

  • It’s amusing to me that whenever I see a submission about Linux phones, I start looking for the obligatory @fsflover comment.

    No bad feelings, fsflover, keep up the good work. I also can’t wait to post on here from a libre phone.