An Interview With Zlatan Todoric, Open-Source Developer & Former Purism CTO

[anarsoul]

- they talk about that "it runs" on mainline Linux, does that mean that all hardware is supported without any blobs? Probably not.

WiFi and BT require firmware blob, also modem has its own dedicated processor running closed firmware but it's interfaced with main CPU over USB and I2S so it doesn't have access to main CPU memory. That's pretty much it, no other blobs.

[Michael]

What I find surprising is the lack of people who have admitted to recieving an Aspen batch device.

The Device in that video was taken to the vblogger. I think he kept it and I am looking forward to seeing more.

No, he didn't keep it. He confirmed that he's supposed to be part of the first batch but that Todd took the device back - See this exchange https://twitter.com/popey/status/1186264054492467200

[popey]

For what it's worth. In the paragraph where I am mentioned, it talks about the crowdfunder stats being odd. Here's the twitter thread where I mentioned my first concerns.. https://twitter.com/popey/status/1126451229570342912

Some time later, the graph looks equally ludicrous. https://twitter.com/popey/status/1136773779147939842

The only excuses for why this was happening was that there were website issues.

[Michael]

Looks like Purism marketing won't try clarifying anything - https://twitter.com/BryanLunduke/sta...54178274353152

[Flaburgan]

And so far pinephone has not delivered, not even the hardware and no talk about the software at all.

- they have no delivery date, till it's out they have to compete with the v2 of the librem5.
- they talk about that "it runs" on mainline Linux, does that mean that all hardware is supported without any blobs? Probably not.
- They have no UI, Plasma is not ready I tried to get to their get repository you need a login to even see their code I have question to even call them opensource. But it's never proven to run on any hardware good. Heck they have till this day no good DE for normal computers.
- UBPorts pff really horrible slow ugly platform
- Sailfish OS, proprietary
- "Single board soc" which probably means that the modem has access to the memory and spy on users.

You have no idea what you are talking about. PinePhone is there and running very well. See Ubuntu Touch on it for example, or Plasma Mobile. You can see the whole phone assembly here if you want to.

What is interesting in PinePhone is the transparency they have with the community. I really encourage anyone to read the whole pinephone thread on UT forums, it's very long but show how open you can be, and that's just awesome.

blackiwid If you are fine with the way Purism is handling the project, that's cool. But don't trash another project you know nothing about just because it can be compared to Librem.

[danmcgrew]

Well, that was an article with a one sided view. Real journalism actually tries to get both sides of a story. You could at least have tried to reach out to Todd Weaver to give him a chance to respond.

I'm not going to even TRY to dissect everything that's wrong with your post, except to point out TO YOU (it's obvious to everyone else) how puerile, infantile, and "fan-boyish" this makes you appear.

You think that Todd Weaver doesn't read every last word of what's printed about--and against--him? You think that Todd Weaver doesn't know how to write a 'responding post' to Phoronix?

Grow up.
You got your fifteen seconds in the lime-light.
Think, before you write another post.

[Danielsan]

Well, that was an article with a one sided view. Real journalism actually tries to get both sides of a story. You could at least have tried to reach out to Todd Weaver to give him a chance to respond.

Totally agreed. This seems just an attack to Purism and beyond all the actual shit that might be there, this kind of articles don't help our general mission.

[tomas]

I'm not going to even TRY to dissect everything that's wrong with your post, except to point out TO YOU (it's obvious to everyone else) how puerile, infantile, and "fan-boyish" this makes you appear.

You think that Todd Weaver doesn't read every last word of what's printed about--and against--him? You think that Todd Weaver doesn't know how to write a 'responding post' to Phoronix?

Grow up.
You got your fifteen seconds in the lime-light.
Think, before you write another post.

Wow, what is your problem? Calm down. You're completely missing the point of my criticism. It might well be that the criticism against Purism and Todd Weaver is 100% accurate or it might be 50% accurate or it might only be 10% accurate. We really don't know, because this article only presents one mans view without making any effort to try to reach out to the one being criticized. You know the way that real journalism works? There it is common practice to at least try to get in contact with a person if he or she is being criticized or accused for something. Then it might well be that the person anyway decides not to respond in which case the article clearly states that, something like "We made several attempts get in contact with yadda yadda for a comment but he could not be reached" or "we reached out to yadda yadda but he declined to give any comments".

[AccurateVictory]

Purism marketing was "pure" garbage.
- The "pure" thingy all around is silly.
- obfuscated information (did not admit the blobs)
- very shy on the specs details - you have to find the right link.
- GTK/Gnome. Seriously?
- wanted to support any distro rather than focusing on one thing. You know: "doing one thing and doing it well"
- ludicrous price but would be ok if honest about the progression.

Oh, Killer switch is a dumb idea. If you kill switch, your legit net application won't work too.

PinePhone:
- transparency
- Qt
- reasonable price tag
- devkit/proto were available almost at the same time than the phone announcement. They're walking the talk.

Purism was treating community like kids.

[brent]

- wanted to support any distro rather than focusing on one thing. You know: "doing one thing and doing it well"

Regarding that, I'm not sure how they treated other communities, but they didn't treat UBports well. UBports only recently got a devkit, and they aren't going to get an early batch phone. They are only going to get a phone "sometime in 2020". So Purism's promise that they want to support all kinds of Linux phone software projects wasn't really sincere at least in this case.

I guess it makes sense for Purism: they want to promote PureOS and they want people to use that and not UBports. UBports is the biggest threat as it is quite mature. I mean, it's basically fine as a strategy, but it's always the same with Purism: they should have clearly said so!