The Librem 5 "Birch" Batch Was Missing A Resistor But Now Fixed

[phoronix]

Phoronix: The Librem 5 "Birch" Batch Was Missing A Resistor But Now Fixed

Librem 5 "Birch" batch was supposed to be shipping from 29 October to 26 November. They are now preparing to start shipping this second iteration of the Librem 5 Linux smartphone after early units in this batch were missing a resistor...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Librem-5-Birch-Missing-Resistor

[danmcgrew]

Hmmmm...

Missing resistor. Makes USB unusable. Sounds very much like Todd Weaver is outsourcing his “engineering” to the rocket scientists, the so-called “design engineers”, at The Raspberry Pi Foundation, who can’t design (copy the reference design from the USB spec) a USB implementation, either.

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And from Todd Weaver’s blog post--

“... so we wanted to share for transparency the kinds of issues that can come up. For instance, with our Birch batch, we sent our hardware engineers the very first phones off of the line ahead of schedule so they could perform quality control testing. We discovered a 10kΩ resistor was missing... We are fortunate to have incredibly talented engineers on our team who quickly traced this error down so we could add the resistor...”

https://puri.sm/posts/librem-5-birchs-10kohm-resistor-fun-devices-prepping-for-shipping/

Errr... shouldn’t their crack team of engineers have fixed this problem before it got to this stage?

So much for "THE KINDS OF ISSUES" to be shared for transparency. This was the only one mentioned.

[starshipeleven]

Hmmmm...

Missing resistor. Makes USB unusable. Sounds very much like Todd Weaver is outsourcing his “engineering” to the rocket scientists, the so-called “design engineers”, at The Raspberry Pi Foundation, who can’t design (copy the reference design from the USB spec) a USB implementation, either.

Also Nintendo Switch engineers made the same mistake.

[brent]

Mistakes happen, especially with complicated hardware designs. It's not unusual or special. Count how many dumb mistakes you make when writing software. With software it's fortunately easy to fix. The same mistakes happen with hardware, but they aren't as easy to fix, it takes a long time and it's costly to roll out fixes.

However, what is special about this case is Purism's misrepresentation of development progress and the lack of transparency (despite their promises and SPC mission).

[chocolate]

However, what is special about this case is Purism's misrepresentation of development progress and the lack of transparency (despite their promises and SPC mission).

I'd like to learn more as to how this could be represented better. As a potential customer, I believe their writing is exhaustive and precise. Their wording doesn't leave much to ambiguity, either. While scarce hardware updates reflect longer development cycles, software updates come regularly and are accompanied by images and videos. I'd say this is rare and exemplary, so it comes as a shock to me that someone in the community would react negatively to their efforts.

[brent]

I'd like to learn more as to how this could be represented better. As a potential customer, I believe their writing is exhaustive and precise. Their wording doesn't leave much to ambiguity, either. While scarce hardware updates reflect longer development cycles, software updates come regularly and are accompanied by images and videos. I'd say this is rare and exemplary, so it comes as a shock to me that someone in the community would react negatively to their efforts.

Just look at the latest months blog posts, really.

* When they faced major delays, they tried to sell it as a "minor shipping adjustment". An "adjustment" from Q1 2019 to Q3 2019.

* Purism never announced any further delay after that (quite the opposite: they repeatedly confirmed Q3), when it was clear that a Q3 delivery wasn't going to happen. Then they conveniently backpedalled and announced their staged rollout (of prototype models!) which ended up being placed in Q4 instead. Never mind that rolling out unfinished prototypes to customers that paid for a finished phone is irresponsible. It was also very misleading for new backers.

* The first batch, which now was supposedly going to ship in Q4 did never ship. However, Purism PR still claimed phones did ship, even going with a "Librem 5 in the wild" post, which was obviously staged by a few Purism employees. Only after the shipping window ended and it became clear that no one had received a phone, they finally admitted it. Admitting something after you've been caught red-handed isn't transparency, that is the opposite of transparency.

* An open question is the size of those batches. As far as we can tell from polls, the first three batches are extremely small. This more and more looks like a strategy of Purism to buy some time and avoid scaring off backers (after all they've been "shipping" for a while) and to pass on more of the development costs to backers that paid for a finished device.

[chocolate]

...
* The first batch, which now was supposedly going to ship in Q4 did never ship. However, Purism PR still claimed phones did ship, even going with a "Librem 5 in the wild" post, which was obviously staged by a few Purism employees. Only after the shipping window ended and it became clear that no one had received a phone, they finally admitted it. Admitting something after you've been caught red-handed isn't transparency, that is the opposite of transparency.

* An open question is the size of those batches. As far as we can tell from polls, the first three batches are extremely small. This more and more looks like a strategy of Purism to buy some time and avoid scaring off backers (after all they've been "shipping" for a while) and to pass on more of the development costs to backers that paid for a finished device.

Thanks for taking the time to compile all this. It appears to me that if they updated backers in a more timely manner, some of them, and potential customers in the community at large, wouldn't be so upset. Judging by their wording, I still don't think that they meant to be deceiving on purpose, perhaps they just need to shorten the time between when an issue has effectively materialized and when the news is put out. But what about foreseeable issues that haven't yet materialized? Would it make sense to warn backers (or scare potential customers) about something that might not happen? I'm not sure. Delays in production could very well be of this nature.

The last two points you made are more worrying, yes. Knowing the size of the first batch that gets into actual consumers' hands would give me an idea of how many sources of information I should expect to appear. Right now there's only TLG on YouTube.
Here's hoping everything goes well in the future!

[blackiwid]

Yeah that is a hit peace, while I understand doubts and critics this article goes way to far!

As example you just straw man them, you imply that they said that they would deliver in the release window from day 1 in that window. But they only said that is the Window and if they send out 100% of the devices and the last day on the 25. or 26. they kept their promise a Window doesn't mean that you have to send out a % every day it's a Window you heavily imply that they said they would have stated that they would have send out devices till now. They didn't the window ends at the 26. if they send till today 0 devices that doesn't violate that window.

That shows that your critic is not fair, but a slander attempt. I don't know your reasons to be unfair to them and straw-men them, but you are like I just demonstrated do it. Maybe you could separate your opinions from "news" and put it in a Article marked as commentary?

[blackiwid]

I take it back you don't imply it you just lie from their Website:

Shipping window: October 29th – November 26th

You ignore the clear statement "window" and lie about what they say:

Birch was supposed to be shipping since the end of October through the end of November.

Sorry but a window don't functions that way that things have to be send at the beginning of the window, a window means target reached if everything is shipped at 26th or at least most of it. So you just straw man them...

[danmcgrew]

Offered without comment---



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

Dr. Roy Schestowitz; Techrights
10/31/19

http://techrights.org/2019/10/31/purism-false-promises/

“... 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...”

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By the way, Techrights (or TechRights) maintains a 'Credibility Index' wherein is ranked quite a few high-profile members of the technical community--ranging from authors to people in managerial and ownership positions. Out of a possible score of 5 ('five' being the highest possible credibility), Michael Larabel ranks as a '4'. "Forbes" is very low.