Textpattern CMS support forum
You are not logged in. Register | Login | Help
- Topics: Active | Unanswered
Purism
If you are not familiar with Purism, they are a company that’s seriously trying to disrupt the laptop and smartphone market (a bit). The whole angle is to provide open hardware as well as software option, so you are not locked into vendor constraints and can better control your own security. Some of you will know what I mean better than I do. ;)
I’m looking to buy one of their laptops first when my MBP bites it, which are already getting a lot of raves. I’d be happy to have a phone too.
Anyway, there’s an interesting Reddit Q/A going on right now with Purism
Offline
Re: Purism
Will be plenty powerful for my needs.
Offline
Offline
Re: Purism
I’ve been following Librem One development since @Purism announced it in the fediverse a couple of weeks ago. It seems to have turned a lot of people off there for reasons I’m not entirely sure is warranted yet.
What they did was take several different FOSS app projects, package them up under a single brand, ‘Librem’, and make them available as a Purism thing. The mobile Mastodon app that I’ve been using for the last two years, Amaroq, is one of them, for example. But they tightened their forks up, made them all integrated under a single login (no more separate accounts for each one), will maintain them better than the original devs (most likely), and started charging for the full suite. A lesser suite is free. You have to be on their instance, https://librem.one, to use it.
This has caused hackles with certain people for various reasons: centralizing the offer, commercializing the fediverse, etc. Others are knitpicking their Code of Conduct too, saying it’s not ‘safe’ enough. If someone is on the librem.one and is right-winging on people, how will they deal with that? It’s not satisfactorily answered according to some POC.
I’m not in a position to judge Purism on this either way. I’m attracted by the tight set of privacy tools. I hope it inspires more efforts that direction so Purism isn’t the only one. They are not breaking the law by doing this, apparently, so there’s not much to do about it but complain if you don’t like it. I think Purism’s offer as a privacy-oriented hardware supplier far outweighs any reputation damage Librem One is supposedly doing to them. And in any case, their backing campaign on this is wildly successful, nearly reached with another 48 days to go. They’ll make it easy.
Their Librem 5 (phone) campaign was also immensely successful, they’ll be shipping the first round soon, which suggests how bad people want a damn phone that doesn’t spy on you every second. I’m sure other phone makers have taken notice. It will be my next phone. I’m done with iPhones. Apple’s burning through resources unnecessarily. Their phones should last much longer than they do for the price, and for not being able to fix them independently. I’ll probably get the phone now before the Librem 13.
Addendum: I just recalled Aral Balkan ranting not long ago while preparing a big presentation and slides about how though he loves FOSS, he’s continually frustrated by how poorly FOSS projects UIs are designed (i.e. graphic design, consistency, quality/original icons, etc). So here comes Purism taking a bunch of disparate projects with a hodgepodge of looks and feels, good or bad, and making one tight suite out of them. This is clearly working in their favour already by evidence of the campaign and marketing. They are a Bay area company, after all. Not a hobbyist hacker in the basement. Which is not favouring or undermining either, just a point to the resource and market differences.
Offline
Offline
Re: Purism
Yes, the price is right. And the suite is integrated on the Librem 5. So If you get your family on those phones (and off Apple’s expensive throwaway-ware), you’ve just made a huge jump to privacy at the family level. That’s significant. The phones are good way to market this, I think.
Offline
Re: Purism
The one caveat for me is that they are US based. Meaning our email (for example) will be stored on US servers. And in the FAQ it is clearly stated –it’s the US law anyway– that they will comply with the law.
I just don’t want my stuff be accessed by a foreign state.
And furthermore, they did not say anything re GDPR.
So, yes I think this is a very good idea. But I’m really longing to see some European company do the same for us in EU.
Offline
Re: Purism
planeth, I agree 100%. I think the company itself is sincere. I have this impression from following along with their hardware development and their motivation behind that. On that point alone, the fact they’re in the Bay area is non-issue (except for the extra tax we have to pay for shipping hardwar over).
But the software crosses into different water for sure, because it now means personal information stored somewhere, and as you say, stored in the US. That fact bothers me too. That’s why I was saying I hope more organizations do what Purism is doing, both with open phone hardware and integrated, privacy-respecting software.
The question it’s coming down to for me in this case: Is it better to not using Librem One because data is stored in the US under US scrutiny thus remain locked into iPhone tech (which still keeps your data in US)?
Ultimately I see using a Librem 5 a better choice than iPhone, for my few needs, not to mention more economical and ecological (lifetime support and they let you fix your own phone hardware, I believe). I can choose not to use all the apps in the Librem One suite. For example I doubt I would use email (remaining with Proton and Tunanota) but the VPN could be very useful. I might not use librem.one for Mastodon (I’m happy where I’m at), but if they allow control over your data (e.g. delete toots after ‘x’ period of time, etc.) then it’s not a big deal if I do.
But I hear what you’re saying and agree. I wish there were more options on this side of the water. I hope Purism’s pioneering success inspires more shops like them (and don’t sell out to the giants). That could really start hurting tech giants, and that’s much needed.
Offline
Re: Purism
Planeth,
Just curious what your thoughts are on this statement from Framasoft about their GDPR compliance.
Does that count as something to trust in your opinion?
I think it does, based on their history of FOSS development and activism, but I’m not sure if qualifies as CNIL might expect it.
Purism might not have any GDPR statement for simple lack of thinking about it (typical US perspective). Maybe a mention to them will get them thinking of it. I’ll drop them a note in M’don.
Offline
Re: Purism
Destry wrote #318041:
Planeth,
Just curious what your thoughts are on this statement from Framasoft about their GDPR compliance.
Does that count as something to trust in your opinion?
As they said, it’s stil a WIP. Anyhow, the information they provide is sufficient in my view.
If we’d want to be exhaustive, we should go to each of their services and check for the whole privacy notice, and what categories of personal data data they collect. It might be only your email address …
The most important thing are clearly stated :
- where the data is stored,
- the level of security for the data
- where to go to exercise your rights.
Destry wrote #318041:
Purism might not have any GDPR statement for simple lack of thinking about it (typical US perspective). Maybe a mention to them will get them thinking of it. I’ll drop them a note in M’don.
That would be wonderful.
Too bad that for a company which toot about their concern about privacy, they didn’t bother to try to align with the principles of GDPR…
Offline
Re: Purism
dyne might be of interest here.
Yiannis
——————————
NeMe | hblack.art | EMAP | A Sea change | Toolkit of Care
I do my best editing after I click on the submit button.
Offline
Re: Purism
planeth wrote #318046:
Too bad that for a company which toot about their concern about privacy, they didn’t bother to try to align with the principles of GDPR…
Looks like the Framasoft folks don’t have a good view of the Librem One handling either. This is the lead dev of the Mobilizon project, I believe. The responses (in French) would suggest the main gripe is that Purism didn’t give much credit or public nod to the developers of the FOSS software that they made use of in the Librem One suite.
I think I did see a Purism blog post a while back from the CEO talking about those FOSS projects they borrowed from in relation to LO, but I don’t think many people saw it at the time. And Purism certainly didn’t say one iota in social channels, which is where everyone was looking for something.
It’s true, and apparent when you look at their marketing campaign, that Purism really come out of the gate with an air like it’s their creation from scratch. But, they never actually claim that, so nothing illegal, per se.
I think it’s just all the marketing and commercial gloss of a Bay area company rubbing people the wrong way, and I totally understand that. Then again, I think it’s going to help get privacy thinking into more heads via Purism’s hardware and approach.
Offline