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You Can Help Purism Build the Secure Open Source Linux-based Librem 5 Smartphone (betanews.com)
BrianFagioli writes: Thankfully, consumers are starting to wake up and become more aware of security and privacy, and some companies, such as Purism, are designing products to safeguard users. The company's laptops, for instance, run an open source Linux-based operating system, called "PureOS" with a focus on privacy. These machines even have hardware "kill switches" so you can physically disconnect a webcam or Wi-Fi card. Today, Purism announces that it is taking those same design philosophies and using them to build a new $599 smartphone called Librem 5. The planned phone will use the GNOME desktop environment and PureOS by default, but users can install different distros too. Sound good? Well you can help the company build it through crowdfunding. "Purism, the social purpose corporation which designs and produces popular privacy conscious hardware and software, has revealed its plans to build the world's first encrypted, open platform smartphone that will empower users to protect their digital identity in an increasingly unsafe mobile world. After 18 months of R&D to test hardware specifications and engage with one of the largest phone fabricators, Purism is opening a self-hosted crowdfunding campaign to gauge demand for the initial fabrication order and add the features most important to users," says Purism.
I won't crowdfund it unless it has a removable battery. And it needs to work on Verizon. A plug-in keyboard would be nice, too.
Anyone? Bueller?
[crickets]
I would have bought an OpenMoko phone too, if they'd you know, supported America. Another Euro-networks-only Linux phone isn't gonna help us at all over here though.
The only winning move is not to play.
#DeleteFacebook
Use a dumb phone to make calls/texts. On a seperate line, use a nexus/pixel as to create LTE/UTMS hotspot for your libre-laptop. That's the best you'll ever get to.
On the surface, this offering sounds compelling. But GNOME is a total deal breaker for me. I refuse to use any Linux distro that uses GNOME by default.
The presence of GNOME is like a smoke test. If a Linux distro's maintainers voluntarily choose to use GNOME, then I can't trust the other decisions they'll have to make when creating a Linux distro, and so I refuse to use such a distro.
There is no reason to use GNOME. No reason at all. There are many far better alternatives out there.
I like this idea enough I may well go ahead and support it. I have been saying for a long time that Gnome 3 would be great on a tablet\phone. The interface is just about perfect for it. Past that, Google has spent the last few years falling out of my good graces. An iPhone is not an option. That said, this would probably be such a niche device as to fail. But I'm still going to back the project.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
They kinda just released a privacy-centered laptop and it appears to be somewhat decent, despite the price-tag, from early external statements. But then again, the mild price-hike is nothing compared to your privacy's worth - you know, if you don't want to be selling it to whatever other choice around which pretty much tracks you to hardware-level shenanigans. These guys go down to circuitry choice of components for making their gear secure on that level apparently.
Now a phone is a very different piece of kit to develop than a laptop, which is mostly standardized and you can mostly tune off-the-shelf stuff to your needs (in this case, privacy without a huge usability compromise). Especially the OS. On a phone, not only you would need to go through some hardcore loops for hardware customization, but I can't start to grasp the task of making an OS and ecosystem that suits the mobile phone I (and probably most of you) need today - with navigation, versatile connectivity and, you know, supporting convenience apps for this and that that have pretty much merged themselves to our lives out of sheer convenience. And do that on a 600 price tag is a very nice dream unless it comes true. Running Linux is no guarantee of it having the community or even 3rd-party support it deserves.
LOL.
Oh, the humanity. (and I don't mean the desktop theme)
It is going to be a total disaster out of the box.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
Sticking it in a metal box, like an old 3x5 index card holder, takes care of everything.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Seems everyone keeps making Ubuntu/Android/Revolution Remix/ChromiumOS/FirefoxOS phones these days, and we've seen a dozen independent GNU/FLOSS/TOOTHPASTE phones in the past 3 or 4 years. Folks will fall for it again I guess?
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Except that in the US, Verizon has the widest coverage. Most of the current phones are 4G or 3G, but the question of CDMA comes in when one is in a place that does not have 3G/4G coverage, and the phone has to fall back to 2G. That's when to access the Verizon 2G network, a phone has to be CDMA compatible. For which, they need to have Qualcomm parts.
Given the philosophy of Librem/Purism, where all the source code presumably has to be open, it's a non-starter for Qualcomm. Even if this phone uses Qualcomm chipsets, there's no way Qualcomm will agree to letting its IP be out there for everyone to copy. Otherwise, people in countries like China will copy them left & right, & Qualcomm will have no recourse.
Who owns Pur.ism? Open your financials and crowd fund stock along with undeveloped products if really such a swell benevolent organization vs here is my money give me something of value maybe. Old thread below, maybe they have improved since a couple years ago. https://m.slashdot.org/story/2...
Oh, RMS would call any ROM in the phone a 'circuit', and give it a special waiver. Even while he trolls the likes of TiVo for putting their firmware in a locked flash memory device
I would rather see a port of OpenBSD on phones if was supposed to be geared towards security. I don't believe we will ever be entirely secure using Linux as our kernel for smart phones.
...at it's finest. Privacy is a complex political issue. There isn't an app or techy hardware for that.
The other thing is that, even if there was a tech solution, what Purism are essentially proposing is to take on the Samsung-Apple duopoly and take market share away from them. If the succeed to any degree, it'll only take one frivolous law suit from either of these behemoths to bankrupt Purism. Good luck with that.
Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
It's nice in theory. Very nice. But the obstacles to actually making it real are very, very high. So high, that I'm very skeptical that it can be done until there is a sea change in the phone manufacturing industry.
I wish them well and a lot of success! I don't like the hardware they've settled on and so won't buy it whether or not the OS works properly, but if they're successful then perhaps the OS could be put on a phone that I actually would buy.
Suggestions:
* Product differentiation is important. Instead of on-board flash, even though it'll make the product a little bit thicker, use an off-the-shelf M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD, like the Samsung 960 EVO M.2 250GB NVMe PCI-Express 3.0 x4 Internal SSD. They cost $119.99 now, which would be justifiable for a $599 smart-phone with 3GB RAM.
* Make above M.2 SSD slot-installable.
* Removable battery - maybe slot-load.
* Dual or triple SIMs, even if only one is active.
* Include one or more tiny cheap GeekPorts on the back, bottom, and top.
The connector can simply be an in-line pin-socket.
Possible Pin-Out:
1 - Gnd
2 - -Unused-
3 - +3.3V
4 - USB Data+
5 - USB Data-
6- Bi-Directional 5V Tolerant Digital
7 - Bi-Directional Analog
8 - Charge-In
Not all of the thin phones are fragile. Mine has been dropped in a toilet, run through a washing machine, dropped on hard surfaces a number of times, and run over with a car once.
It's still going strong. Not even a cracked screen. And I don't even put it in a case.
I see the dev kit is available and only $299. That's a good price for something new to play with. The question is, what kind of form factor appropriate applications to develop on a full fledged computer OS? Yes, this will be fun.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
They a joking ?! Who is their consumer
- Most pro users don't use gnome. Gnome lost their souls long time ago
- Other users have Android or iPhone
Max 12000 gnome hipsters maybe can purchase this phone.
I won't crowdfund it unless it has a removable battery. And it needs to work on Verizon. A plug-in keyboard would be nice, too.
Yes, one million times this - please make the hardware repairable, with components easily replaceable, especially the battery!!!
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
The last phone I broke was the old Candy Bar phone I got in 1997. I never had problems with the thin phones, As they normally fit well in your pocket, compared to the bulky phones of old which were hanging off your belt, ready to get side swiped, or crushed against a wall.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
None of the Purism hardware has been.
It's all a bunch of cheap gimmicks that don't live up to the hype.
I mean for fuck's sake, they used an Intel chip with ME in their Purism laptop.
AND it took them what, two or three years to get Coreboot on it to replace the AMI Bios it came with stock because, as it turned out after pitching otherwise, it couldn't run libreboot on it because Intel ME, as had been known for a few years by that time, wasn't libre, and any device requiring it would never be supported by Libreboot, short of Intel providing a signing key for 3rd parties to develop their own Intel ME firmware images.
The fact that slashdot still posts these slashvertisements for Purism products is personally offensive to me, especially without documenting these facts in the editorial.
A home-made faraday bag would be more portable.
The CPU is separated from the Cellular Baseband. That alone makes it a great idea. A user controlled device. Nothing else fits that description, nothing in the world.
If you want a *NIX 'phone, get an iPhone...
Either you're sarcastic, or you're trolling hard. iPhones are the exact opposite of open SW or HW.
At least with most Android phones, you can unlock them, sideload apps, or even install a different OS.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
I applaud the idea around this phone. Spying on bad guys is fine... spying on normal people is evil.
You didn't list CDMA2000. In many rural parts of the United States, only Verizon's CDMA2000 signal is usable, if unixisc's comment is to be believed.
How is setting up concentration camps worse than letting in rapists loose on the local population?
How is something that really happened and killed millions worse than something that didn't happen?
Hello Mr Trump.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
You are seriously confused. The only phone that uses a Debian based distro uses upstart, not systemd.
The phone that uses systemd is RPM based, not deb/apt based.
(Personally, I'd take systemd over upstart any day).
Watch this Heartland Institute video
There is only one Linux distro that allows you free choice of the init system -- Debian works with systemd, upstart, openrc, or sysvinit.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
I will buy any phone that is small and thick and robust ( like they all used to be ) rather than big and thin and fragile ( like they all are now ).
Make it so !
Wanna buy a N900? I ave a couple of spares.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
(b) If the phone firmware is not also "free / open / whatever RMS is calling it these days..."
That's the whole idea for going after a Freescale i.MX 6 :
according to them, the plain vanilla upstream linux kernel and upstream gallium3d's etna_viv can support this chip, no firmware blobs required.
(they keep the eventuallity to switch to i.MX 8 if it ends up getting similar support).
And regarding the other components (cell network, wifi, and camera) :
the whole point of this phone is to have the functionality handled by separate chips that talk over a standard channels (camera as a USB UVC, Wifi as a network device, etc.) with *a physical switch to shut them off*.
So yeah, the cell modem will probably runs some manufacturer/carrier provided binary (as required by licensing).
But that modem will basically be seen as serial or USB-Network device and can be unplugged from its bus simply at a swtich flip.
Unlike most other chipsets (e.g.: Qualcomm) where the modem basically serves as the chip's northbridge.
in short :
all the things that the user and OS will ever interact with, will be running pure opensource software.
all the rest will be isolate and only come over a standard interface.
government agencies can upload whatever over-the-air "upgrades" they want, they won't have access to anything relevant.
In theory this looks like a nice idea.
In practice that is going to require fucktons of work to design their own PCB that works.
(Look at how long it took to OpenMoko back then to do GTA01/GTA02 - what was basically the same "open-source friendly" design,
again look how long it took for Golden Delicious to make their custom GTA04/Pyra - which doesn't even have an open-source friendly GPU).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Actually back then, OpenMoko's GTA01/GTA02 design was exactly the same (trying to make it opensource friendly).
The Golden Delicious' GTA04 upgrade board (same design then reused in other devices like Pyra) at least took the same "separate cell modem" design
(though used the "binary-only" PowerVR GPU of the OMAP chipsets).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Oh, those rapes in Europe not only happened, but they continue to happen on a regular basis!
Oh, yes, rapes happen in Europe.
What the fuck that has to do with Angela Merkel I can't imagine you pathetic little nazi apologist.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Not to the scale it has since Europe became a free for all, you little Muzzie cock sucker! Where public signs have to be posted telling people not to grope or rape women, or where flyers are distributed on the 'right way' to have sex.
ME has been defeated for some time now.