[1023bytes]

This is quite dishonest, they make it seem like they develop the apps themselves. But they don't and they give no credit to the actual original apps.

Librem Chat = Riot.im

Librem Social = Mastodon (specifically the Tusky app)

Librem Mail = K9 Mail

Librem Tunnel = OpenVPN

[frenchman99]

I actually think it's great if there is commercial use of open source. That means they can reinvest development time into the projects, because their customers will depend on those projects.

The alternative seems to be walled gardens.

Other companies do similar things, such as Fastmail which develops the open source IMAP server Cyrus [1]. I've been a happy Fastmail customer for years. Cyrus is still free for anyone to use even though Fastmail makes money from it.

[1] https://www.cyrusimap.org/

[krferriter]

I do hope they make some sort of official commitment to using parts of these funds to fund maintenance and development of the open source projects they are depending on, especially the smaller ones that need funding. They should earmark an official percentage, which could be subject to change in the future, but at least make it known.

Like 5% to Riot, 5% to Mastodon, 5% to K9.

Could also give to the GNOME Foundation, Linux Foundation, and OpenVPN, but I think those are pretty sustainable already.

I'd easily pay $10 a month for this if they make it clear they're going to give back to the open source projects included.

[mxuribe]

Fully agree that it is great to see commercial offerings which help to further decentralize the internet - and by using open source software - as well as ensuring that their is a business model which will keep them available for customers. (Note, that i stated customers and not merely users.) From a capitalist perspective: the more choice, the better it is for consumers - and in this case it generates the side benefit of decentralization. The only thing i nitpick on here is that they really should disclose the underlying open source software that their platforms are based upon. I mean, it really shouln't take much more than a few entries into their FAQs.

[mindslight]

This is the standard playbook of every Surveillance as as Service business though - package up a bunch of preexisting Free software, design a proprietary closed-world frontend, and market the hell out of it.

So while you have a point, I think "quite dishonest" is a bit too much condemnation. The stack is so big, with the majority of energy already being siphoned off by SaaS bundlers, it's basically impossible to rebuild the entire stack anti-surveillance-like as one big release. Rather we're going to end up with many approaches, each trying to solve a bit of the problem. The bit of the problem being solved here is really the popularization angle - making an easy touchstone recommendation for someone who is interested in privacy but would/could/should never self-host.

I quickly picked up that the Chat was Matrix, and assumed the tunnel was openvpn or wireguard (designing a new protocol would be a priori cryptographic incompetence). So perhaps constructive feedback to better summarize the underlying software for people "in the know" is worthwhile. But writing off the actual value-add of the project, the productization itself, mainly just results in hindering the ability of the Free community to market.

[Arathorn]

Speaking as the project lead for Matrix - we are hoping that we will see some kind of financial support from Purism to fund the prioritised bugfixes/features/support they need around Synapse and Riot to ensure Librem.one's (and the Librem 5's) success.

[inputmice]

$8/month is rather steep for some email and IM hosting. So there should be revenue left to share with you and the other upstream projects.

Personal side note: I’m not a fan of branding open source apps. It delays security updates and waters down the original brands; Riot and K9 have good reputations; Why not utilize those?

[phicoh]

I can imagine two reasons for branding.

The first is that librem may need to make changes that cannot be accepted by upstream. It can be features they need to have now to keep users happy. But another example could be that they want their Riot to default to their homeserver and not to matrix.org. You don't want to wait until you get a trademark conflict with the main project.

The second reason could be that Librem has to market their brand. If they keep Riot for example, people type it in google and end up on the official riot site, then it may be hard for Librem to attract new users.

[HolidayHuckle]

> But another example could be that they want their Riot to default to their homeserver and not to matrix.org.

This isn't valid. They could absolutely ship Riot with its existing branding, with a config set to use their (or any other) homeserver. The matrix.org homeserver just happens to be the default (at the moment).

[phicoh]

Imagine somebody using a Librem Riot version that has been modified to default to the Librem homeserver. Now that user needs to use Riot on a new device and ends up with the standard Riot. The user doesn't see any difference but just finds that it fails.

If the user calls Librem support then they have figure out what is going on. Which costs money and they still have a frustrated user.

Branding is often not about what is technically or legally possible, but about creating the right perception with users.

[dmix]

The VPN isn't a hosted service? Just the client software? A few others mention they are connected to subscription systems, such as the back-up service. So it seems to be more than just repackaged software, but software + service + support (the big barrier for most OS adoption - requiring the customer to set up and configure 6 different services).

Either way, anything that gets people using more encrypted open-source software is totally okay with me.

As long as they are transparent about their stack and the authors of the software are cool with it - why not have it bundled with clean packaging and a slick donation model?

[deniel]

I advise a good program VeePN, it works not bad

[mimixco]

A VPN can't be a hosted service because it needs to sit on the machine you're trying to protect.

[dmix]

I believe you are mixing up "hosting" an OpenVPN server and having a client on your machine to connect to it (ie, their branded OpenVPN-powered client).

From the page it's clear they are also providing hosted file and email servers via subscription in addition to the branded-clients. Which is why I asked specifically about VPN hosting.

[Jenz]

> Librem Chat – end-to-end encrypted chat, VOIP, and video calling used by millions of people

> Librem Mail – end-to-end encrypted email used by nearly everybody already

> Librem Tunnel – end-to-end encrypted VPN tunnel proven by millions of users

> Librem Social – public social media with millions of people already active

I was wondering what they meant, _how could the apps of something that haven't yet launched be used by "millions of active users"_.

[ocdtrekkie]

I'm not upset they rebranded them, but this comment is what I was looking for. I figured they didn't scratch built all of it, and wanted to know what services they were really selling.

[jclay]

I agree and this strikes me as odd as well. I really want to like this product and it’s squarely in the area of a service I would pay monthly for.

But, the Social app looks exactly like a twitter screen shot, and the VPN looks identical to PIA’s iOS app.

The chat UI isn’t great, and the Mail app is even worse. They all look like apps you would find on F-Droid which are great, but I wouldn’t feel excited about paying monthly for an app suite that lacking in polish.

Their claims of millions of active users on each of the services also seem questionable. Maybe if they’re counting the total number of XMPP users I could see that.

Lastly, the framing of donating to what is by definition a for-profit company is off putting for me personally.

[seba_dos1]

Two things - you're not paying for apps in any way, they're FLOSS. You're paying for services - infrastructure, administration, "cloud" space etc.

Also, while Purism is indeed a for-profit company, it's actually an interesting case since it's a Social Purpose Corporation - it's not there to maximize profits, but to maximize its social purpose. It legally can't do anything that would be at odds with its legally defined social purpose: https://puri.sm/about/social-purpose/

[jclay]

I see your point, but as they’ve also created the apps under their brand it seems likely the monthly fee would also go towards (hopefully!) the continued improvement of those apps.

[seba_dos1]

Judging from my past interactions with people from Purism I'm pretty sure their goal is to have all their improvements going upstream, with forks focusing mostly on branding and cross-integration within the bundle and their hardware.

[jelv]

Millions of active users is for Librem Social only, that is the fediverse. See more stats on https://fediverse.network/reports/2018

With Librem One you get a Mastodon account on there own Mastodon instance. That instance can speek with all other instances on the fediverse with ActivityPub protocol. So yes, with Librem Social you can easy connect with more then 2 million people.

[Boulth]

Yes. It struck me as odd too seeing familiar apps rebranded. Does Librem publish source code of their modifications?

[seba_dos1]

It's legally bound to release all its software as FLOSS: https://puri.sm/about/social-purpose/

[Boulth]

Good to know. So what's the repo URL?

[seba_dos1]

Haven't dug particularly for those apps yet, but generally their source repository is at https://source.puri.sm/

[mimixco]

It's not dishonest to repurpose open source software for a hosted commercial product. It's kind of the whole point!

[kvark]

Except for email, which they appear to be hosting, so it's more than just "K9 Mail" client app.

[arendtio]

I wonder if they just took those apps and rebranded them or if they contacted those projects and asked for their permission (even if legally not required).

I mean, I like what Librem does in general and I also think that marketing those apps as a uniform service (without distracting attributions) is definitely a pro for consumers, but if I would be one of the contributors to those projects I might be a bit pissed off if they didn't ask for permission.

[mimixco]

The entire point of open source is that you don't need to ask for permission.

[jaydouken]

This is something that I've noticed too. I really want to like this but they are claiming to charge people for apps that they don't own and are already free. If they said that they simply take care of all complicated hosting or simplified the process I'd be more optimistic about this.

[seba_dos1]

They are charging for hosting, administration and development, not for the apps that are just branded and provided for the convienience. You can use any app you want, or use Librem-branded apps with other servers for free (both as-beer and as-freedom).

[Mediterraneo10]

> I really want to like this but they are claiming to charge people for apps that they don't own and are already free.

Selling people collections of software (which you didn’t code yourself, you simply repackaged) on floppy disk or tape was an old-school practice in the Free Software world and generally considered perfectly fair.

[mimixco]

Those were disks you installed and ran yourself. This is a hosted product that runs in a (not free) data center. It's perfectly legit to charge for the service of hosting an open source or free app.

[mimixco]

They do say exactly that, and that's what you're paying for. If you'd like to host your own versions of those open source apps, you're more than welcome to.

[mxuribe]

Agreed! I'm not opposed to companies making fair money off of open source software...BUT, they need to disclose clearly the underlying software. Hey RedHat - for all their good or ill - has made tons of money that way, so there is precedent.

[whalabi]

Agreed it's kind of dishonest. I mean technically it isn't but it sure does obscure a lot of volunteer hard work by a lot of people.

I did wonder how they got all these apps out of the gate so quickly.. they didn't.

[jammygit]

When I scrolled down I saw some of the the base Foss projects get named in a list.

Librem Mail – Standard SMTP/IMAP/POP MTA, with OpenPGP

Librem Tunnel – OpenVPN

Librem Chat – Matrix, XMPP (coming soon)

Librem Social – ActivityPub

Edit: formatting

[kbknapp]

Those are just the protocols. They should also list the client application they're forking as well. What they're doing is like forking nginx selling you a webserver, then when people ask what it's based on they reply with 'http(s)'.

Also notice, in their "alternative graphics" none of the open source clients are listed.

[mefsb]

So? They'll use the money to improve the apps and they will have to release the improvements under the GPL. It's a win-win.

[mtgx]

They should've gone with WireGuard anyway.

[arendtio]

And it should have been possible as Cloudflare showed with Warp: https://blog.cloudflare.com/1111-warp-better-vpn/