[danShumway]

It's Linux -- if it's missing something, I can just build it. And I don't have to write my code in something horrible like Java, or boot up an emulator to test things, or submit my code to an app store, or figure out how to root it so I can remove all the bundled spyware. If I write a command line utility, I don't need to have a separate codebase between my computer and my phone. It's what I have always wanted my smartphone to be -- just a computer that I completely control, with access to a phone network.

It might be terrible. I'm kind of on the fence about it. The hardware needs to be reliable, the drivers need to be reliable, it needs to be compatible with common carriers. There a few other things. But the software on this device just needs to be passable. I don't need it to be particularly good.

When thinking about the Librem phone, mentally move it out of the iPhone category and into the Raspberry Pi category. Even if it comes out and gets terrible reviews and the software is all half-baked, even if it can't replace my normal phone for most things, I still might be tempted to buy one even just as a secondary device.

[dangus]

Besides the hardware kill switches and replaceable battery, I think this experience is going to compare poorly to LineageOS, which has a lot of the same software freedom and privacy advantages with a much more refined and complete operating system.

This phone is months from shipping and we haven’t even been shown multi touch have we? Is that even a feature being promised?

Ultimately the difference between this and the Raspberry Pin is tangible - $614 to be exact. I know that Purism isn’t out to sell a mainstream phone, but my doubts are seriously strong that they’ll sell enough of these to justify the effort.

I can build anything that’s missing in Linux as long as someone invents the fountain of youth so that I can spent a few thousand engineering years on implementation.

[Mediterraneo10]

I look forward to leaving LineageOS behind. First of all, Lineage builds for particular phones are abandoned frequently, because they are made by a single maintainer as a hobby and he can get bored and leave. The fact that the Android development environment is so arcane, and the hardware usually closed in various ways, makes it hard for anyone else to pick the project up.

Secondly, there are a lot of things that one can do in an ordinary desktop-Linux environment that are much more complicated in the Android world. On my old Nokia N900, I frequently wrote Python scripts that interacted with the system D-bus to automate things, and I did not have to install a big development environment or download someone else’s solution.

[danShumway]

I use LineageOS right now. It's great, and I'm glad it exists, but it still requires me to write the majority of my apps in Java and to test them in an emulator, and it still requires me to use the Android OS for everything.

I know I can theoretically compile my own ROM or something to customize the desktop environment, but... bleh. It's time-consuming for me to build things on Linux, but it is more time consuming for me to build things on Android. Android development is just a pain all around.

This on the other hand, isn't just a >$600 phone. It's a >$600 grimoire[0]. Expensive, and cumbersome, but nearly all magic is. There's an almost subconscious brand (for lack of a better word) that devices of this nature fit into. They're trading user-experience for dev-experience, which is not something LineageOS or Android is optimized for.

As to the rest of your criticism, all of your other points seem completely fair. I'm not sure what I would put the odds at of the device succeeding (note, succeeding means finding a stable niche, not beating any other device). And while I can forgive a lot of flaws in software, for the price they're asking the hardware/drivers need to work well.

I'm very much in the "wait and see" camp. But I do see a lot of potential.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19253038

[EvangelicalPig]

There is Anbox[0] for running Android applications under Linux, and I've heard some people claim it's "less clunky" then an AVD. I haven't yet tried it myself but will soon.

I don't disagree that there are some suboptimal things about Android but to bootstrap a new mobile OS platform from almost nothing, and being on-par not even matching Android especially with regards to security (sandboxing, a proper permission model) seems like it would require a dedicated team several years of development time, which Purism doesn't have.

[0]: https://anbox.io/

[dangus]

I do agree and fully realize that being successful means finding a stable niche. I don’t expect something like this to take down Apple or anything crazy like that.

I just don’t see that happening because I think the demos sort of show this for themselves. It may be fun to develop for but it doesn’t look enjoyable or practical to use. Wait and see we shall!

[RandomBacon]

> I think the demos sort of show this for themselves.

I agree; I think it will be successful.

> it doesn’t look enjoyable or practical to use

You can say that about any phone (an iPhone, flagship Samsung, etc) that is not in a case. I bet it will be enjoyable and practical once they put it in a case.

[dangus]

Huh?

[RandomBacon]

You think the video shows it will fail. I think the video shows it will succeed.

You say it doesn't look enjoyable or practical to use, I'm saying 'Duh, it's a prototype not in a case, sitting flat on a table.'