Librem 5 Crosses $400k In Funding After Plasma Mobile Announcement

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Librem 5 Crosses $400k In Funding After Plasma Mobile Announcement

Since announcing earlier this week that KDE is working on Plasma Mobile support for the Librem 5, Purism has managed to raise over $100k more towards their goal of building a free software GNU/Linux smartphone, but remain around 1.1 million dollars short of their goal...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Purism-Librem-5-400k

[rtfazeberdee]

An endorsement of plasma mobile is no commitment.

but it shows they couldn't cut it on gnome alone.... not enough interest

[leech]

You guys forget one other possibility here. The simple fact there was a news story suggesting they'd also support Plasma Mobile gave some people notice. I am in that same boat. Love the fact that they went with Gnome first (seems to me a simpler UI on a phone is better than the billion options KDE has), but didn't know about this project until I saw this story on Phoronix.

[sverris]

To win this race, they should confirm now the i.MX8 SoC, and support by UBports, and support by anbox.

[leech]

So I'm kind of confused here... are they doing their OWN crowdfunding? Doesn't seem to be through kickstarter or anything, but their own page...

[hrkristian]

So I'm kind of confused here... are they doing their OWN crowdfunding? Doesn't seem to be through kickstarter or anything, but their own page...

Someone's not familiar with the inspect tool

They're using this thing: https://woocommerce.com/
It's a WordPress plug-in.

[andyprough]

For $600, I could have a dumb phone, a dumb GPS unit, and a 100% free software/firmware/bios laptop from Minifree (something Purism has never produced at any price). Plus around $100-$200 left over to pay my phone bills.

I'm basically a cheapskate who doesn't believe that any phone is worth $600. So I applaud their talking points. But I think their market analysis is way off base.

[ZeroPointEnergy]

For $600, I could have a dumb phone, a dumb GPS unit, and a 100% free software/firmware/bios laptop from Minifree (something Purism has never produced at any price). Plus around $100-$200 left over to pay my phone bills.

I'm basically a cheapskate who doesn't believe that any phone is worth $600. So I applaud their talking points. But I think their market analysis is way off base.

Would pay money for pictures of you making a phone call with this while walking.

[rtfazeberdee]

No. It just shows a divided community. Where a true Free phone will not get support from NIHers. Thus we have to deal with scammers like Jolla.

yes.... they needed more money and there was not enough support for gnome so floated the idea of Plasma to pull in more punters and i bet if they run short they'll add another desktop to the list

[Serafean]

yes.... they needed more money and there was not enough support for gnome so floated the idea of Plasma to pull in more punters and i bet if they run short they'll add another desktop to the list

enlightenment? I don't see xfce/lxde anywhere near mobiles.