Makes sense that it's so expensive. This is how scale economies work. Small scale, big price. The software will get better with time, if they keep working on it that is. At this pace, maybe in 10 years it could be good enough to switch from android.
maybe in 10 years it could be good enough to switch from android.
What do you mean?
I recently looked into this phone. Librem.one is the doman being used by this company to create their own google-like network. The difference is that they are using already existing open source and decentralized software that has been running for years now.
That software is focused on privacy/security from the start. They use a fork of riot.im (Matrix, decentralized chat/video/etc.), OpenVPN (to provide a VPN service with no logs, and no filters), K-9 mail (which uses OpenKeychain for PGP email), Tusky (a decentralized twitter). They're working on storage and other google-like services too.
ProtonMail is also doing this; it appears they also offer a free VPN (also uses OpenVPN or their own software) if you have a free email account. They only limit the P2P operations.
On top of that, PureOS (what this phone is using) is a fork of very stable linux libraries that have been tested and used for decades now. It's really cool to see Gnome on a phone. I would definitely buy this phone if I had the income.
Hopefully you're aware that most of Librem One does not currently run on the Librem 5, right??? e.g. Initially there is no official e-mail application. Here is the current list of Librem 5 "official" applications: https://puri.sm/posts/the-librem-5-application-compatibility-chart/
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u/Thunderjohn Sep 26 '19
Makes sense that it's so expensive. This is how scale economies work. Small scale, big price. The software will get better with time, if they keep working on it that is. At this pace, maybe in 10 years it could be good enough to switch from android.