> What is this whimsical company, and how exactly does it make money?

https://puri.sm/products

What is the point of having the right to repair a phone that, 3 years after it's crowd funding campaign, now has 5 year old hardware, still can't reliably make calls and has a sub 2 hour battery life?

It can reliably make calls [0] and has a decent battery life [1] (even though it cannot sleep yet!). If you have more concerns, you can check the community FAQ [2].

Concerning the old hardware, it's the most powerful phone which can run latest Linux kernel and the only one recommended by the FSF [3]. Specs is not the whole story in smartphones [4].

[0] https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Cellul...

[1] https://puri.sm/posts/librem-5-4500mah-battery-upgrade/

[2] https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque...

[3] https://www.fsf.org/givingguide/v11

[4] https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque...

Can make calls sometimes and being reliable are I suppose a matter of experience and opinion.

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/librem-5-review-the-lin...

This is not a review of the mass production batch (Evergreen). Please stop spreading FUD. Evergreen started shipping in November. Some people received theirs recently:

https://forums.puri.sm/t/received-my-librem-5-evergreen/1087...

https://www.reddit.com/r/Purism/comments/jzj6s1/i_have_recei...

Ok, it looks like you're quite right I'm out of date. My apologies.

What's the point?

You own it. You control it. YOU have the power. That's the damn point.

You have all the power but none of the utility.

You are spreading FUD. The phone can do almost everything, including 3D-games.

Fine, so you can port tuxracer to it.

If you want to play an actual game people care about and think there are game companies building those for PureOS you're delusional.

Depending what you call "actual game", you can play some of them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_HXQJkWjUQ.

Concerning "game companies", this is a typical problem of new hardware and is quite expected (in the beginning). The difference however is that you do not have to rewrite anything, just recompile for Debian ARM and make it fit the screen. Potentially thousands of games should run well after quick adjustments.

Is their hardware really open source? Are they making money? Is a $799 phone with hardware that dates 5 years back considered a "viable consumer product", or is this a niche device that just shows how open source fails to produce viable consumer products?

See my reply above and check the FAQ: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque....

> Is their hardware really open source?

The phone is going to get Respects Your Freedom certification by the FSF.

Can I download a zip file which contains all of the phone’s engineering information, which I can then submit to Foxconn and manufacture millions?

So the answer is a resounding “no”:

>> Purism published the KiCAD schematics files for the DevKit, which was entirely designed with free software tools. However, Purism has not released the CAD files or the Gerber files for the Librem 5, in order to prevent the creation of clones. CEO Todd Weaver says that Purism needs to recover its development costs before releasing the Gerber files, which they are “thinking about releasing in a time capsule” of “3 years, 5 years, something like that.”

Not to mention the plastic CAD files, tooling, etc.

Your "resounding no" is the very definition of FUD. In fact, it is more "yes" than "no". Name me any other company which publishes x-rays, schematics and promises to publish KiCAD files for their hardware.

Not sure where the FUD is (that's the third time in this thread that you've thrown the "FUD" accusation, just saying). Purism does not publish manufacturing files, with a specific claim that they want to prevent their product from being copied. They say so themselves, in the link you provided.

There's very little you can do with electrical schematics alone. It's probably just enough for someone to claim a product is "open sourced" while keeping it proprietary for all intents and purposes.

> (that's the third time in this thread that you've thrown the "FUD" accusation, just saying)

Yes, you are right. The reason is the wrong claims written in a convincing tone and (intentionally?) ignoring facts.

For example, here you ignore that this company is providing much more than any other company typically provides (schematics). Purism also promise manufacturing files and have a history of fulfilling their promises (even though sometimes with delays). I have no idea how you can say "resounding no" if you take into account the alternatives.

> What is this whimsical company, and how exactly does it make money?

I mean, Olimex isn't exactly poor. https://www.olimex.com/

Olimex makes low end development tools, not consumer products; and it’s not a large company by any means.