Other than US govmt, and other highly regulated US institution, I wonder about the size and social characteristics of the group that both can/doesn't mind paying 2000USD for a understating (and in many ways underpowered) and rejects the non-USA model.
Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the US
111–120 of 148 posts
Re: Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the US
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
Another way to look at it is "this is what it costs to ALSO make something in the US" you aren't just paying to the difference in labor, you are paying for the difference in requirement, documentation, redundancy, small market segment, etc. It's like bolts for aircraft. I can buy the bolt for a couple cents at my local Ace. But to buy the certified one costs 10x+ because of the work involved in getting it certified.
I find binning fascinating when this topic comes up. You start with a pile of 1 cent parts with a 10% tolerance, go through it and measure each and every one, and you magically end up with bins of 1% tolerance parts that now cost a dollar. The parts didn't change at all! And yet merely the fact that they are sorted gives them so much more value.
Indeed, and when you buy the 10% tolerance part you will get one thats close to 10% out because the ones that were better have all been picked out.
Re: Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the US
#113I purchased the LibreM phone when it was being crowdfunded. I waited years for the thing to be released, and what they came out with at the end was beyond disappointing. It's nearly three times heavier and 2.5x thicker than a normal phone- by today's standards, the thing is a brick. If I had been told that I was going to get a developer device, that would have been one thing, but I (and many others) were sold the Lib…
Not sure why you are disappointed exactly. Because of the size? It's the only phone with usable kill switches, running fully free software, recommended by the FSF, with good working convergence mode and so on.
Re: Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the US
#114I applaud this accomplishment. I think there will be a push to manufacture more semiconductor-intensive products in the US over the next several years as tensions with China continue to heat up and Taiwan is left as a single point of failure. I know progress is already being made with TSMC building new fabs in the US. I will note that Purism do not say what their production capacity is, and that it would probably be…
There is also debate on if the US should invest in that. Political tensions with China are one factor. However remember there are limited resources so investing in this means something else can't be invested in. Really this should be a world wide concern: if China is so bad how can we build up someone more friendly - it need not be the US. Could be Germany, could be Kenya (I understand China is investing there)
If given a choice, as a person that lives 99% of the time in the US, would you rather have a US device that is backdoored by the NSA/CIA or a Chinese device that is backdoored by the Chinese government?
I personally think the latter is preferable. Not sure why anyone buys US made equipment post Snowden/Assange.
Re: Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the US
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
To your point on production capacity: This reminds me of pushback in the early days of Tesla. Sure they can build 1,000, but can they build 10,000. Now we’re at “sure they can build 500,000, but can they build 5M.” I think the answers “yes”, if the demand is there. And I agree with you that industrial policy could help jumpstart that demand.
> This reminds me of pushback in the early days of Tesla. Sure they can build 1,000, but can they build 10,000. Now we’re at “sure they can build 500,000, but can they build 5M.” The fact that they succeeded doesn't mean there wasn't a significant chance of failure at each order of magnitude.
Good point
Re: Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the US
#116For reference, the Librem 5 USA cost $2000 and comes with 32GB of eMMc on device storage, a SoC that can be generously called "slow", and 3GB of RAM. It's easy to see why phones are not entirely sourced from the US when it makes the iPhone look like impossibly good value for your money.
Correct me if I am wrong but the choice of SoC was due to the open nature of it and not the origin. All of the other limitations stem from the choice of SoC it seems.
Is it actually more open than a typical SoC? Also asking for the PinePhone. Also, will it ever get firmware updates? Also, I’m not even sure we have source code for the existing firmwares.
Re: Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the US
#117Is their claim about electronic components 'origin declaration'[1] credible or is it just marketing sleight-of-hand? Aren't they just buying the same components made in Taiwan/China/wherever from a U.S. distributor such as Digikey and then saying 'Made in U.S.A.' in the same way other manufacturers do? (which would seem to seriously undermine their 'secure' supply chain claim) I've been under the impression that we d…
From your referenced page > The Librem 5 USA will have a user-replaceable assembled in USA modem. The Gemalto modem chip itself is supplied from Germany, and we will be manufacturing our premium Gemalto M.2 modems in our USA facility.
I think he's referencing how some of the chips on the boards are unlikely to be US sourced given Librems low volumes, but seem to be consolidated as USA because they were soldered on a PCB in the US.
For example, from Librem's spec sheet at the bottom of that page lists 2 components from STMicroelectronics:
Accelerometer (LSM9DS1) Country of Origin is listed as Malta https://www.st.com/en/mems-and-sensors/lsm9ds1.html#sample-b...
GPS (TESEO LIV3) Country of Origin is listed as South Korea https://www.st.com/en/positioning/teseo-liv3f.html#sample-bu...
Re: Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the US
#118My only gripe with bringing desktop Linux to phones is that desktop Linux is a security nightmare. Someone with more experience please chime in, but the whole thing is C, no usable sandbox (a bug in firejail will make the untrusted code run root..) and the old xkcd comic is still true: the only thing a malicious actor can’t do is install a video driver. That is, your user account with all the important data is basically left completely open. Compared to the iphone, and android (especially graphene os) it is laughable.
And while basically noone uses pinephone/librem 5, there are plenty of people running desktop linux (myself included), but I don’t sleep well knowing how unsecure the whole thing is, and seemingly it is not a priority to anyone. Is my paranoia based on facts?
Re: Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the US
#119What if pricing was listed in two parts: first, the price at current market rates, relative to its alternatives; second, a share of early adopter stock. The price paid less market rates for a comparable phone treated as an investment, perhaps as much as several hundred dollars per device. The stock pool being a percentage of the company commensurate with network-effects of its adoption. Sometimes crowd-sourced purchases like this are more easily justified, and even rewarded later, if accounted for as investments.
Re: Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the US
#120Google/Motorola tried this before, but it didn't work out: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27643474 I don't know what went wrong there, or what lessons could have been learned.
Actually, that's interesting in that 1. they imply that it wasn't a "made in USA" issue and that the problem was just that they were only making the Moto X there and it didn't do well in the market, and 2. "Motorola says that the Moto X smartphone will still continue to be manufactured at plants in China and Brazil." -> if they're still making stuff in Brazil, that implies that it's really not as simple as "can't mak…
Tariffs on some electronics can be insane in Brazil - for example "At a time when the [Playstation 4] was selling for $399 in the U.S., an equivalent system was heading to Brazil for $1,899".
source: https://tedium.co/2015/07/16/sega-master-system-brazil/