>>>     In fact it's just another take of Taiidan against Purism, it's his job.
>> You fail to mention that there are many people who are constantly promoting
>> purism, whereas I am the only one who provides constructive criticism.
>    You are as constructive on Purism as Trump is constructive on N Korea.

>> I have told them that their marketing is dishonest many times, hell they
>> even agreed with me that it needed to be changed only they never did so.
>    I'd like to read this exchange.

>> They didn't make heads they simply install it on their laptops.
>    Did they write they made heads?  No, they gave credit to all those involved.

>> Again my issue is that they claim to have "open source firmware" and a
>> "disabled" ME when they actually don't.
>    The firmware they use is Coreboot, so the firmware they use is as free as
> Coreboot is.

>    They claim they removed "over 90% of the Intel ME", "leaving only the very
> small section (120k) to initialize and configure the hardware."

>    In detail, these are the removed partitions and what is still in place:

>     The remains

>     A question remains, however: “What exactly did we remove, and what
>     remains?” So I tried to dig into that as well.

>> You tell me I am "attacking them" since you care so much you can email them
>> to remove the dishonest marketing and sell their products *as they are* not
>> as they could be eventually - then I would have no issue with them
>    What is dishonest in what they write on their site?

>>>> In IT terms, that Reddit thread started a long time ago.... perhaps it
>>>> is irrelevant these days?
>> It is still relevant, purism claims to have "open source firmware" when all
>> the hardware init is done via binary blobs.
>    CPU microcode too is a proprietary binary blob.  Still, there are laptops
> that are considered free hardware and meet RYF criteria.

>>>     He falsely writes that all Purism did was "running ME cleaner which they
>>> didn't make", while in fact what they did is this (quoting from the November
>>> email):
>> The HAP bit doesn't disable ME.
>    It leaves in place the hardware init.

>    Everything else is removed:

>     The me_cleaner tool deletes most modules [...] pretty much
>     everything except the hardware initialization (BUP = Bring UP)
>     module in the ME image. After the BUP module is executed, it can’t
>     find the other modules, so it stops executing (as it has nothing to
>     execute into), but at that point the 30 minutes watchdog has already
>     been disabled by the BUP itself, so we can keep running. This is
>     already a great improvement!

>     [...]

>     I then checked the output of “cbmem”—coreboot’s debug log during the
>     boot sequence—and it showed that the ME was now stuck in “bring up
>     phase”, its state was “recovery” instead of “normal”.

>    What is dishonest in what they write?

>> The ME kernel runs, thus ME is not disabled.
>    They do acknowledge there is more work to do:

>     "We plan to go even further than that in the future and reverse-
>     engineer the remaining parts just so we can attain 100% freedom."

>> As before they simply need to revise their marketing to say "Partially
>> disabled".
>    They already went beyond that: they detailed precisely what is gone and
> what is left.

>>>     He slants Purism because they allegedly have a "mysterious founder [who]
>>> somehow has a bottomless pit of money", provides with no proofs of his
>>> allegations.
>> It costs millions of dollars to make their supposidly custom hardware
>    So?  Does Talos' custom hardware cost peanuts?

>>> and smears FSF because they found out Purism's claims to be
>>> true and their hardware to be among the most free available today.
>> Their hardware is anything but free and there are a variety of other options
>> out there.
>    Smearing Purism is not just pointing out there are other options out there.

>>> 2) In the past they had Jacob Applelbaum and Stefano Zacchiroli (former
>>>      Debian Project Leader) in the Board of Advisors:
>>>      https://web.archive.org/web/20160322025039/https://puri.sm/about/
>> That doesn't mean anything or imply some type of endorsement of quality.
>    It does means something, it means they put their name and face on the
> project.  Or, do you have some statement of theirs where they criticized
> Purism after they could see how it was managed?

>     Jacob Appelbaum
>     ‏ @ioerror

>     I've been emailing with the #Purism folks. I'm really impressed with
>     their vision, their commitment to Free Software (FL/OSS) and
>     privacy.
>     07:09 - 20 dic 2014

>     Stefano Zacchiroli ha ritwittato
>     Purism
> ‏    @Puri_sm
>     8 mar

>     Purism Partners with Cryptography Pioneer Werner Koch to Create a
>     New Encrypted Communication Standard for Security-Focused Devices

>     https://puri.sm/posts/purism-collaboration-with-cryptography-expert-werner-koch
>>> https://web.archive.org/web/20170105163722/https://puri.sm/about/advisory-board/

>>> 3) Talos is shrouded in secrecy, as nowhere in their site is available
>>>      a list of who's who: https://www.raptorcs.com/
>> It is a marketing company of raptor engineering which is owned by timothy
>> pearson.
>    Why is this not stated on their site?

>>>     As this is nowhere stated on talos' website I wonder how does Taiidan know
>>> that IBM is behind them: does he work for Talos?
>> Because I am on the TALOS IRC and have asked the owner of raptor many
>> questions?
>    On Internet Relay Chat?  Hardly a dependable, public source of corporate
> information.

>>> 5) Whatever Purism develops, they release and publish under an opensource
>>>     license and contribute code to Coreboot;
>> They currently have not contributed anything that does more than help them
>> sell their own products (ie: you can't use it on any other motherboard)
>    Of course you can use it on any motherboard equipped with the same chipset
> and processor.

>     Prologue

>     “A beginning is a very delicate time.”

>     In the summer of 2014, a few months prior to the launch of Purism,
>     Todd Weaver posted to the coreboot mailing list for input on
>     possible hardware choices to run a fully freed coreboot on, and to
>     offer contract work to the coreboot community. Various coreboot
>     contributors pointed out that there were no great hardware choices
>     out there to meet these requirements.

>     Initial Negotiations and Development Work

>     In the middle of 2015, Purism then brought on a coreboot developer
>     requesting to remain anonymous, working under the pseudonym “Larry
>     Moberg”. Anonymous Larry began testing coreboot and publish his
>     findings regularly on the coreboot and Purism blogs. After three
>     months of progress, anonymous Larry disappeared (stopped working and
>     ended any communication with Purism or the public).

>     Todd Weaver met again with various coreboot contributors (including
>     Stefan Reinauer, Ron Minnich, David Hendricks, and a few others),
>     handing them four Purism Librem 13 units to help continue the
>     porting efforts.

>    The aim at the time was porting Coreboot to Xeon E3:

>     Todd Weaver todd at m2n.com
>     Thu Aug 28 20:09:48 CEST 2014

>     On Aug 28, 2014, at 10:36 AM, David Hubbard
>     <david.c.hubbard+coreboot at gmail.com> wrote:
>     >> The truth here is that we NEED to have a blob-free version
>     >> (libreboot), so I have a lot of work ahead of me :)
>     >
>     > The reality is that Intel has no plans to release code for Xeon
>     > E3-1200 v3 and HM86 Express. Coreboot's progress so far has been
>     > to integrate the blobs.

>     That is helpful to know, I was considering funding coreboot
>     development, coupled with a libreboot (to deblob it) dual effort,
>     and now I know it will be more than just a consideration.

>>>      This too I cannot find on their website, and no date is set.
>> Currently you have to email them for it, but there is a page being set up as
>> seen in the support section.
>    So, there is no official statement, nothing the public can know.  Why is this?

>>>     Why is
>>>      this?  How does Taiidan know what they are going to do in the future?
>> I do my research and I read the TALOS IRC.
>    Do you understand this is *not* the way you run a business and attract
> investors and customers?  Hell, even Novena, Pyra/Pandora and many more
> manage communication a lot better, and they sell much cheaper products!

>>> 7) Purism strives to produce a fully libre system, so much so that they
>>>      axed an initial plan to equip their laptops with NVidia GPUs.
>> If they really were "striving" they would have never had that plan in the
>> first place, the only reason they decided not do use a nvidia gpu is because
>> of community pressure - no one wanted to buy something so obviously non-free.
>>>     At Talos
>>>      instead they value more vendor-bashing that producing the most libre
>>>      possible system:
>> I don't work for or receive money for anyone - I am unemployed right now.
>    You could state anything about yourself, as no one knows who you are.

>> It is ironic that you say that considering how many times purism has bashed
>> minifree as seen in my archived links.
>    What links?  What did they write about minifree?

>> Compare having a black box supervisor processor and not having any free
>> hardware initiation at all to having free hardware init for everything but
>> an IOMMU isolated component.
>    At Purism they are aware of this, and they are open about it.  As for
> everything else, the do state on their web site (not on IRC, non to personal
> emails):

>     https://puri.sm/coreboot/timeline/

>     Current Work and Future Plans

>     3. Finish reverse engineering work towards freeing the remainder of
>      the Intel ME binaries

>     4. Continue to push Intel for a ME-less design

>>>      "Purism is NOT free hardware and certainly not "grassroots" as their
>>>       mysterious founder somehow has a bottomless pit of money to burn on
>>>       hardware costs and propaganda campaigns.
>> What exactly about purism is free hardware?
>    They detailed throughout how much free their hardware is.  Potential
> customers have all they need to take an informed decision.  They are crystal
> that they still have work to do, that there is some binary firmware inside
> the systems they sell, and are open on a platform change in case progress
> stops on this front.

>> Their hardware initiation is entirely done by binary blobs and there is
>> hardware enforced code signing on the boards black box supervisor procesor
>> (ME),
>    As far as I understand the workings of ME, on Purism systems ME stops
> after hardware init, before any code signature verification.  Could you
> provide with pointers on this matter?

>> the only way that is "free" hardware is if you change the meaning of
>> free.
>>>       Purism donates to their own crowd-funding campaigns to make them seem
>>>       more successful and whenever negative facts about them are posted on the
>>>       internet some random guy shows up to insist that the person is
>>>       mistaken."
>> https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Libre-13-Self-Funding
>> "It turns out that it looks like the Librem 13 is being self-funded by Todd
>> Weaver, the CEO of Purism, in order to meet their goal with the crowd-funded
>> campaign ending on 17 September."
>> "Recently, the campaign seemed to surge by around 90,000 USD in a day.
>> Looking at the page before the surge and the live page, it showed only 4
>> extra names.
>    I am not really enthusiastic about self-funding a crowd-funded campaign,
> however:

> 1) Todd Weaver put his own name on the contributions, i.e. he did not try to
>    conceal the fact he was putting his own money in the crowdfunding;
> 2) he's putting his money where his tongue is.

>> The first one in that list is Todd Weaver, the CEO of Purism. Basically,
>> Todd has unfairly contributed a large sum to his own campaign."
>    He acted openly, he put his own name on his contributions, why do you
> state he was unfair?

>>>      Buying from proven.
>> Proven by whom? someone who works for purism?
>    By the thousand people who bought their systems.

>> The developers of ME cleaner and the researchers who have found the HAP bit
>> state that it doesn't disable ME.
>    Purism detailed very clearly what they took away and what is left inside.

>> The ME kernel still runs
>    120 KB of the 1,5 MB execute the hardware init.  Then it sits unable to
> execute anything else.

>> and can do as it pleases, the HAP bit supposedly
>> shuts it off after it is more than able to add a backdoor to the system -
>> how is that disabled?
>    It cannot open a backdoor.

>> Non-free x86_64 servers from the major vendors such as Dell, HPE, SuperMicro
>> with comparable performance etc start at 5K for a barebones high performance
>> server and go up from there.
>    You are comparing apples to oranges.  Purism sells finished laptops, not
> "barebone high performance server"s.

>> They have been shipping them out to customers for months now, one of the
>> buyers had one on display at FOSDEM.
>> https://syslog-ng.com/blog/centos-dojo-fosdem-2018/
>> If you were to buy one you would be per-ordering part of the next batch of
>> motherboards which is generally how small batch hardware purchasing works to
>> prevent having too much unsold stock
>    Sorry, other than costing way too much for what I can afford, I really
> need portable systems, as I do 90% of my job on laptops on different
> premises (my employers' and their customers).  And I do not want to spend
> 4.900$ on a system that I cannot find details on what software it runs on
> the motherboard

>> I would really like to know as to how purism is able to make multiple custom
>> laptops for much less than what it normally costs to produce a motherboard.
>    Would it change what it's inside them and what Purism states is inside
> them?  Since when did it become evil having the money to start a hardware
> company?

>>> They are Purism's source of funding, together with their customers, not
>>> just the not any "mysterious founder", Mr. Todd Weaver.  The only mysterious
>>> people and money are Taiidan and those behind Talos.
>> Cheaper products receive more backers and thus more total money (who would
>> have thought?)
>    Right, money matters.  Didn't you know?

>> and todd contributes to his own campaigns to make them appear
>> more successful as referenced above.
>    While I do think a crowdfunded campaign should not be funded by the same
> person who launched it unless it's stated from the start that the should the
> campaign fall short of the target the difference is going to be covered by
> those behind it, I do not think it's wrong that Todd uses his own money to
> fund a project and a company he believes in.

>> I doubt that purism can make a custom phone for that price, it is probably a
>> whitebox rebadge.
>    They are clear how they're moving ahead on this project:
> https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/

>    It's going to be a custom hardware that:

>    So, no rebadging of a pre-existent smartphone.

>    They have development boards based on i.MX 6:
> https://puri.sm/posts/librem-5-roadmap-to-imx8/
>    Are now switching to i.MX 8 Vivante.  They chose this CPU/GPU because it
> has the best opensource software support among the alternatives, that is:
> Mali, Adreno, PowerVR and Tegra.