community Digest, Vol 333, Issue 4

[Paul Wise]

On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 5:53 PM, Christoph Pulster wrote:
>>> Fairphone aims ... supply chain for conflict minerals, poor working
>>> conditions or environmental destruction
>
> sounds all very nice and political correct, but is blabla only.

I would wager that there are more folks that care about that stuff
than there are people who care about FLOSS. Perhaps that means
Fairphone will achieve their aims while this community continues to
struggle. Perhaps not, only time will tell.

> WTF do these guy think we are living in ? Capitalism based on pure
> exploitation of nature and people from poor countrys. Apple does it,
> Openmoko does it. There is no way back.

OpenPhoenux could have said "there is no way back" when Apple/Android
were dominating the smartphone market, but they didn't. Openmoko could
have said "there is no way back" when the market was full of
proprietary phones, but they didn't. RMS could have done the same when
he came across someone who signed and NDA, but he started GNU and the
FSF instead. Everyone who wants to change the world has to start
somewhere and then stand behind their convictions. I can only admire
them for trying, whether or not they succeed. Defeatism doesn't
achieve anything.

> In old school business it was called design study and everybody was
> aware, some creative guys had plenty time to fuck their minds not caring
> about calculations. Noeadays it is called "kickstarter", companys are
> allowed to collect a lot preorder for non-existing products and
> consumers are even so stupid to make prepayment for these.
>
> Openmoko release a full working product. This will be a  archivement in
> computer history. .Fairphone will never do. I am so sick of all this
> "genius" preorder products never available.

Plenty of kickstarters are seeking funding for ramping up mass
production, which I think is a good way to achieve promotion,
production and delivery. This community could learn a lesson or two
from such folks.

-- 
bye,
pabs