Your statement "they are making good progress in one way, but still destroying trust in another" is problematic because it omits the most important detail: what is your proposed solution?
minifree.org products rely on hardware being available that does not have an Intel ME or equivalent. That hardware will only get harder to find as time goes on.
When faced with a challenging problem like this, I find it saddening to see the Free Software community turning on each other and fighting instead of looking for multiple parallel solutions.
I prefer the Novena and the EOMA68 over the Purism project because they seem to do more than just promising the impossible.
> what is your proposed solution?
I don't think there is one yet. We need those who don't compromise the vision from the start to win and get enough funds to continue. The EOMA68 project seems most promising to me because it also aims to reduce waste, which is very important to me and something that appears to be ignored by most people.
I'm using Libreboot on my Thinkpad X200s (I did not buy it from minifree). The X200s does have Intel ME/AMT and it can be removed by deleting the BIOS chip.
> I prefer the Novena and the EOMA68 over the Purism project because they seem to do more than just promising the impossible.
Exactly! I want statements I can trust, not a marketing spiel.
Take this webpage from the Replicant project [0]. They talk at length about the state of the industry, what is ideal, what is achievable, and what they have managed to accomplish. There is no marketing appeal to buzzwords or glossing over the fact that there is no ideal product right now.
I would be more comfortable with their approach if they were more humble about achieving their goals. There does not exist a perfect solution at the moment, but they're not great at addressing that. Based on their marketing-speak, you'd think they'd solved the problem.
Purism loudly trumpets their roadmaps[0] and plans[1] so as to suggest a trajectory towards totally free software, but until they achieve it their product is hardly worth the premium compared to installing Linux on an ultrabook of your choice.
[0] https://puri.sm/posts/roadmap-to-a-completely-free-bios/ Here they outline many things that need to be done. But note the language- "Purism’s goal is to publish a Free Software implementation ... as soon as an implementation is available." But who is responsible for implementing it?
[1] https://puri.sm/road-to-fsf-ryf-endorsement-and-beyond/ Note that the FSF hasn't actually endorsed them yet, although this page is supposed to convince you that they're awful close. Why not wait until they're actually endorsed?
So what does a Purism laptop actually give me? A kill-switch and the warm feelies.
There is value in releasing a security-oriented laptop, pre-configured and tested to work with Linux. However their marketing spiel is disingenuous. Constrast with Replicant, who are very open about their shortcomings and that an ideal device is not currently attainable: http://www.replicant.us/freedom-privacy-security-issues.php
Novena is my favorite because it's the closest we have we entirely open source and is transparent about its shortcomings. I was actually going to link it but was commenting from my mobile at the time and was lazy.
A Novena from Bunnie? https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/novena
A Lemote Yeelong? They're pretty difficult to even buy... http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Yeeloong-Notebook-co...
minifree.org products rely on hardware being available that does not have an Intel ME or equivalent. That hardware will only get harder to find as time goes on.
When faced with a challenging problem like this, I find it saddening to see the Free Software community turning on each other and fighting instead of looking for multiple parallel solutions.